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Flashing BIOS from WinPE


skamarla

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Hi, guys, I need some help.

I am trying to resurrect an old PC, an Acer Aspire 5315. It used to run Vista, but that's been wiped out now, and it didn't come with installation disks.

I need to flash the BIOS, so I got it from the Acer site. It's an .EXE file. I tried FreeDOS, but it refused to run "in DOS mode". So I have created a WINPE disk. It boots into a command line, but if I run the .EXE file I got from the Acer site, it fails silently. I just get the prompt back, no windows pop up and the BIOS remains in its old version.

A "VER" in the command line shows "Microsoft Windows [Version 6.2.9200]".

Any ideas? Do I have to install a full-fledged Windows just to run this file? I plan to install Linux in it after flashing the BIOS... Any legal way to run Windows just for a couple minutes?

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> but it refused to run "in DOS mode".

This sounds like it is a 32-bit Windows executable. You can confirm this by checking it in Dependency Walker or another PE file viewer.

A ReactOS Live-CD should be able to boot from disc and run the file. A Linux Live-CD that includes WINE might also be able to run it for you.

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@jumper

It is IMHO NOT a good idea to fiddle with BIOS updates using ReactOS or Linux+Wine, BIOS updating is pretty much "low-level" stuff, you never know what can happen. :dubbio:

@skamarla

Can you post a link to the actual files you are/were using?

I believe that laptop uses an Insyde BIOS, but it can be flashed from FreeDOS on a .iso/CD, see:
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1043129

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14099789/FDOS_v1_43.iso.tar.gz

(the above is a bootable .iso containing FreeDOS, the FLAs***.EXE (DOS flashing tool) and the CL50143A.fd BIOS file)

The batch uses these parameters:
flas*** CL50143A.fd /fe /b

so if you have a different (later) BIOS file you can replace that.

jaclaz

P.S. STUPID board word filters, of course the FLAs*** above means FLAmanure ;) we need to use l33t5p34k for that FLASH1T


 

Edited by jaclaz
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I have unzipped the EXE file, and I can confirm it's an Insyde BIOS:

  inflating: InsydeFlash.exe         
  inflating: iscflash.dll            
  inflating: iscflash.sys            
  inflating: platform.ini            
  inflating: CL50145A.fd             
  inflating: iscflashx64.sys

The file you get from Acer is a Windows executable. This is what a GNU file reports:

BIOS_v1.45.exe: PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386, for MS Windows

But I think I'll go for the ISO. It's 1.43 vs 1.45, big deal.

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28 minutes ago, skamarla said:

But I think I'll go for the ISO. It's 1.43 vs 1.45, big deal.

Well, the filesize should be fixed to 1048576 bytes, so you can even hexedit/dd the CL50145A.fd  over the CL50143A.fd extents on the .iso without need to rebuild it.

jaclaz
 

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I'm pleased to report that the FreeDOS iso did its job admirably. Booted, went into DOS mode, found the USB unit (C:), cd'd into the firmware directory, executed the .bat file, BIOS got flashed.

Thanks everyone!

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