Installing a Windows only BIOS on a computer without Windows

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Edweirdo · Post by **Edweirdo** » Sat Apr 10, 2004 1:08 pm

I have an HP Pavilion zd7000 17" laptop. I don't use Windows if I can help it so I installed Gentoo only on my laptop. I noticed recently that there was a new BIOS released for my computer and it was version 16 and I was running version 5, so I thought an upgrade might be a good idea. That was until I downloaded the BIOS upgrade. Since my computer doesn't have a floppy drive, they have a Windows program that upgrades the BIOS. That's where my problem started. How could I run a Windows only BIOS upgrade program without having Windows on my computer? I did have Windows XP running in VMware Workstation for those times when I just have to use Windows for something, but the BIOS couldn't upgrade from that environment.

My solution involved a very interesting program called Bart PE. This program will create a bootable CD that can run a windows program. It does this by creating an OS environment from the win32 installation environment Windows uses to install itself. It, of course, runs under Windows. It required a Windows XP SP1 or Windows 2003 Server installation CD to create the environment from. This is where I had to use Windows.

I used the Windows XP virtual machine I already had installed. Using the Windows 2003 Server CD I just happened to have I was able to create a bootable CD that had the BIOS program on it. The Bart PE program creates an ISO image of the bootable CD which I then transfered to my Gentoo install and burned a CD. I booted it and ran the program (by copying it to the RAM disk created in the Bart PE environment) and it upgraded my BIOS.

Just thought this information might be of some help to someone.

amne · Post by **amne** » Sat Apr 10, 2004 1:18 pm

Sounds very useful and was moved from Hardware & Kernel to Documentation, Tips & Tricks.

davidgp · Post by **davidgp** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 10:51 am

Many thanks for the nfo... I have the same laptop... HP Pavillion Zd7050ea... and that trick is very interesting...

David GP

neenee · Post by **neenee** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 12:12 pm

hm.. the title is a bit misleading to me; it made me think
you had a bios which only allowed windows to run on
the system for which you found a way to use it with other
operating systems.

fieryred2k · Post by **fieryred2k** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 6:12 pm

I believe it was just the bios update application that was windows native rather than something like AWFLASH.EXE that could be popped onto a dos boot disk. Which of course the fact that the laptop didn't have a floppy makes it even harder to do that. The laptop wasn't windows only.

Edweirdo · Post by **Edweirdo** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 7:40 pm

What fieryred2k said.

neenee · Post by **neenee** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 5:27 pm

thanks edweirdo - i will use it in a bit to
update the firmware of my dvd burner