Installed Fedora 13 RC2 On Dell Latitude E6400

[Robert L Cochran]

On 05/17/2010 06:20 PM, Robert L Cochran wrote:
> On 05/17/2010 04:16 AM, Gordon Messmer wrote:
>    
>> On 05/16/2010 10:26 AM, Robert L Cochran wrote:
>>
>>      
>>> I'm trying to figure out how to get FreeDOS to see my CD drive so I can
>>> do the BIOS update from within FreeDOS. It says it cannot open client
>>> CD-ROM device driver "FDCD0000" and SHCDX33A cannot load.
>>>
>>>        
>> http://linux.dell.com/projects.shtml
>>
>> Use the "biosdisk" script that Dell provides.  The "install" variant
>> will create a FreeDOS image and configure your system to load it using
>> GRUB.  You'll be able to boot that image and flash your BIOS.
>>
>>      
> Well yes it will, but the install option is trying to build a floppy
> disk image (size=1,474,560 bytes.) The actual size of the BIOS update
> that I need to flash is 2,966,440 bytes. So invoking biosdisk will
> result in this error at the second CP instruction:
>
> [root at deafeng29 ~]# biosdisk install --title=Dell_BIOS_UP
> /home/rlc/Downloads/E6400A20.EXE
> + mkdir -p /tmp/biosdisk
> + cp -f /usr/share/biosdisk/dosdisk.img /tmp/E6400A20.img
> + mount -t vfat /tmp/E6400A20.img /tmp/biosdisk -o loop
> + cp -f /home/rlc/Downloads/E6400A20.EXE /tmp/biosdisk
> cp: writing `/tmp/biosdisk/E6400A20.EXE': No space left on device
> + echo 'E6400A20.EXE '
> + unix2dos /tmp/biosdisk/autoexec.bat
> + umount /tmp/biosdisk
> + rm -rf /tmp/biosdisk
> + '[' '' == 1 ']'
> + '[' 0 == 1 ']'
> + '[' 0 == 0 ']'
> + echo 'Creating BIOS floppy image at /tmp/E6400A20.img'
> Creating BIOS floppy image at /tmp/E6400A20.img
> + '[' 1 == 1 ']'
> + install
> + local kernel=/boot/memdisk
> + '[' -z Dell_BIOS_UP ']'
> ++ dirname /tmp/E6400A20.img
> + '[' /tmp '!=' /boot ']'
> + cp -f /tmp/E6400A20.img /boot
> ++ basename /tmp/E6400A20.img
> + destination=/boot/E6400A20.img
> + /usr/sbin/blconf --title=Dell_BIOS_UP --add-kernel=/boot/memdisk
> --add-initrd=/boot/E6400A20.img
> + echo 'Copied image to /boot/E6400A20.img and updated bootloader'
> Copied image to /boot/E6400A20.img and updated bootloader
> + '[' 0 == 1 ']'
> + '[' 0 == 1 ']'
>
> I'll check Dell's older BIOSes for the E6400 to make sure they really
> are larger than legacy floppy sized. Maybe I can make the image size a
> bit bigger....by 1491880 bytes....
>
> Bob
>
>
>    

Okay, I succeeded with the BIOS update (to the Dell A20 BIOS) using this 
biosdisk utility. When I originally installed it, I opted to use the 
rpm. That was a mistake because even though it is for version 0.75-2 the 
contents and biosdisk script are actually for an earlier version. So I 
cloned the git tree and from http://linux.dell.com/git/biosdisk.git and 
installed from that, using the shell script. Then I used the -k option 
to specify the size of the disk image stored in /usr/share/biosdisk that 
I needed. Once I had that, I was able to flash the BIOS by selecting the 
grub menu choice for it.

The only down side is that my "DMAR" problem is still not fixed for 
kernels more recent than 2.6.31.12-174.

Bob


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