ThinkWiki - User contributions [en]

Talk:BIOS Upgrade

2007-04-17T03:06:31Z

Ladoga: /* BIOS upgrade using USB flash drive */

== Dead link ==

The link to the FreeDOS floppy (http://www.ankreuzen.de/freedos/files/fd9sr1/fdos1440.zip), which is needed to upgrade the BIOS from a CD, is dead. Is the information still valid? And is there a different source for the floppy image? [[User:Jamesavery|Jamesavery]] 05:49, 18 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade using WINE ==

Does anyone think this would be possible? [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 08:58, 28 January 2007 (CET)

: No this is not possible. [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 16:01, 12 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade without battery ==

Concerning the known problem with 600 series with batteries dead too soon, it is impossible to upgrade the bios without the battery because the original ibm update program doesn't allow this. I bought an old 600E without the battery. There was one workaround, but i think for the older releases of the bios, where you just extracted files and upgraded manualy, bypassing the ibm install program. The page that describes this (i lost the link) has a list of different files, that the ones found in current release so i never did figure out what to do? I would like to upgrade because i have really old bios, where ACPI doesn't cooperate so well with the operating system, either windows or linux.

If somebody finds a workaround please help. Thanks

//Edit

I've found the page on Vim's bios upgrade forum.. I don't know if it exactly for my model, since the files differ.. '''Is it possible, to upgrade bios in linux without the battery?'''

''I have found a working solution WOW on the other forum:

*** This is NOT a safe way to update the bios (disclaimer) ***

* First you need to make a BIOS update floppy disk (from the bios file from IBM - place disk in a: drive, run app and answer Y to the agreement) and then format another disk by right clicking on A: - format - make system bootdisk (assuming you have another machine spare)

* Copy all the files from the IBM Boot disk - in my case
$0029000.fl1
$0029000.fl2
FLASH2.EXE
PROD.DAT
UPDTFLSH.EXE
updtrom.exe
USERINT.EXE
UTILINFO.EXE
to the other clean bootdisk.

* Ensure that there is no config.sys and autoexec.bat so it just runs straight into DOS.

* Place the disk into the Laptop, reboot and allow the machine to load via the floppy

* At the command prompt, type "FLASH2.EXE /U" with no quotes then press enter.

The program will automatically search for the files *.FL1 & *.FL2 and load the bios first then the platform file.

The program will automatically update and perform erasing on the rom and then finish with "Update complete".

* Now reboot.

* Hold F1 down as you turn the laptop back on and go into Easy Setup under "Config" click on Initialize to ensure defaults and settings are error free.

* Save and exit...''

// EDIT

This worked on my machine.. I make no guarantees it will work on others.

The above procedure did not work on my T23 using the 1.20 bios; it kept returning error 14 (Low Battery). However, following those instructions and running "qkflash" rather than flash2 did work for the main bios, and later for the embedded controller.

--grythumn

== Bios upgrade & hidden partition ==

I have disabled the hidden partition to make more space for linux (24G). I still have Windows on the 14G partition. Is it safe to upgrade the BIOS without the hidden partition? I want to get a newer BIOS to fix the annoying fan issue. Thanks

- yes don't worry about it. bios upgrades have nothing to do with whats inside the harddrive.

== BIOS upgrade over PXE ==

Hi,

I have a Thinkpad X20 with a very early BIOS and Embedded Controller Program which I'd like to update. Currently, the only feasible way of doing this is over the network using PXE. I already have a fully functional PXE server using SYSLINUX, and have so far been able to boot the BIOS diskette image using MEMDISK, although I have not attempted to flash anything yet due to the warnings given on the page. Is there any safe way I can update both the Controller Program and the BIOS in the same session over the network in this manner? If not, what other methods would be suitable? I have a USB CD-ROM drive and could probably get hold of a USB floppy drive.

Thanks.

Update: I ended up burning CDs as described and successfully updated everything. I'd still like to know if there is a way I could do it entirely over the network, though.

== RE: grub initrd ==

"Another possibility which works even without a CD-drive or network is to boot the disk image via the grub initrd mechanism."

0) Interesting suggestion. Might be better of in its own section.

1) Could you please elaborate?

2) My first guess (pending your elaboration) would be to "chainload" the first block of the diskimage using the grub commandline, like:
blocklist (''path'')/''to''/''diskimage''
chainloader ''blockvalue''+1

But that's just a guess!

[[user:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] Fri Jul 15 12:20:47 CEST 2005

== bios/controller update sequence ==

The article says:
"If you go through the readme's on the IBM site they'll cleary state that you must update the Control Program first, then imediately update the BIOS"

When I look at the IBM udpate instructions for the T23, it says:
"If you need to update the BIOS as well as the Embedded Controller Program, update the BIOS first."

Comments?

> I would first contact IBM for clarification, but you should probably be following instructions specific to your model.

>> I did it following IBM's instructions to upgrade the BIOS first. Everything worked out great!

== Firmware upgrade for Intel minipci combo card ==

I just purchased an [[Intel 10/100 Ethernet Mini-PCI Adapter with 56K Modem]] that has an ancient (2.0.6) firmware version. I Downloaded the update file intlbtag.EXE but cabextract was unable to find any cabfiles inside it. I tried running the program via wine and that didn't work either.

Finally I ran the program on a windows machine and created a boot floppy. Then I went through the the process of converting the floppy to a bootable cd via linux and that worked like a charm. The cd successfully updated the minipc card's firmware.

Everything worked but I ended up needing a windows box to do it. Could this have been done without windows?

== Firmware upgrade for Wireless LAN MiniPCI COMBO Card using prism2_srec ==

The appropriate firmware installation program for the wlan card in my R32 can be extracted using cabextract as described in the article. It contains (besides some installation programs) a disk image (1awg06ww.IMG) that seems to be a simple dos boot disk. This image contains 3 .hex files (id010001.hex, pk010100.hex, sf010402.hex) that are recognized by prism2_srec to be "srec"-files. Trying to load them to RAM yields:

{{cmdroot|prism2_srec -v -r wlan0 sf010402.hex}}
S3 CRC-16 generation record: start=0x007E1800 len=65642 prog=1
Start address 0x00000000
srec summary for sf010402.hex
Component: 0x001f 1.4.2 (station firmware)
<snip>
Interface compatibility information:
role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
role=Actor variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
<snip>
Wireless LAN card information:
Components:
NICID: 0x8013 v1.0.0
PRIID: 0x0015 v1.0.7
STAID: 0x001f v1.3.6
Interface compatibility information:
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
PRI role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
STA role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
PRI role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
<snip>
This image is not meant to be downloaded to volatile memory.
Incompatible update data.

Has anyone tried to flash this device using prism2_srec yet?
What bothers me is, that the upgrade is for many different parts of the combo card. Does anyone have an opinion on whether this could work?

OK, I took the risk and successfully upgraded my station firmware, BUT when I tried to upgrade the primary firmware the system froze!!! The thinkpad won't start up with the miniPCI card inserted and all efforts to reflash it using the original DOS boot image failed!!!

I'm quite sure the system freeze was not caused directly by prism2_srec, because I have noticed rare system freezes since I have been using my PCMCIA wireless card.
Anyway, if anyone should own a TP R32, I'd be glad if he could tell me the base address of the Wlan card, or it's PCI address.

Thinkpad r32 owner here. I want to upgrade the firmware as well. If you need any information just send an email to haftbar[a]gmail.com [[User:Quickie|Quickie]] 02:12, 1 February 2006 (CET)

==Reorganization suggestion==
The Downloads section is rather long. Would it be an idea to put it on a separate, new page (say: BIOS_Downloads) and link to that new page from this page?

[[User:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] 21:27, 15 Oct 2005 (CEST)

> I agree with this suggestion.

== Upgrading BIOS and Embedded Control Program from Win XP ==

I'm trying to upgrade the BIOS and Embedded Controller Program from Windows XP following the instructions on the Lenovo website. The problem is the instructions are not very clear about this. The instructions basically state that I must upgrade them at the same time because the Control Program does not work with the older BIOS and the BIOS does not work with the older Control Program. They also state that I should upgrade the Control Program first.

But that means I must boot into XP after having upgraded the Control Program but with the older BIOS in order to then update the BIOS. But if this works then they are actually compatible and there's a contradiction. Am I missing something? I just want to make sure I don't end up with a non-functioning unit.

I have an X23 and want the latest BIOS (v 1.32) and Control Program (v 1.30).

Maybe there should be a note about this in the article? Or maybe I'm the only one who is this stupid :)

Update: I talked to Lenovo support. The situation apparently is that though the description says that the newer control program is not compatible with the older BIOS, they are not so incompatible as to cause the machine to stop working so it is actually possible to use incompatible versions of BIOS and control program. In fact according to the support person it makes no difference if the BIOS is upgraded before the control program or vice versa. So I upgraded the control program using the executable running in Windows XP, which rebooted the computer to perform the upgrade and then I booted Windows again to upgrade the BIOS in the same manner and it all worked fine. If anyone reading this finds it useful maybe you can put it in the article? Or if you find it superfluous just delete this section.

--[[User:xphinx|xphinx]] 12 March 2007

I have an X22 with BIOS version 1.21 and Embedded Controller version 1.17 and using the steps described by you, I succesfully updated my bios to the lastest versions from WindowsXP (BIOS v1.32 / EC v1.30)
Thanks!

== BIOS upgrade for T21 with T20 BIOS ==

Hi, I bought a used T21 recently (type 2647-8AU), and would like to update the BIOS to the latest version, but there's a problem: this T21 appears to have a T20 BIOS (IYET50WW, a/k/a T20 BIOS version 1.11). When I try updating this BIOS using one of IBM's T21 updaters - I tried KZET34WW/v1.16 (the latest one) and KZET16WW/v1.01 (the earliest one) - I get the following message:

<blockquote>
''The diskette in the default drive will not run on this system. Your system is now locked. To restart your system, press Ctrl+Alt+Del.''
</blockquote>

I suspect this message appears because the existing BIOS is a T20 BIOS.

There would appear to be two options: either use the most recent T20 updater (IYET61WW, a/k/a T20 v1.22), or find a way to defeat the block in the KZET34WW/v1.16 T21 updater. Obviously either option is risky in the absence of more information and/or detective work. And I don't know enough about T2x-series hardware to hazard a guess (i.e., were early T21s just T20s with a speed bump, did some T21s get T20 BIOSes by mistake due to factory error, or are the T20 and T21 similar enough that it doesn't matter whether a T20 or T21 BIOS is used).

Some relevant data gleaned from the stickers on the case bottom and the current BIOS:

<blockquote>
* '''Type:''' 2647-8AU (T21 with 800-MHz processor)
* '''S/N:''' 78-0GL1Z (zero-G-L-one-zed)
* '''Manufacture date:''' 03/2001
* '''BIOS version:''' IYET50WW (T20 BIOS v1.11)
* '''System unit S/N:''' (appears to be blank)
* '''System board S/N:''' J1HHS15CL5C
* '''System board P/N:''' 08K3747 (printed on motherboard)
</blockquote>

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

-Linux Spice

P.S. At first I thought this might be a Frankenstein ThinkPad with a T21 case and a T20 logic board - I did buy it used, after all - but it does have an 800-MHz processor, which was never an option for the T20 (both the BIOS and Linux report it as such), and all the other equipment checks out (except for the hard drive, which was replaced with a 40-GB model).

== BIOS format ==

Not sure if this is the right place, but...
Does anybody know what the formats for the various files are in the bios package (or, even better, the bios.bak file that gets dumped on your disk before updating)? I'm getting progressivel lower and lower level in figuring out just what happens when the computer boots, and the BIOS is the last step... (BTW, I have an x60s)

-- Unknown

Yes. It is a binary dump. Sometimes, there is junk in the start of the file. This should be data enough for you to figure out what you need.

--[[User:Hmh|hmh]] 13:30, 26 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS update gone bad ==

I tried to flash my [[:Category:600|ThinkPad 600]]'s bios with catastrophalic outcome; now the machine is unable to boot. I, being overly stupid and too self-confident, ignored all warnings about the media containing the bios image not being write-protected (I used one partition of the disk, in which I had installed FreeDOS). During the updating process, the machine started to write screens full of random characters in cyan coloured background. At that point I knew it was b0rked. I asked my friend about what to do now, he said I could open the machine up, locate the bios chip and use EPROM programmer/burner to write the bios image to the chip. He also said that because my machine is very old, there are probably not safeguards like dual bios or emergency bios update from floppy disk on boot. He continued by saying that the bios update file images from IBM/Lenovo website might not be actual , "pure" binaries which could be burned directly to the chip, instead they may contain some vendor-specific checksums which must be taken into account. In ThinkWiki there seems to be no page about bios flashing gone bad and restoring the machine to working condition. Or is there? I really need your help with this; I think I'm able to locate the bios, take it off and find a working EPROM burner, but where can I get a clean BIOS image without the vendor checksums? I'd be grateful for any references.

--[[User:Usv|Usv]] 12:45, 31 March 2007 (CEST)

== BIOS upgrade using USB flash drive ==

I flashed my Thinkpad X41 succesfully with 2.09 BIOS using bootable USB flash drive with DOS 6.22 system files. (I guess Freedos would work aswell). I had such key laying around so I can't help you with making one (i used windows HP USB key format utility to make it long long time ago)
Everything is quite simple once you have USB key and are able to boot DOS from it.

I downloaded the non-diskette ThinkPad BIOS update utility (74uj15us.exe) from lenovo support site and extracted the disk image from it using cabextract:
{{cmduser|cabextract -F "*.IMG" 74uj15us.exe}}

I mounted the image file (74UJ15US.IMG):
{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/mnt}}
{{cmdroot|mount -loop o 74UJ15US.IMG /tmp/mnt}}

I mounted the usb key and made a directory for ibm flash utility files under it:
{{cmdroot|mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbflash}}
{{cmdroot|mkdir /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

I copied the contents of /tmp/mnt to /mnt/usbflash/ibm:
{{cmdroot|cp /tmp/mnt/*.* /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

Then I unmounted the USB stick and rebooted from it to DOS (F12 during boot -> USB HDD). 
In the DOS Prompt: 
C:\cd ibm
C:\IBM\flash2 /U
I waited for about 1 minute, then my thinkpad made two beeps to signal that the flashing was complete.

PS. Because lacking reliable guide on how to make bootable DOS USB stick for ThinkPads I decided to leave this into discussion section. Please feel free to move/edit all the necessary stuff into the BIOS upgrade article if you know/figure out how to make bootable DOS USB stick in linux. I tried various tutorials including http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Create_a_DOS_boot_USB_flash_drive, but didn't manage to boot into the Freedos prompt.
--[[User:ladoga|ladoga]] 04:56 17 Apr 2007

Talk:BIOS Upgrade

2007-04-17T02:49:43Z

Ladoga: /* BIOS upgrade using USB flash drive */

== Dead link ==

The link to the FreeDOS floppy (http://www.ankreuzen.de/freedos/files/fd9sr1/fdos1440.zip), which is needed to upgrade the BIOS from a CD, is dead. Is the information still valid? And is there a different source for the floppy image? [[User:Jamesavery|Jamesavery]] 05:49, 18 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade using WINE ==

Does anyone think this would be possible? [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 08:58, 28 January 2007 (CET)

: No this is not possible. [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 16:01, 12 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade without battery ==

Concerning the known problem with 600 series with batteries dead too soon, it is impossible to upgrade the bios without the battery because the original ibm update program doesn't allow this. I bought an old 600E without the battery. There was one workaround, but i think for the older releases of the bios, where you just extracted files and upgraded manualy, bypassing the ibm install program. The page that describes this (i lost the link) has a list of different files, that the ones found in current release so i never did figure out what to do? I would like to upgrade because i have really old bios, where ACPI doesn't cooperate so well with the operating system, either windows or linux.

If somebody finds a workaround please help. Thanks

//Edit

I've found the page on Vim's bios upgrade forum.. I don't know if it exactly for my model, since the files differ.. '''Is it possible, to upgrade bios in linux without the battery?'''

''I have found a working solution WOW on the other forum:

*** This is NOT a safe way to update the bios (disclaimer) ***

* First you need to make a BIOS update floppy disk (from the bios file from IBM - place disk in a: drive, run app and answer Y to the agreement) and then format another disk by right clicking on A: - format - make system bootdisk (assuming you have another machine spare)

* Copy all the files from the IBM Boot disk - in my case
$0029000.fl1
$0029000.fl2
FLASH2.EXE
PROD.DAT
UPDTFLSH.EXE
updtrom.exe
USERINT.EXE
UTILINFO.EXE
to the other clean bootdisk.

* Ensure that there is no config.sys and autoexec.bat so it just runs straight into DOS.

* Place the disk into the Laptop, reboot and allow the machine to load via the floppy

* At the command prompt, type "FLASH2.EXE /U" with no quotes then press enter.

The program will automatically search for the files *.FL1 & *.FL2 and load the bios first then the platform file.

The program will automatically update and perform erasing on the rom and then finish with "Update complete".

* Now reboot.

* Hold F1 down as you turn the laptop back on and go into Easy Setup under "Config" click on Initialize to ensure defaults and settings are error free.

* Save and exit...''

// EDIT

This worked on my machine.. I make no guarantees it will work on others.

The above procedure did not work on my T23 using the 1.20 bios; it kept returning error 14 (Low Battery). However, following those instructions and running "qkflash" rather than flash2 did work for the main bios, and later for the embedded controller.

--grythumn

== Bios upgrade & hidden partition ==

I have disabled the hidden partition to make more space for linux (24G). I still have Windows on the 14G partition. Is it safe to upgrade the BIOS without the hidden partition? I want to get a newer BIOS to fix the annoying fan issue. Thanks

- yes don't worry about it. bios upgrades have nothing to do with whats inside the harddrive.

== BIOS upgrade over PXE ==

Hi,

I have a Thinkpad X20 with a very early BIOS and Embedded Controller Program which I'd like to update. Currently, the only feasible way of doing this is over the network using PXE. I already have a fully functional PXE server using SYSLINUX, and have so far been able to boot the BIOS diskette image using MEMDISK, although I have not attempted to flash anything yet due to the warnings given on the page. Is there any safe way I can update both the Controller Program and the BIOS in the same session over the network in this manner? If not, what other methods would be suitable? I have a USB CD-ROM drive and could probably get hold of a USB floppy drive.

Thanks.

Update: I ended up burning CDs as described and successfully updated everything. I'd still like to know if there is a way I could do it entirely over the network, though.

== RE: grub initrd ==

"Another possibility which works even without a CD-drive or network is to boot the disk image via the grub initrd mechanism."

0) Interesting suggestion. Might be better of in its own section.

1) Could you please elaborate?

2) My first guess (pending your elaboration) would be to "chainload" the first block of the diskimage using the grub commandline, like:
blocklist (''path'')/''to''/''diskimage''
chainloader ''blockvalue''+1

But that's just a guess!

[[user:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] Fri Jul 15 12:20:47 CEST 2005

== bios/controller update sequence ==

The article says:
"If you go through the readme's on the IBM site they'll cleary state that you must update the Control Program first, then imediately update the BIOS"

When I look at the IBM udpate instructions for the T23, it says:
"If you need to update the BIOS as well as the Embedded Controller Program, update the BIOS first."

Comments?

> I would first contact IBM for clarification, but you should probably be following instructions specific to your model.

>> I did it following IBM's instructions to upgrade the BIOS first. Everything worked out great!

== Firmware upgrade for Intel minipci combo card ==

I just purchased an [[Intel 10/100 Ethernet Mini-PCI Adapter with 56K Modem]] that has an ancient (2.0.6) firmware version. I Downloaded the update file intlbtag.EXE but cabextract was unable to find any cabfiles inside it. I tried running the program via wine and that didn't work either.

Finally I ran the program on a windows machine and created a boot floppy. Then I went through the the process of converting the floppy to a bootable cd via linux and that worked like a charm. The cd successfully updated the minipc card's firmware.

Everything worked but I ended up needing a windows box to do it. Could this have been done without windows?

== Firmware upgrade for Wireless LAN MiniPCI COMBO Card using prism2_srec ==

The appropriate firmware installation program for the wlan card in my R32 can be extracted using cabextract as described in the article. It contains (besides some installation programs) a disk image (1awg06ww.IMG) that seems to be a simple dos boot disk. This image contains 3 .hex files (id010001.hex, pk010100.hex, sf010402.hex) that are recognized by prism2_srec to be "srec"-files. Trying to load them to RAM yields:

{{cmdroot|prism2_srec -v -r wlan0 sf010402.hex}}
S3 CRC-16 generation record: start=0x007E1800 len=65642 prog=1
Start address 0x00000000
srec summary for sf010402.hex
Component: 0x001f 1.4.2 (station firmware)
<snip>
Interface compatibility information:
role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
role=Actor variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
<snip>
Wireless LAN card information:
Components:
NICID: 0x8013 v1.0.0
PRIID: 0x0015 v1.0.7
STAID: 0x001f v1.3.6
Interface compatibility information:
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
PRI role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
STA role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
PRI role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
<snip>
This image is not meant to be downloaded to volatile memory.
Incompatible update data.

Has anyone tried to flash this device using prism2_srec yet?
What bothers me is, that the upgrade is for many different parts of the combo card. Does anyone have an opinion on whether this could work?

OK, I took the risk and successfully upgraded my station firmware, BUT when I tried to upgrade the primary firmware the system froze!!! The thinkpad won't start up with the miniPCI card inserted and all efforts to reflash it using the original DOS boot image failed!!!

I'm quite sure the system freeze was not caused directly by prism2_srec, because I have noticed rare system freezes since I have been using my PCMCIA wireless card.
Anyway, if anyone should own a TP R32, I'd be glad if he could tell me the base address of the Wlan card, or it's PCI address.

Thinkpad r32 owner here. I want to upgrade the firmware as well. If you need any information just send an email to haftbar[a]gmail.com [[User:Quickie|Quickie]] 02:12, 1 February 2006 (CET)

==Reorganization suggestion==
The Downloads section is rather long. Would it be an idea to put it on a separate, new page (say: BIOS_Downloads) and link to that new page from this page?

[[User:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] 21:27, 15 Oct 2005 (CEST)

> I agree with this suggestion.

== Upgrading BIOS and Embedded Control Program from Win XP ==

I'm trying to upgrade the BIOS and Embedded Controller Program from Windows XP following the instructions on the Lenovo website. The problem is the instructions are not very clear about this. The instructions basically state that I must upgrade them at the same time because the Control Program does not work with the older BIOS and the BIOS does not work with the older Control Program. They also state that I should upgrade the Control Program first.

But that means I must boot into XP after having upgraded the Control Program but with the older BIOS in order to then update the BIOS. But if this works then they are actually compatible and there's a contradiction. Am I missing something? I just want to make sure I don't end up with a non-functioning unit.

I have an X23 and want the latest BIOS (v 1.32) and Control Program (v 1.30).

Maybe there should be a note about this in the article? Or maybe I'm the only one who is this stupid :)

Update: I talked to Lenovo support. The situation apparently is that though the description says that the newer control program is not compatible with the older BIOS, they are not so incompatible as to cause the machine to stop working so it is actually possible to use incompatible versions of BIOS and control program. In fact according to the support person it makes no difference if the BIOS is upgraded before the control program or vice versa. So I upgraded the control program using the executable running in Windows XP, which rebooted the computer to perform the upgrade and then I booted Windows again to upgrade the BIOS in the same manner and it all worked fine. If anyone reading this finds it useful maybe you can put it in the article? Or if you find it superfluous just delete this section.

--[[User:xphinx|xphinx]] 12 March 2007

I have an X22 with BIOS version 1.21 and Embedded Controller version 1.17 and using the steps described by you, I succesfully updated my bios to the lastest versions from WindowsXP (BIOS v1.32 / EC v1.30)
Thanks!

== BIOS upgrade for T21 with T20 BIOS ==

Hi, I bought a used T21 recently (type 2647-8AU), and would like to update the BIOS to the latest version, but there's a problem: this T21 appears to have a T20 BIOS (IYET50WW, a/k/a T20 BIOS version 1.11). When I try updating this BIOS using one of IBM's T21 updaters - I tried KZET34WW/v1.16 (the latest one) and KZET16WW/v1.01 (the earliest one) - I get the following message:

<blockquote>
''The diskette in the default drive will not run on this system. Your system is now locked. To restart your system, press Ctrl+Alt+Del.''
</blockquote>

I suspect this message appears because the existing BIOS is a T20 BIOS.

There would appear to be two options: either use the most recent T20 updater (IYET61WW, a/k/a T20 v1.22), or find a way to defeat the block in the KZET34WW/v1.16 T21 updater. Obviously either option is risky in the absence of more information and/or detective work. And I don't know enough about T2x-series hardware to hazard a guess (i.e., were early T21s just T20s with a speed bump, did some T21s get T20 BIOSes by mistake due to factory error, or are the T20 and T21 similar enough that it doesn't matter whether a T20 or T21 BIOS is used).

Some relevant data gleaned from the stickers on the case bottom and the current BIOS:

<blockquote>
* '''Type:''' 2647-8AU (T21 with 800-MHz processor)
* '''S/N:''' 78-0GL1Z (zero-G-L-one-zed)
* '''Manufacture date:''' 03/2001
* '''BIOS version:''' IYET50WW (T20 BIOS v1.11)
* '''System unit S/N:''' (appears to be blank)
* '''System board S/N:''' J1HHS15CL5C
* '''System board P/N:''' 08K3747 (printed on motherboard)
</blockquote>

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

-Linux Spice

P.S. At first I thought this might be a Frankenstein ThinkPad with a T21 case and a T20 logic board - I did buy it used, after all - but it does have an 800-MHz processor, which was never an option for the T20 (both the BIOS and Linux report it as such), and all the other equipment checks out (except for the hard drive, which was replaced with a 40-GB model).

== BIOS format ==

Not sure if this is the right place, but...
Does anybody know what the formats for the various files are in the bios package (or, even better, the bios.bak file that gets dumped on your disk before updating)? I'm getting progressivel lower and lower level in figuring out just what happens when the computer boots, and the BIOS is the last step... (BTW, I have an x60s)

-- Unknown

Yes. It is a binary dump. Sometimes, there is junk in the start of the file. This should be data enough for you to figure out what you need.

--[[User:Hmh|hmh]] 13:30, 26 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS update gone bad ==

I tried to flash my [[:Category:600|ThinkPad 600]]'s bios with catastrophalic outcome; now the machine is unable to boot. I, being overly stupid and too self-confident, ignored all warnings about the media containing the bios image not being write-protected (I used one partition of the disk, in which I had installed FreeDOS). During the updating process, the machine started to write screens full of random characters in cyan coloured background. At that point I knew it was b0rked. I asked my friend about what to do now, he said I could open the machine up, locate the bios chip and use EPROM programmer/burner to write the bios image to the chip. He also said that because my machine is very old, there are probably not safeguards like dual bios or emergency bios update from floppy disk on boot. He continued by saying that the bios update file images from IBM/Lenovo website might not be actual , "pure" binaries which could be burned directly to the chip, instead they may contain some vendor-specific checksums which must be taken into account. In ThinkWiki there seems to be no page about bios flashing gone bad and restoring the machine to working condition. Or is there? I really need your help with this; I think I'm able to locate the bios, take it off and find a working EPROM burner, but where can I get a clean BIOS image without the vendor checksums? I'd be grateful for any references.

--[[User:Usv|Usv]] 12:45, 31 March 2007 (CEST)

== BIOS upgrade using USB flash drive ==

I flashed my Thinkpad X41 succesfully with 2.09 BIOS using bootable USB flash drive with DOS 6.22 system files. (I guess Freedos would work aswell). I had such key laying around so I can't help you with making one (i used windows HP USB key format utility to make it long long time ago)
Everything is quite simple once you have USB key and are able to boot DOS from it.

I downloaded the non-diskette ThinkPad BIOS update utility (74uj15us.exe) from lenovo support site and extracted the disk image from it using cabextract:
{{cmduser|cabextract -F "*.IMG" 74uj15us.exe}}

I mounted the image file (74UJ15US.IMG):
{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/mnt}}
{{cmdroot|mount -loop o 74UJ15US.IMG /tmp/mnt}}

I mounted the usb key and made a directory for ibm flash utility files under it:
{{cmdroot|mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbflash}}
{{cmdroot|mkdir /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

I copied the contents of /tmp/mnt to /mnt/usbflash/ibm:
{{cmdroot|cp /tmp/mnt/*.* /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

Then I unmounted the USB stick and rebooted from it to DOS (F12 during boot -> USB HDD). 
In the DOS Prompt: 
C:\cd ibm
C:\IBM\flash2 /U
I waited for about 1 minute, then my thinkpad made two beeps to signal that the flashing was complete.

PS. Because lacking reliable guide on how to make bootable DOS USB stick for ThinkPads I decided to leave this into discussion section. Feel free to move all the necessary stuff into the BIOS upgrade article if you know/figure out how to make bootable DOS USB stick in linux.
--[[User:ladoga|ladoga]] 04:56 17 Apr 2007

Talk:BIOS Upgrade

2007-04-17T02:48:34Z

Ladoga: /* Upgrading BIOS from USB flash drive */

== Dead link ==

The link to the FreeDOS floppy (http://www.ankreuzen.de/freedos/files/fd9sr1/fdos1440.zip), which is needed to upgrade the BIOS from a CD, is dead. Is the information still valid? And is there a different source for the floppy image? [[User:Jamesavery|Jamesavery]] 05:49, 18 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade using WINE ==

Does anyone think this would be possible? [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 08:58, 28 January 2007 (CET)

: No this is not possible. [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 16:01, 12 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade without battery ==

Concerning the known problem with 600 series with batteries dead too soon, it is impossible to upgrade the bios without the battery because the original ibm update program doesn't allow this. I bought an old 600E without the battery. There was one workaround, but i think for the older releases of the bios, where you just extracted files and upgraded manualy, bypassing the ibm install program. The page that describes this (i lost the link) has a list of different files, that the ones found in current release so i never did figure out what to do? I would like to upgrade because i have really old bios, where ACPI doesn't cooperate so well with the operating system, either windows or linux.

If somebody finds a workaround please help. Thanks

//Edit

I've found the page on Vim's bios upgrade forum.. I don't know if it exactly for my model, since the files differ.. '''Is it possible, to upgrade bios in linux without the battery?'''

''I have found a working solution WOW on the other forum:

*** This is NOT a safe way to update the bios (disclaimer) ***

* First you need to make a BIOS update floppy disk (from the bios file from IBM - place disk in a: drive, run app and answer Y to the agreement) and then format another disk by right clicking on A: - format - make system bootdisk (assuming you have another machine spare)

* Copy all the files from the IBM Boot disk - in my case
$0029000.fl1
$0029000.fl2
FLASH2.EXE
PROD.DAT
UPDTFLSH.EXE
updtrom.exe
USERINT.EXE
UTILINFO.EXE
to the other clean bootdisk.

* Ensure that there is no config.sys and autoexec.bat so it just runs straight into DOS.

* Place the disk into the Laptop, reboot and allow the machine to load via the floppy

* At the command prompt, type "FLASH2.EXE /U" with no quotes then press enter.

The program will automatically search for the files *.FL1 & *.FL2 and load the bios first then the platform file.

The program will automatically update and perform erasing on the rom and then finish with "Update complete".

* Now reboot.

* Hold F1 down as you turn the laptop back on and go into Easy Setup under "Config" click on Initialize to ensure defaults and settings are error free.

* Save and exit...''

// EDIT

This worked on my machine.. I make no guarantees it will work on others.

The above procedure did not work on my T23 using the 1.20 bios; it kept returning error 14 (Low Battery). However, following those instructions and running "qkflash" rather than flash2 did work for the main bios, and later for the embedded controller.

--grythumn

== Bios upgrade & hidden partition ==

I have disabled the hidden partition to make more space for linux (24G). I still have Windows on the 14G partition. Is it safe to upgrade the BIOS without the hidden partition? I want to get a newer BIOS to fix the annoying fan issue. Thanks

- yes don't worry about it. bios upgrades have nothing to do with whats inside the harddrive.

== BIOS upgrade over PXE ==

Hi,

I have a Thinkpad X20 with a very early BIOS and Embedded Controller Program which I'd like to update. Currently, the only feasible way of doing this is over the network using PXE. I already have a fully functional PXE server using SYSLINUX, and have so far been able to boot the BIOS diskette image using MEMDISK, although I have not attempted to flash anything yet due to the warnings given on the page. Is there any safe way I can update both the Controller Program and the BIOS in the same session over the network in this manner? If not, what other methods would be suitable? I have a USB CD-ROM drive and could probably get hold of a USB floppy drive.

Thanks.

Update: I ended up burning CDs as described and successfully updated everything. I'd still like to know if there is a way I could do it entirely over the network, though.

== RE: grub initrd ==

"Another possibility which works even without a CD-drive or network is to boot the disk image via the grub initrd mechanism."

0) Interesting suggestion. Might be better of in its own section.

1) Could you please elaborate?

2) My first guess (pending your elaboration) would be to "chainload" the first block of the diskimage using the grub commandline, like:
blocklist (''path'')/''to''/''diskimage''
chainloader ''blockvalue''+1

But that's just a guess!

[[user:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] Fri Jul 15 12:20:47 CEST 2005

== bios/controller update sequence ==

The article says:
"If you go through the readme's on the IBM site they'll cleary state that you must update the Control Program first, then imediately update the BIOS"

When I look at the IBM udpate instructions for the T23, it says:
"If you need to update the BIOS as well as the Embedded Controller Program, update the BIOS first."

Comments?

> I would first contact IBM for clarification, but you should probably be following instructions specific to your model.

>> I did it following IBM's instructions to upgrade the BIOS first. Everything worked out great!

== Firmware upgrade for Intel minipci combo card ==

I just purchased an [[Intel 10/100 Ethernet Mini-PCI Adapter with 56K Modem]] that has an ancient (2.0.6) firmware version. I Downloaded the update file intlbtag.EXE but cabextract was unable to find any cabfiles inside it. I tried running the program via wine and that didn't work either.

Finally I ran the program on a windows machine and created a boot floppy. Then I went through the the process of converting the floppy to a bootable cd via linux and that worked like a charm. The cd successfully updated the minipc card's firmware.

Everything worked but I ended up needing a windows box to do it. Could this have been done without windows?

== Firmware upgrade for Wireless LAN MiniPCI COMBO Card using prism2_srec ==

The appropriate firmware installation program for the wlan card in my R32 can be extracted using cabextract as described in the article. It contains (besides some installation programs) a disk image (1awg06ww.IMG) that seems to be a simple dos boot disk. This image contains 3 .hex files (id010001.hex, pk010100.hex, sf010402.hex) that are recognized by prism2_srec to be "srec"-files. Trying to load them to RAM yields:

{{cmdroot|prism2_srec -v -r wlan0 sf010402.hex}}
S3 CRC-16 generation record: start=0x007E1800 len=65642 prog=1
Start address 0x00000000
srec summary for sf010402.hex
Component: 0x001f 1.4.2 (station firmware)
<snip>
Interface compatibility information:
role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
role=Actor variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
<snip>
Wireless LAN card information:
Components:
NICID: 0x8013 v1.0.0
PRIID: 0x0015 v1.0.7
STAID: 0x001f v1.3.6
Interface compatibility information:
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
PRI role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
STA role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
PRI role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
<snip>
This image is not meant to be downloaded to volatile memory.
Incompatible update data.

Has anyone tried to flash this device using prism2_srec yet?
What bothers me is, that the upgrade is for many different parts of the combo card. Does anyone have an opinion on whether this could work?

OK, I took the risk and successfully upgraded my station firmware, BUT when I tried to upgrade the primary firmware the system froze!!! The thinkpad won't start up with the miniPCI card inserted and all efforts to reflash it using the original DOS boot image failed!!!

I'm quite sure the system freeze was not caused directly by prism2_srec, because I have noticed rare system freezes since I have been using my PCMCIA wireless card.
Anyway, if anyone should own a TP R32, I'd be glad if he could tell me the base address of the Wlan card, or it's PCI address.

Thinkpad r32 owner here. I want to upgrade the firmware as well. If you need any information just send an email to haftbar[a]gmail.com [[User:Quickie|Quickie]] 02:12, 1 February 2006 (CET)

==Reorganization suggestion==
The Downloads section is rather long. Would it be an idea to put it on a separate, new page (say: BIOS_Downloads) and link to that new page from this page?

[[User:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] 21:27, 15 Oct 2005 (CEST)

> I agree with this suggestion.

== Upgrading BIOS and Embedded Control Program from Win XP ==

I'm trying to upgrade the BIOS and Embedded Controller Program from Windows XP following the instructions on the Lenovo website. The problem is the instructions are not very clear about this. The instructions basically state that I must upgrade them at the same time because the Control Program does not work with the older BIOS and the BIOS does not work with the older Control Program. They also state that I should upgrade the Control Program first.

But that means I must boot into XP after having upgraded the Control Program but with the older BIOS in order to then update the BIOS. But if this works then they are actually compatible and there's a contradiction. Am I missing something? I just want to make sure I don't end up with a non-functioning unit.

I have an X23 and want the latest BIOS (v 1.32) and Control Program (v 1.30).

Maybe there should be a note about this in the article? Or maybe I'm the only one who is this stupid :)

Update: I talked to Lenovo support. The situation apparently is that though the description says that the newer control program is not compatible with the older BIOS, they are not so incompatible as to cause the machine to stop working so it is actually possible to use incompatible versions of BIOS and control program. In fact according to the support person it makes no difference if the BIOS is upgraded before the control program or vice versa. So I upgraded the control program using the executable running in Windows XP, which rebooted the computer to perform the upgrade and then I booted Windows again to upgrade the BIOS in the same manner and it all worked fine. If anyone reading this finds it useful maybe you can put it in the article? Or if you find it superfluous just delete this section.

--[[User:xphinx|xphinx]] 12 March 2007

I have an X22 with BIOS version 1.21 and Embedded Controller version 1.17 and using the steps described by you, I succesfully updated my bios to the lastest versions from WindowsXP (BIOS v1.32 / EC v1.30)
Thanks!

== BIOS upgrade for T21 with T20 BIOS ==

Hi, I bought a used T21 recently (type 2647-8AU), and would like to update the BIOS to the latest version, but there's a problem: this T21 appears to have a T20 BIOS (IYET50WW, a/k/a T20 BIOS version 1.11). When I try updating this BIOS using one of IBM's T21 updaters - I tried KZET34WW/v1.16 (the latest one) and KZET16WW/v1.01 (the earliest one) - I get the following message:

<blockquote>
''The diskette in the default drive will not run on this system. Your system is now locked. To restart your system, press Ctrl+Alt+Del.''
</blockquote>

I suspect this message appears because the existing BIOS is a T20 BIOS.

There would appear to be two options: either use the most recent T20 updater (IYET61WW, a/k/a T20 v1.22), or find a way to defeat the block in the KZET34WW/v1.16 T21 updater. Obviously either option is risky in the absence of more information and/or detective work. And I don't know enough about T2x-series hardware to hazard a guess (i.e., were early T21s just T20s with a speed bump, did some T21s get T20 BIOSes by mistake due to factory error, or are the T20 and T21 similar enough that it doesn't matter whether a T20 or T21 BIOS is used).

Some relevant data gleaned from the stickers on the case bottom and the current BIOS:

<blockquote>
* '''Type:''' 2647-8AU (T21 with 800-MHz processor)
* '''S/N:''' 78-0GL1Z (zero-G-L-one-zed)
* '''Manufacture date:''' 03/2001
* '''BIOS version:''' IYET50WW (T20 BIOS v1.11)
* '''System unit S/N:''' (appears to be blank)
* '''System board S/N:''' J1HHS15CL5C
* '''System board P/N:''' 08K3747 (printed on motherboard)
</blockquote>

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

-Linux Spice

P.S. At first I thought this might be a Frankenstein ThinkPad with a T21 case and a T20 logic board - I did buy it used, after all - but it does have an 800-MHz processor, which was never an option for the T20 (both the BIOS and Linux report it as such), and all the other equipment checks out (except for the hard drive, which was replaced with a 40-GB model).

== BIOS format ==

Not sure if this is the right place, but...
Does anybody know what the formats for the various files are in the bios package (or, even better, the bios.bak file that gets dumped on your disk before updating)? I'm getting progressivel lower and lower level in figuring out just what happens when the computer boots, and the BIOS is the last step... (BTW, I have an x60s)

-- Unknown

Yes. It is a binary dump. Sometimes, there is junk in the start of the file. This should be data enough for you to figure out what you need.

--[[User:Hmh|hmh]] 13:30, 26 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS update gone bad ==

I tried to flash my [[:Category:600|ThinkPad 600]]'s bios with catastrophalic outcome; now the machine is unable to boot. I, being overly stupid and too self-confident, ignored all warnings about the media containing the bios image not being write-protected (I used one partition of the disk, in which I had installed FreeDOS). During the updating process, the machine started to write screens full of random characters in cyan coloured background. At that point I knew it was b0rked. I asked my friend about what to do now, he said I could open the machine up, locate the bios chip and use EPROM programmer/burner to write the bios image to the chip. He also said that because my machine is very old, there are probably not safeguards like dual bios or emergency bios update from floppy disk on boot. He continued by saying that the bios update file images from IBM/Lenovo website might not be actual , "pure" binaries which could be burned directly to the chip, instead they may contain some vendor-specific checksums which must be taken into account. In ThinkWiki there seems to be no page about bios flashing gone bad and restoring the machine to working condition. Or is there? I really need your help with this; I think I'm able to locate the bios, take it off and find a working EPROM burner, but where can I get a clean BIOS image without the vendor checksums? I'd be grateful for any references.

--[[User:Usv|Usv]] 12:45, 31 March 2007 (CEST)

== BIOS upgrade using USB flash drive ==

I flashed my Thinkpad X41 succesfully with 2.09 BIOS using bootable USB flash drive with DOS 6.22 system files. (I guess Freedos would work aswell). I had such key laying around so I can't help you with making one (i used windows HP USB key format utility to make it long long time ago)
Everything is quite simple once you have USB key and are able to boot DOS from it.

I downloaded the non-diskette ThinkPad BIOS update utility (74uj15us.exe) from lenovo support site and extrated disk image from it using cabextract:
{{cmduser|cabextract -F "*.IMG" 74uj15us.exe}}

I mounted the image file (74UJ15US.IMG):
{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/mnt}}
{{cmdroot|mount -loop o 74UJ15US.IMG /tmp/mnt}}

I mounted the usb key and made a directory for ibm flash utility files under it:
{{cmdroot|mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbflash}}
{{cmdroot|mkdir /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

I copied the contents of /tmp/mnt to /mnt/usbflash/ibm:
{{cmdroot|cp /tmp/mnt/*.* /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

Then I unmounted the USB stick and rebooted from it to DOS (F12 during boot -> USB HDD). 
In the DOS Prompt: 
C:\cd ibm
C:\IBM\flash2 /U
I waited for about 1 minute, then my thinkpad made two beeps to signal that the flashing was complete.

PS. Because lacking reliable guide on how to make bootable DOS USB stick for ThinkPads I decided to leave this into discussion section. Feel free to move all the necessary stuff into the BIOS upgrade article if you know/figure out how to make bootable DOS USB stick in linux.
--[[User:ladoga|ladoga]] 04:56 17 Apr 2007

Talk:BIOS Upgrade

2007-04-17T02:47:23Z

Ladoga: /* BIOS upgrage using USB flash drive */

== Dead link ==

The link to the FreeDOS floppy (http://www.ankreuzen.de/freedos/files/fd9sr1/fdos1440.zip), which is needed to upgrade the BIOS from a CD, is dead. Is the information still valid? And is there a different source for the floppy image? [[User:Jamesavery|Jamesavery]] 05:49, 18 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade using WINE ==

Does anyone think this would be possible? [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 08:58, 28 January 2007 (CET)

: No this is not possible. [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 16:01, 12 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade without battery ==

Concerning the known problem with 600 series with batteries dead too soon, it is impossible to upgrade the bios without the battery because the original ibm update program doesn't allow this. I bought an old 600E without the battery. There was one workaround, but i think for the older releases of the bios, where you just extracted files and upgraded manualy, bypassing the ibm install program. The page that describes this (i lost the link) has a list of different files, that the ones found in current release so i never did figure out what to do? I would like to upgrade because i have really old bios, where ACPI doesn't cooperate so well with the operating system, either windows or linux.

If somebody finds a workaround please help. Thanks

//Edit

I've found the page on Vim's bios upgrade forum.. I don't know if it exactly for my model, since the files differ.. '''Is it possible, to upgrade bios in linux without the battery?'''

''I have found a working solution WOW on the other forum:

*** This is NOT a safe way to update the bios (disclaimer) ***

* First you need to make a BIOS update floppy disk (from the bios file from IBM - place disk in a: drive, run app and answer Y to the agreement) and then format another disk by right clicking on A: - format - make system bootdisk (assuming you have another machine spare)

* Copy all the files from the IBM Boot disk - in my case
$0029000.fl1
$0029000.fl2
FLASH2.EXE
PROD.DAT
UPDTFLSH.EXE
updtrom.exe
USERINT.EXE
UTILINFO.EXE
to the other clean bootdisk.

* Ensure that there is no config.sys and autoexec.bat so it just runs straight into DOS.

* Place the disk into the Laptop, reboot and allow the machine to load via the floppy

* At the command prompt, type "FLASH2.EXE /U" with no quotes then press enter.

The program will automatically search for the files *.FL1 & *.FL2 and load the bios first then the platform file.

The program will automatically update and perform erasing on the rom and then finish with "Update complete".

* Now reboot.

* Hold F1 down as you turn the laptop back on and go into Easy Setup under "Config" click on Initialize to ensure defaults and settings are error free.

* Save and exit...''

// EDIT

This worked on my machine.. I make no guarantees it will work on others.

The above procedure did not work on my T23 using the 1.20 bios; it kept returning error 14 (Low Battery). However, following those instructions and running "qkflash" rather than flash2 did work for the main bios, and later for the embedded controller.

--grythumn

== Bios upgrade & hidden partition ==

I have disabled the hidden partition to make more space for linux (24G). I still have Windows on the 14G partition. Is it safe to upgrade the BIOS without the hidden partition? I want to get a newer BIOS to fix the annoying fan issue. Thanks

- yes don't worry about it. bios upgrades have nothing to do with whats inside the harddrive.

== BIOS upgrade over PXE ==

Hi,

I have a Thinkpad X20 with a very early BIOS and Embedded Controller Program which I'd like to update. Currently, the only feasible way of doing this is over the network using PXE. I already have a fully functional PXE server using SYSLINUX, and have so far been able to boot the BIOS diskette image using MEMDISK, although I have not attempted to flash anything yet due to the warnings given on the page. Is there any safe way I can update both the Controller Program and the BIOS in the same session over the network in this manner? If not, what other methods would be suitable? I have a USB CD-ROM drive and could probably get hold of a USB floppy drive.

Thanks.

Update: I ended up burning CDs as described and successfully updated everything. I'd still like to know if there is a way I could do it entirely over the network, though.

== RE: grub initrd ==

"Another possibility which works even without a CD-drive or network is to boot the disk image via the grub initrd mechanism."

0) Interesting suggestion. Might be better of in its own section.

1) Could you please elaborate?

2) My first guess (pending your elaboration) would be to "chainload" the first block of the diskimage using the grub commandline, like:
blocklist (''path'')/''to''/''diskimage''
chainloader ''blockvalue''+1

But that's just a guess!

[[user:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] Fri Jul 15 12:20:47 CEST 2005

== bios/controller update sequence ==

The article says:
"If you go through the readme's on the IBM site they'll cleary state that you must update the Control Program first, then imediately update the BIOS"

When I look at the IBM udpate instructions for the T23, it says:
"If you need to update the BIOS as well as the Embedded Controller Program, update the BIOS first."

Comments?

> I would first contact IBM for clarification, but you should probably be following instructions specific to your model.

>> I did it following IBM's instructions to upgrade the BIOS first. Everything worked out great!

== Firmware upgrade for Intel minipci combo card ==

I just purchased an [[Intel 10/100 Ethernet Mini-PCI Adapter with 56K Modem]] that has an ancient (2.0.6) firmware version. I Downloaded the update file intlbtag.EXE but cabextract was unable to find any cabfiles inside it. I tried running the program via wine and that didn't work either.

Finally I ran the program on a windows machine and created a boot floppy. Then I went through the the process of converting the floppy to a bootable cd via linux and that worked like a charm. The cd successfully updated the minipc card's firmware.

Everything worked but I ended up needing a windows box to do it. Could this have been done without windows?

== Firmware upgrade for Wireless LAN MiniPCI COMBO Card using prism2_srec ==

The appropriate firmware installation program for the wlan card in my R32 can be extracted using cabextract as described in the article. It contains (besides some installation programs) a disk image (1awg06ww.IMG) that seems to be a simple dos boot disk. This image contains 3 .hex files (id010001.hex, pk010100.hex, sf010402.hex) that are recognized by prism2_srec to be "srec"-files. Trying to load them to RAM yields:

{{cmdroot|prism2_srec -v -r wlan0 sf010402.hex}}
S3 CRC-16 generation record: start=0x007E1800 len=65642 prog=1
Start address 0x00000000
srec summary for sf010402.hex
Component: 0x001f 1.4.2 (station firmware)
<snip>
Interface compatibility information:
role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
role=Actor variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
<snip>
Wireless LAN card information:
Components:
NICID: 0x8013 v1.0.0
PRIID: 0x0015 v1.0.7
STAID: 0x001f v1.3.6
Interface compatibility information:
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
PRI role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
STA role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
PRI role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
<snip>
This image is not meant to be downloaded to volatile memory.
Incompatible update data.

Has anyone tried to flash this device using prism2_srec yet?
What bothers me is, that the upgrade is for many different parts of the combo card. Does anyone have an opinion on whether this could work?

OK, I took the risk and successfully upgraded my station firmware, BUT when I tried to upgrade the primary firmware the system froze!!! The thinkpad won't start up with the miniPCI card inserted and all efforts to reflash it using the original DOS boot image failed!!!

I'm quite sure the system freeze was not caused directly by prism2_srec, because I have noticed rare system freezes since I have been using my PCMCIA wireless card.
Anyway, if anyone should own a TP R32, I'd be glad if he could tell me the base address of the Wlan card, or it's PCI address.

Thinkpad r32 owner here. I want to upgrade the firmware as well. If you need any information just send an email to haftbar[a]gmail.com [[User:Quickie|Quickie]] 02:12, 1 February 2006 (CET)

==Reorganization suggestion==
The Downloads section is rather long. Would it be an idea to put it on a separate, new page (say: BIOS_Downloads) and link to that new page from this page?

[[User:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] 21:27, 15 Oct 2005 (CEST)

> I agree with this suggestion.

== Upgrading BIOS and Embedded Control Program from Win XP ==

I'm trying to upgrade the BIOS and Embedded Controller Program from Windows XP following the instructions on the Lenovo website. The problem is the instructions are not very clear about this. The instructions basically state that I must upgrade them at the same time because the Control Program does not work with the older BIOS and the BIOS does not work with the older Control Program. They also state that I should upgrade the Control Program first.

But that means I must boot into XP after having upgraded the Control Program but with the older BIOS in order to then update the BIOS. But if this works then they are actually compatible and there's a contradiction. Am I missing something? I just want to make sure I don't end up with a non-functioning unit.

I have an X23 and want the latest BIOS (v 1.32) and Control Program (v 1.30).

Maybe there should be a note about this in the article? Or maybe I'm the only one who is this stupid :)

Update: I talked to Lenovo support. The situation apparently is that though the description says that the newer control program is not compatible with the older BIOS, they are not so incompatible as to cause the machine to stop working so it is actually possible to use incompatible versions of BIOS and control program. In fact according to the support person it makes no difference if the BIOS is upgraded before the control program or vice versa. So I upgraded the control program using the executable running in Windows XP, which rebooted the computer to perform the upgrade and then I booted Windows again to upgrade the BIOS in the same manner and it all worked fine. If anyone reading this finds it useful maybe you can put it in the article? Or if you find it superfluous just delete this section.

--[[User:xphinx|xphinx]] 12 March 2007

I have an X22 with BIOS version 1.21 and Embedded Controller version 1.17 and using the steps described by you, I succesfully updated my bios to the lastest versions from WindowsXP (BIOS v1.32 / EC v1.30)
Thanks!

== BIOS upgrade for T21 with T20 BIOS ==

Hi, I bought a used T21 recently (type 2647-8AU), and would like to update the BIOS to the latest version, but there's a problem: this T21 appears to have a T20 BIOS (IYET50WW, a/k/a T20 BIOS version 1.11). When I try updating this BIOS using one of IBM's T21 updaters - I tried KZET34WW/v1.16 (the latest one) and KZET16WW/v1.01 (the earliest one) - I get the following message:

<blockquote>
''The diskette in the default drive will not run on this system. Your system is now locked. To restart your system, press Ctrl+Alt+Del.''
</blockquote>

I suspect this message appears because the existing BIOS is a T20 BIOS.

There would appear to be two options: either use the most recent T20 updater (IYET61WW, a/k/a T20 v1.22), or find a way to defeat the block in the KZET34WW/v1.16 T21 updater. Obviously either option is risky in the absence of more information and/or detective work. And I don't know enough about T2x-series hardware to hazard a guess (i.e., were early T21s just T20s with a speed bump, did some T21s get T20 BIOSes by mistake due to factory error, or are the T20 and T21 similar enough that it doesn't matter whether a T20 or T21 BIOS is used).

Some relevant data gleaned from the stickers on the case bottom and the current BIOS:

<blockquote>
* '''Type:''' 2647-8AU (T21 with 800-MHz processor)
* '''S/N:''' 78-0GL1Z (zero-G-L-one-zed)
* '''Manufacture date:''' 03/2001
* '''BIOS version:''' IYET50WW (T20 BIOS v1.11)
* '''System unit S/N:''' (appears to be blank)
* '''System board S/N:''' J1HHS15CL5C
* '''System board P/N:''' 08K3747 (printed on motherboard)
</blockquote>

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

-Linux Spice

P.S. At first I thought this might be a Frankenstein ThinkPad with a T21 case and a T20 logic board - I did buy it used, after all - but it does have an 800-MHz processor, which was never an option for the T20 (both the BIOS and Linux report it as such), and all the other equipment checks out (except for the hard drive, which was replaced with a 40-GB model).

== BIOS format ==

Not sure if this is the right place, but...
Does anybody know what the formats for the various files are in the bios package (or, even better, the bios.bak file that gets dumped on your disk before updating)? I'm getting progressivel lower and lower level in figuring out just what happens when the computer boots, and the BIOS is the last step... (BTW, I have an x60s)

-- Unknown

Yes. It is a binary dump. Sometimes, there is junk in the start of the file. This should be data enough for you to figure out what you need.

--[[User:Hmh|hmh]] 13:30, 26 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS update gone bad ==

I tried to flash my [[:Category:600|ThinkPad 600]]'s bios with catastrophalic outcome; now the machine is unable to boot. I, being overly stupid and too self-confident, ignored all warnings about the media containing the bios image not being write-protected (I used one partition of the disk, in which I had installed FreeDOS). During the updating process, the machine started to write screens full of random characters in cyan coloured background. At that point I knew it was b0rked. I asked my friend about what to do now, he said I could open the machine up, locate the bios chip and use EPROM programmer/burner to write the bios image to the chip. He also said that because my machine is very old, there are probably not safeguards like dual bios or emergency bios update from floppy disk on boot. He continued by saying that the bios update file images from IBM/Lenovo website might not be actual , "pure" binaries which could be burned directly to the chip, instead they may contain some vendor-specific checksums which must be taken into account. In ThinkWiki there seems to be no page about bios flashing gone bad and restoring the machine to working condition. Or is there? I really need your help with this; I think I'm able to locate the bios, take it off and find a working EPROM burner, but where can I get a clean BIOS image without the vendor checksums? I'd be grateful for any references.

--[[User:Usv|Usv]] 12:45, 31 March 2007 (CEST)

== Upgrading BIOS from USB flash drive ==

I flashed my Thinkpad X41 succesfully with 2.09 BIOS using bootable USB flash drive with DOS 6.22 system files. (I guess Freedos would work aswell). I had such key laying around so I can't help you with making one (i used windows HP USB key format utility to make it long long time ago)
Everything is quite simple once you have USB key and are able to boot DOS from it.

I downloaded the non-diskette ThinkPad BIOS update utility (74uj15us.exe) from lenovo support site and extrated disk image from it using cabextract:
{{cmduser|cabextract -F "*.IMG" 74uj15us.exe}}

I mounted the image file (74UJ15US.IMG):
{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/mnt}}
{{cmdroot|mount -loop o 74UJ15US.IMG /tmp/mnt}}

I mounted the usb key and made a directory for ibm flash utility files under it:
{{cmdroot|mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbflash}}
{{cmdroot|mkdir /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

I copied the contents of /tmp/mnt to /mnt/usbflash/ibm:
{{cmdroot|cp /tmp/mnt/*.* /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

Then I unmounted the USB stick and rebooted from it to DOS (F12 during boot -> USB HDD). 
In the DOS Prompt: 
C:\cd ibm
C:\IBM\flash2 /U
I waited for about 1 minute, then my thinkpad made two beeps to signal that the flashing was complete.

PS. Because lacking reliable guide on how to make bootable DOS USB stick for ThinkPads I decided to leave this into discussion section. Feel free to move all the necessary stuff into the BIOS upgrade article if you know/figure out how to make bootable DOS USB stick in linux.
--[[User:ladoga|ladoga]] 04:56 17 Apr 2007

Talk:BIOS Upgrade

2007-04-17T02:46:25Z

Ladoga: /* Upgraded BIOS using USB flash drive */

== Dead link ==

The link to the FreeDOS floppy (http://www.ankreuzen.de/freedos/files/fd9sr1/fdos1440.zip), which is needed to upgrade the BIOS from a CD, is dead. Is the information still valid? And is there a different source for the floppy image? [[User:Jamesavery|Jamesavery]] 05:49, 18 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade using WINE ==

Does anyone think this would be possible? [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 08:58, 28 January 2007 (CET)

: No this is not possible. [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 16:01, 12 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade without battery ==

Concerning the known problem with 600 series with batteries dead too soon, it is impossible to upgrade the bios without the battery because the original ibm update program doesn't allow this. I bought an old 600E without the battery. There was one workaround, but i think for the older releases of the bios, where you just extracted files and upgraded manualy, bypassing the ibm install program. The page that describes this (i lost the link) has a list of different files, that the ones found in current release so i never did figure out what to do? I would like to upgrade because i have really old bios, where ACPI doesn't cooperate so well with the operating system, either windows or linux.

If somebody finds a workaround please help. Thanks

//Edit

I've found the page on Vim's bios upgrade forum.. I don't know if it exactly for my model, since the files differ.. '''Is it possible, to upgrade bios in linux without the battery?'''

''I have found a working solution WOW on the other forum:

*** This is NOT a safe way to update the bios (disclaimer) ***

* First you need to make a BIOS update floppy disk (from the bios file from IBM - place disk in a: drive, run app and answer Y to the agreement) and then format another disk by right clicking on A: - format - make system bootdisk (assuming you have another machine spare)

* Copy all the files from the IBM Boot disk - in my case
$0029000.fl1
$0029000.fl2
FLASH2.EXE
PROD.DAT
UPDTFLSH.EXE
updtrom.exe
USERINT.EXE
UTILINFO.EXE
to the other clean bootdisk.

* Ensure that there is no config.sys and autoexec.bat so it just runs straight into DOS.

* Place the disk into the Laptop, reboot and allow the machine to load via the floppy

* At the command prompt, type "FLASH2.EXE /U" with no quotes then press enter.

The program will automatically search for the files *.FL1 & *.FL2 and load the bios first then the platform file.

The program will automatically update and perform erasing on the rom and then finish with "Update complete".

* Now reboot.

* Hold F1 down as you turn the laptop back on and go into Easy Setup under "Config" click on Initialize to ensure defaults and settings are error free.

* Save and exit...''

// EDIT

This worked on my machine.. I make no guarantees it will work on others.

The above procedure did not work on my T23 using the 1.20 bios; it kept returning error 14 (Low Battery). However, following those instructions and running "qkflash" rather than flash2 did work for the main bios, and later for the embedded controller.

--grythumn

== Bios upgrade & hidden partition ==

I have disabled the hidden partition to make more space for linux (24G). I still have Windows on the 14G partition. Is it safe to upgrade the BIOS without the hidden partition? I want to get a newer BIOS to fix the annoying fan issue. Thanks

- yes don't worry about it. bios upgrades have nothing to do with whats inside the harddrive.

== BIOS upgrade over PXE ==

Hi,

I have a Thinkpad X20 with a very early BIOS and Embedded Controller Program which I'd like to update. Currently, the only feasible way of doing this is over the network using PXE. I already have a fully functional PXE server using SYSLINUX, and have so far been able to boot the BIOS diskette image using MEMDISK, although I have not attempted to flash anything yet due to the warnings given on the page. Is there any safe way I can update both the Controller Program and the BIOS in the same session over the network in this manner? If not, what other methods would be suitable? I have a USB CD-ROM drive and could probably get hold of a USB floppy drive.

Thanks.

Update: I ended up burning CDs as described and successfully updated everything. I'd still like to know if there is a way I could do it entirely over the network, though.

== RE: grub initrd ==

"Another possibility which works even without a CD-drive or network is to boot the disk image via the grub initrd mechanism."

0) Interesting suggestion. Might be better of in its own section.

1) Could you please elaborate?

2) My first guess (pending your elaboration) would be to "chainload" the first block of the diskimage using the grub commandline, like:
blocklist (''path'')/''to''/''diskimage''
chainloader ''blockvalue''+1

But that's just a guess!

[[user:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] Fri Jul 15 12:20:47 CEST 2005

== bios/controller update sequence ==

The article says:
"If you go through the readme's on the IBM site they'll cleary state that you must update the Control Program first, then imediately update the BIOS"

When I look at the IBM udpate instructions for the T23, it says:
"If you need to update the BIOS as well as the Embedded Controller Program, update the BIOS first."

Comments?

> I would first contact IBM for clarification, but you should probably be following instructions specific to your model.

>> I did it following IBM's instructions to upgrade the BIOS first. Everything worked out great!

== Firmware upgrade for Intel minipci combo card ==

I just purchased an [[Intel 10/100 Ethernet Mini-PCI Adapter with 56K Modem]] that has an ancient (2.0.6) firmware version. I Downloaded the update file intlbtag.EXE but cabextract was unable to find any cabfiles inside it. I tried running the program via wine and that didn't work either.

Finally I ran the program on a windows machine and created a boot floppy. Then I went through the the process of converting the floppy to a bootable cd via linux and that worked like a charm. The cd successfully updated the minipc card's firmware.

Everything worked but I ended up needing a windows box to do it. Could this have been done without windows?

== Firmware upgrade for Wireless LAN MiniPCI COMBO Card using prism2_srec ==

The appropriate firmware installation program for the wlan card in my R32 can be extracted using cabextract as described in the article. It contains (besides some installation programs) a disk image (1awg06ww.IMG) that seems to be a simple dos boot disk. This image contains 3 .hex files (id010001.hex, pk010100.hex, sf010402.hex) that are recognized by prism2_srec to be "srec"-files. Trying to load them to RAM yields:

{{cmdroot|prism2_srec -v -r wlan0 sf010402.hex}}
S3 CRC-16 generation record: start=0x007E1800 len=65642 prog=1
Start address 0x00000000
srec summary for sf010402.hex
Component: 0x001f 1.4.2 (station firmware)
<snip>
Interface compatibility information:
role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
role=Actor variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
<snip>
Wireless LAN card information:
Components:
NICID: 0x8013 v1.0.0
PRIID: 0x0015 v1.0.7
STAID: 0x001f v1.3.6
Interface compatibility information:
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
PRI role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
STA role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
PRI role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
<snip>
This image is not meant to be downloaded to volatile memory.
Incompatible update data.

Has anyone tried to flash this device using prism2_srec yet?
What bothers me is, that the upgrade is for many different parts of the combo card. Does anyone have an opinion on whether this could work?

OK, I took the risk and successfully upgraded my station firmware, BUT when I tried to upgrade the primary firmware the system froze!!! The thinkpad won't start up with the miniPCI card inserted and all efforts to reflash it using the original DOS boot image failed!!!

I'm quite sure the system freeze was not caused directly by prism2_srec, because I have noticed rare system freezes since I have been using my PCMCIA wireless card.
Anyway, if anyone should own a TP R32, I'd be glad if he could tell me the base address of the Wlan card, or it's PCI address.

Thinkpad r32 owner here. I want to upgrade the firmware as well. If you need any information just send an email to haftbar[a]gmail.com [[User:Quickie|Quickie]] 02:12, 1 February 2006 (CET)

==Reorganization suggestion==
The Downloads section is rather long. Would it be an idea to put it on a separate, new page (say: BIOS_Downloads) and link to that new page from this page?

[[User:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] 21:27, 15 Oct 2005 (CEST)

> I agree with this suggestion.

== Upgrading BIOS and Embedded Control Program from Win XP ==

I'm trying to upgrade the BIOS and Embedded Controller Program from Windows XP following the instructions on the Lenovo website. The problem is the instructions are not very clear about this. The instructions basically state that I must upgrade them at the same time because the Control Program does not work with the older BIOS and the BIOS does not work with the older Control Program. They also state that I should upgrade the Control Program first.

But that means I must boot into XP after having upgraded the Control Program but with the older BIOS in order to then update the BIOS. But if this works then they are actually compatible and there's a contradiction. Am I missing something? I just want to make sure I don't end up with a non-functioning unit.

I have an X23 and want the latest BIOS (v 1.32) and Control Program (v 1.30).

Maybe there should be a note about this in the article? Or maybe I'm the only one who is this stupid :)

Update: I talked to Lenovo support. The situation apparently is that though the description says that the newer control program is not compatible with the older BIOS, they are not so incompatible as to cause the machine to stop working so it is actually possible to use incompatible versions of BIOS and control program. In fact according to the support person it makes no difference if the BIOS is upgraded before the control program or vice versa. So I upgraded the control program using the executable running in Windows XP, which rebooted the computer to perform the upgrade and then I booted Windows again to upgrade the BIOS in the same manner and it all worked fine. If anyone reading this finds it useful maybe you can put it in the article? Or if you find it superfluous just delete this section.

--[[User:xphinx|xphinx]] 12 March 2007

I have an X22 with BIOS version 1.21 and Embedded Controller version 1.17 and using the steps described by you, I succesfully updated my bios to the lastest versions from WindowsXP (BIOS v1.32 / EC v1.30)
Thanks!

== BIOS upgrade for T21 with T20 BIOS ==

Hi, I bought a used T21 recently (type 2647-8AU), and would like to update the BIOS to the latest version, but there's a problem: this T21 appears to have a T20 BIOS (IYET50WW, a/k/a T20 BIOS version 1.11). When I try updating this BIOS using one of IBM's T21 updaters - I tried KZET34WW/v1.16 (the latest one) and KZET16WW/v1.01 (the earliest one) - I get the following message:

<blockquote>
''The diskette in the default drive will not run on this system. Your system is now locked. To restart your system, press Ctrl+Alt+Del.''
</blockquote>

I suspect this message appears because the existing BIOS is a T20 BIOS.

There would appear to be two options: either use the most recent T20 updater (IYET61WW, a/k/a T20 v1.22), or find a way to defeat the block in the KZET34WW/v1.16 T21 updater. Obviously either option is risky in the absence of more information and/or detective work. And I don't know enough about T2x-series hardware to hazard a guess (i.e., were early T21s just T20s with a speed bump, did some T21s get T20 BIOSes by mistake due to factory error, or are the T20 and T21 similar enough that it doesn't matter whether a T20 or T21 BIOS is used).

Some relevant data gleaned from the stickers on the case bottom and the current BIOS:

<blockquote>
* '''Type:''' 2647-8AU (T21 with 800-MHz processor)
* '''S/N:''' 78-0GL1Z (zero-G-L-one-zed)
* '''Manufacture date:''' 03/2001
* '''BIOS version:''' IYET50WW (T20 BIOS v1.11)
* '''System unit S/N:''' (appears to be blank)
* '''System board S/N:''' J1HHS15CL5C
* '''System board P/N:''' 08K3747 (printed on motherboard)
</blockquote>

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

-Linux Spice

P.S. At first I thought this might be a Frankenstein ThinkPad with a T21 case and a T20 logic board - I did buy it used, after all - but it does have an 800-MHz processor, which was never an option for the T20 (both the BIOS and Linux report it as such), and all the other equipment checks out (except for the hard drive, which was replaced with a 40-GB model).

== BIOS format ==

Not sure if this is the right place, but...
Does anybody know what the formats for the various files are in the bios package (or, even better, the bios.bak file that gets dumped on your disk before updating)? I'm getting progressivel lower and lower level in figuring out just what happens when the computer boots, and the BIOS is the last step... (BTW, I have an x60s)

-- Unknown

Yes. It is a binary dump. Sometimes, there is junk in the start of the file. This should be data enough for you to figure out what you need.

--[[User:Hmh|hmh]] 13:30, 26 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS update gone bad ==

I tried to flash my [[:Category:600|ThinkPad 600]]'s bios with catastrophalic outcome; now the machine is unable to boot. I, being overly stupid and too self-confident, ignored all warnings about the media containing the bios image not being write-protected (I used one partition of the disk, in which I had installed FreeDOS). During the updating process, the machine started to write screens full of random characters in cyan coloured background. At that point I knew it was b0rked. I asked my friend about what to do now, he said I could open the machine up, locate the bios chip and use EPROM programmer/burner to write the bios image to the chip. He also said that because my machine is very old, there are probably not safeguards like dual bios or emergency bios update from floppy disk on boot. He continued by saying that the bios update file images from IBM/Lenovo website might not be actual , "pure" binaries which could be burned directly to the chip, instead they may contain some vendor-specific checksums which must be taken into account. In ThinkWiki there seems to be no page about bios flashing gone bad and restoring the machine to working condition. Or is there? I really need your help with this; I think I'm able to locate the bios, take it off and find a working EPROM burner, but where can I get a clean BIOS image without the vendor checksums? I'd be grateful for any references.

--[[User:Usv|Usv]] 12:45, 31 March 2007 (CEST)

== BIOS upgrage using USB flash drive ==

I flashed my Thinkpad X41 succesfully with 2.09 BIOS using bootable USB flash drive with DOS 6.22 system files. (I guess Freedos would work aswell). I had such key laying around so I can't help you with making one (i used windows HP USB key format utility to make it long long time ago)
Everything is quite simple once you have USB key and are able to boot DOS from it.

I downloaded the non-diskette ThinkPad BIOS update utility (74uj15us.exe) from lenovo support site and extrated disk image from it using cabextract:
{{cmduser|cabextract -F "*.IMG" 74uj15us.exe}}

I mounted the image file (74UJ15US.IMG):
{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/mnt}}
{{cmdroot|mount -loop o 74UJ15US.IMG /tmp/mnt}}

I mounted the usb key and made a directory for ibm flash utility files under it:
{{cmdroot|mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbflash}}
{{cmdroot|mkdir /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

I copied the contents of /tmp/mnt to /mnt/usbflash/ibm:
{{cmdroot|cp /tmp/mnt/*.* /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

Then I unmounted the USB stick and rebooted from it to DOS (F12 during boot -> USB HDD). 
In the DOS Prompt: 
C:\cd ibm
C:\IBM\flash2 /U
I waited for about 1 minute, then my thinkpad made two beeps to signal that the flashing was complete.

PS. Because lacking reliable guide on how to make bootable DOS USB stick for ThinkPads I decided to leave this into discussion section. Feel free to move all the necessary stuff into the BIOS upgrade article if you know/figure out how to make bootable DOS USB stick in linux.
--[[User:ladoga|ladoga]] 04:56 17 Apr 2007

Talk:BIOS Upgrade

2007-04-17T02:43:35Z

Ladoga: /* Upgraded BIOS using USB flash drive */

== Dead link ==

The link to the FreeDOS floppy (http://www.ankreuzen.de/freedos/files/fd9sr1/fdos1440.zip), which is needed to upgrade the BIOS from a CD, is dead. Is the information still valid? And is there a different source for the floppy image? [[User:Jamesavery|Jamesavery]] 05:49, 18 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade using WINE ==

Does anyone think this would be possible? [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 08:58, 28 January 2007 (CET)

: No this is not possible. [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 16:01, 12 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade without battery ==

Concerning the known problem with 600 series with batteries dead too soon, it is impossible to upgrade the bios without the battery because the original ibm update program doesn't allow this. I bought an old 600E without the battery. There was one workaround, but i think for the older releases of the bios, where you just extracted files and upgraded manualy, bypassing the ibm install program. The page that describes this (i lost the link) has a list of different files, that the ones found in current release so i never did figure out what to do? I would like to upgrade because i have really old bios, where ACPI doesn't cooperate so well with the operating system, either windows or linux.

If somebody finds a workaround please help. Thanks

//Edit

I've found the page on Vim's bios upgrade forum.. I don't know if it exactly for my model, since the files differ.. '''Is it possible, to upgrade bios in linux without the battery?'''

''I have found a working solution WOW on the other forum:

*** This is NOT a safe way to update the bios (disclaimer) ***

* First you need to make a BIOS update floppy disk (from the bios file from IBM - place disk in a: drive, run app and answer Y to the agreement) and then format another disk by right clicking on A: - format - make system bootdisk (assuming you have another machine spare)

* Copy all the files from the IBM Boot disk - in my case
$0029000.fl1
$0029000.fl2
FLASH2.EXE
PROD.DAT
UPDTFLSH.EXE
updtrom.exe
USERINT.EXE
UTILINFO.EXE
to the other clean bootdisk.

* Ensure that there is no config.sys and autoexec.bat so it just runs straight into DOS.

* Place the disk into the Laptop, reboot and allow the machine to load via the floppy

* At the command prompt, type "FLASH2.EXE /U" with no quotes then press enter.

The program will automatically search for the files *.FL1 & *.FL2 and load the bios first then the platform file.

The program will automatically update and perform erasing on the rom and then finish with "Update complete".

* Now reboot.

* Hold F1 down as you turn the laptop back on and go into Easy Setup under "Config" click on Initialize to ensure defaults and settings are error free.

* Save and exit...''

// EDIT

This worked on my machine.. I make no guarantees it will work on others.

The above procedure did not work on my T23 using the 1.20 bios; it kept returning error 14 (Low Battery). However, following those instructions and running "qkflash" rather than flash2 did work for the main bios, and later for the embedded controller.

--grythumn

== Bios upgrade & hidden partition ==

I have disabled the hidden partition to make more space for linux (24G). I still have Windows on the 14G partition. Is it safe to upgrade the BIOS without the hidden partition? I want to get a newer BIOS to fix the annoying fan issue. Thanks

- yes don't worry about it. bios upgrades have nothing to do with whats inside the harddrive.

== BIOS upgrade over PXE ==

Hi,

I have a Thinkpad X20 with a very early BIOS and Embedded Controller Program which I'd like to update. Currently, the only feasible way of doing this is over the network using PXE. I already have a fully functional PXE server using SYSLINUX, and have so far been able to boot the BIOS diskette image using MEMDISK, although I have not attempted to flash anything yet due to the warnings given on the page. Is there any safe way I can update both the Controller Program and the BIOS in the same session over the network in this manner? If not, what other methods would be suitable? I have a USB CD-ROM drive and could probably get hold of a USB floppy drive.

Thanks.

Update: I ended up burning CDs as described and successfully updated everything. I'd still like to know if there is a way I could do it entirely over the network, though.

== RE: grub initrd ==

"Another possibility which works even without a CD-drive or network is to boot the disk image via the grub initrd mechanism."

0) Interesting suggestion. Might be better of in its own section.

1) Could you please elaborate?

2) My first guess (pending your elaboration) would be to "chainload" the first block of the diskimage using the grub commandline, like:
blocklist (''path'')/''to''/''diskimage''
chainloader ''blockvalue''+1

But that's just a guess!

[[user:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] Fri Jul 15 12:20:47 CEST 2005

== bios/controller update sequence ==

The article says:
"If you go through the readme's on the IBM site they'll cleary state that you must update the Control Program first, then imediately update the BIOS"

When I look at the IBM udpate instructions for the T23, it says:
"If you need to update the BIOS as well as the Embedded Controller Program, update the BIOS first."

Comments?

> I would first contact IBM for clarification, but you should probably be following instructions specific to your model.

>> I did it following IBM's instructions to upgrade the BIOS first. Everything worked out great!

== Firmware upgrade for Intel minipci combo card ==

I just purchased an [[Intel 10/100 Ethernet Mini-PCI Adapter with 56K Modem]] that has an ancient (2.0.6) firmware version. I Downloaded the update file intlbtag.EXE but cabextract was unable to find any cabfiles inside it. I tried running the program via wine and that didn't work either.

Finally I ran the program on a windows machine and created a boot floppy. Then I went through the the process of converting the floppy to a bootable cd via linux and that worked like a charm. The cd successfully updated the minipc card's firmware.

Everything worked but I ended up needing a windows box to do it. Could this have been done without windows?

== Firmware upgrade for Wireless LAN MiniPCI COMBO Card using prism2_srec ==

The appropriate firmware installation program for the wlan card in my R32 can be extracted using cabextract as described in the article. It contains (besides some installation programs) a disk image (1awg06ww.IMG) that seems to be a simple dos boot disk. This image contains 3 .hex files (id010001.hex, pk010100.hex, sf010402.hex) that are recognized by prism2_srec to be "srec"-files. Trying to load them to RAM yields:

{{cmdroot|prism2_srec -v -r wlan0 sf010402.hex}}
S3 CRC-16 generation record: start=0x007E1800 len=65642 prog=1
Start address 0x00000000
srec summary for sf010402.hex
Component: 0x001f 1.4.2 (station firmware)
<snip>
Interface compatibility information:
role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
role=Actor variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
<snip>
Wireless LAN card information:
Components:
NICID: 0x8013 v1.0.0
PRIID: 0x0015 v1.0.7
STAID: 0x001f v1.3.6
Interface compatibility information:
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
PRI role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
STA role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
PRI role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
<snip>
This image is not meant to be downloaded to volatile memory.
Incompatible update data.

Has anyone tried to flash this device using prism2_srec yet?
What bothers me is, that the upgrade is for many different parts of the combo card. Does anyone have an opinion on whether this could work?

OK, I took the risk and successfully upgraded my station firmware, BUT when I tried to upgrade the primary firmware the system froze!!! The thinkpad won't start up with the miniPCI card inserted and all efforts to reflash it using the original DOS boot image failed!!!

I'm quite sure the system freeze was not caused directly by prism2_srec, because I have noticed rare system freezes since I have been using my PCMCIA wireless card.
Anyway, if anyone should own a TP R32, I'd be glad if he could tell me the base address of the Wlan card, or it's PCI address.

Thinkpad r32 owner here. I want to upgrade the firmware as well. If you need any information just send an email to haftbar[a]gmail.com [[User:Quickie|Quickie]] 02:12, 1 February 2006 (CET)

==Reorganization suggestion==
The Downloads section is rather long. Would it be an idea to put it on a separate, new page (say: BIOS_Downloads) and link to that new page from this page?

[[User:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] 21:27, 15 Oct 2005 (CEST)

> I agree with this suggestion.

== Upgrading BIOS and Embedded Control Program from Win XP ==

I'm trying to upgrade the BIOS and Embedded Controller Program from Windows XP following the instructions on the Lenovo website. The problem is the instructions are not very clear about this. The instructions basically state that I must upgrade them at the same time because the Control Program does not work with the older BIOS and the BIOS does not work with the older Control Program. They also state that I should upgrade the Control Program first.

But that means I must boot into XP after having upgraded the Control Program but with the older BIOS in order to then update the BIOS. But if this works then they are actually compatible and there's a contradiction. Am I missing something? I just want to make sure I don't end up with a non-functioning unit.

I have an X23 and want the latest BIOS (v 1.32) and Control Program (v 1.30).

Maybe there should be a note about this in the article? Or maybe I'm the only one who is this stupid :)

Update: I talked to Lenovo support. The situation apparently is that though the description says that the newer control program is not compatible with the older BIOS, they are not so incompatible as to cause the machine to stop working so it is actually possible to use incompatible versions of BIOS and control program. In fact according to the support person it makes no difference if the BIOS is upgraded before the control program or vice versa. So I upgraded the control program using the executable running in Windows XP, which rebooted the computer to perform the upgrade and then I booted Windows again to upgrade the BIOS in the same manner and it all worked fine. If anyone reading this finds it useful maybe you can put it in the article? Or if you find it superfluous just delete this section.

--[[User:xphinx|xphinx]] 12 March 2007

I have an X22 with BIOS version 1.21 and Embedded Controller version 1.17 and using the steps described by you, I succesfully updated my bios to the lastest versions from WindowsXP (BIOS v1.32 / EC v1.30)
Thanks!

== BIOS upgrade for T21 with T20 BIOS ==

Hi, I bought a used T21 recently (type 2647-8AU), and would like to update the BIOS to the latest version, but there's a problem: this T21 appears to have a T20 BIOS (IYET50WW, a/k/a T20 BIOS version 1.11). When I try updating this BIOS using one of IBM's T21 updaters - I tried KZET34WW/v1.16 (the latest one) and KZET16WW/v1.01 (the earliest one) - I get the following message:

<blockquote>
''The diskette in the default drive will not run on this system. Your system is now locked. To restart your system, press Ctrl+Alt+Del.''
</blockquote>

I suspect this message appears because the existing BIOS is a T20 BIOS.

There would appear to be two options: either use the most recent T20 updater (IYET61WW, a/k/a T20 v1.22), or find a way to defeat the block in the KZET34WW/v1.16 T21 updater. Obviously either option is risky in the absence of more information and/or detective work. And I don't know enough about T2x-series hardware to hazard a guess (i.e., were early T21s just T20s with a speed bump, did some T21s get T20 BIOSes by mistake due to factory error, or are the T20 and T21 similar enough that it doesn't matter whether a T20 or T21 BIOS is used).

Some relevant data gleaned from the stickers on the case bottom and the current BIOS:

<blockquote>
* '''Type:''' 2647-8AU (T21 with 800-MHz processor)
* '''S/N:''' 78-0GL1Z (zero-G-L-one-zed)
* '''Manufacture date:''' 03/2001
* '''BIOS version:''' IYET50WW (T20 BIOS v1.11)
* '''System unit S/N:''' (appears to be blank)
* '''System board S/N:''' J1HHS15CL5C
* '''System board P/N:''' 08K3747 (printed on motherboard)
</blockquote>

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

-Linux Spice

P.S. At first I thought this might be a Frankenstein ThinkPad with a T21 case and a T20 logic board - I did buy it used, after all - but it does have an 800-MHz processor, which was never an option for the T20 (both the BIOS and Linux report it as such), and all the other equipment checks out (except for the hard drive, which was replaced with a 40-GB model).

== BIOS format ==

Not sure if this is the right place, but...
Does anybody know what the formats for the various files are in the bios package (or, even better, the bios.bak file that gets dumped on your disk before updating)? I'm getting progressivel lower and lower level in figuring out just what happens when the computer boots, and the BIOS is the last step... (BTW, I have an x60s)

-- Unknown

Yes. It is a binary dump. Sometimes, there is junk in the start of the file. This should be data enough for you to figure out what you need.

--[[User:Hmh|hmh]] 13:30, 26 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS update gone bad ==

I tried to flash my [[:Category:600|ThinkPad 600]]'s bios with catastrophalic outcome; now the machine is unable to boot. I, being overly stupid and too self-confident, ignored all warnings about the media containing the bios image not being write-protected (I used one partition of the disk, in which I had installed FreeDOS). During the updating process, the machine started to write screens full of random characters in cyan coloured background. At that point I knew it was b0rked. I asked my friend about what to do now, he said I could open the machine up, locate the bios chip and use EPROM programmer/burner to write the bios image to the chip. He also said that because my machine is very old, there are probably not safeguards like dual bios or emergency bios update from floppy disk on boot. He continued by saying that the bios update file images from IBM/Lenovo website might not be actual , "pure" binaries which could be burned directly to the chip, instead they may contain some vendor-specific checksums which must be taken into account. In ThinkWiki there seems to be no page about bios flashing gone bad and restoring the machine to working condition. Or is there? I really need your help with this; I think I'm able to locate the bios, take it off and find a working EPROM burner, but where can I get a clean BIOS image without the vendor checksums? I'd be grateful for any references.

--[[User:Usv|Usv]] 12:45, 31 March 2007 (CEST)

== Upgraded BIOS using USB flash drive ==

I flashed my Thinkpad X41 succesfully with 2.09 BIOS using bootable USB flash drive with DOS 6.22 system files. (I guess Freedos would work aswell). I had such key laying around so I can't help you with making one (i used windows HP USB key format utility to make it long long time ago)
Everything is quite simple once you have USB key and are able to boot DOS from it.

I downloaded the non-diskette ThinkPad BIOS update utility (74uj15us.exe) from lenovo support site and extrated disk image from it using cabextract:
{{cmduser|cabextract -F "*.IMG" 74uj15us.exe}}

I mounted the image file (74UJ15US.IMG):
{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/mnt}}
{{cmdroot|mount -loop o 74UJ15US.IMG /tmp/mnt}}

I mounted the usb key and made a directory for ibm flash utility files under it:
{{cmdroot|mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbflash}}
{{cmdroot|mkdir /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

I copied the contents of /tmp/mnt to /mnt/usbflash/ibm:
{{cmdroot|cp /tmp/mnt/*.* /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

Then I unmounted the USB stick and rebooted from it to DOS (F12 during boot -> USB HDD). 
In the DOS Prompt: 
C:\cd ibm
C:\IBM\flash2 /U
I waited for about 1 minute, then my thinkpad made two beeps to signal that the flashing was complete.

PS. Because lacking reliable guide on how to make bootable DOS USB stick for ThinkPads I decided to leave this into discussion section. Feel free to move all the necessary stuff into the BIOS upgrade article if you know/figure out how to make bootable DOS USB stick in linux.
--[[User:ladoga|ladoga]] 04:56 17 Apr 2007

User:Ladoga

2007-04-17T02:24:53Z

Ladoga:

== Who is ladoga? ==
Lauri Koponen 
Seen idling at irc.debian.org #debian and IRCnet

== My Thinkpad ==
Thinkpad X41 type 2525-F8G. This very solid and portable machine is one of the best purchases I ever made. It's been running Debian testing since early 2006. Everything works and I haven't even put much effort into it. (thanks to ThinkWiki)

Talk:BIOS Upgrade

2007-04-17T02:08:28Z

Ladoga: /* Upgraded BIOS using USB flash drive */

== Dead link ==

The link to the FreeDOS floppy (http://www.ankreuzen.de/freedos/files/fd9sr1/fdos1440.zip), which is needed to upgrade the BIOS from a CD, is dead. Is the information still valid? And is there a different source for the floppy image? [[User:Jamesavery|Jamesavery]] 05:49, 18 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade using WINE ==

Does anyone think this would be possible? [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 08:58, 28 January 2007 (CET)

: No this is not possible. [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 16:01, 12 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade without battery ==

Concerning the known problem with 600 series with batteries dead too soon, it is impossible to upgrade the bios without the battery because the original ibm update program doesn't allow this. I bought an old 600E without the battery. There was one workaround, but i think for the older releases of the bios, where you just extracted files and upgraded manualy, bypassing the ibm install program. The page that describes this (i lost the link) has a list of different files, that the ones found in current release so i never did figure out what to do? I would like to upgrade because i have really old bios, where ACPI doesn't cooperate so well with the operating system, either windows or linux.

If somebody finds a workaround please help. Thanks

//Edit

I've found the page on Vim's bios upgrade forum.. I don't know if it exactly for my model, since the files differ.. '''Is it possible, to upgrade bios in linux without the battery?'''

''I have found a working solution WOW on the other forum:

*** This is NOT a safe way to update the bios (disclaimer) ***

* First you need to make a BIOS update floppy disk (from the bios file from IBM - place disk in a: drive, run app and answer Y to the agreement) and then format another disk by right clicking on A: - format - make system bootdisk (assuming you have another machine spare)

* Copy all the files from the IBM Boot disk - in my case
$0029000.fl1
$0029000.fl2
FLASH2.EXE
PROD.DAT
UPDTFLSH.EXE
updtrom.exe
USERINT.EXE
UTILINFO.EXE
to the other clean bootdisk.

* Ensure that there is no config.sys and autoexec.bat so it just runs straight into DOS.

* Place the disk into the Laptop, reboot and allow the machine to load via the floppy

* At the command prompt, type "FLASH2.EXE /U" with no quotes then press enter.

The program will automatically search for the files *.FL1 & *.FL2 and load the bios first then the platform file.

The program will automatically update and perform erasing on the rom and then finish with "Update complete".

* Now reboot.

* Hold F1 down as you turn the laptop back on and go into Easy Setup under "Config" click on Initialize to ensure defaults and settings are error free.

* Save and exit...''

// EDIT

This worked on my machine.. I make no guarantees it will work on others.

The above procedure did not work on my T23 using the 1.20 bios; it kept returning error 14 (Low Battery). However, following those instructions and running "qkflash" rather than flash2 did work for the main bios, and later for the embedded controller.

--grythumn

== Bios upgrade & hidden partition ==

I have disabled the hidden partition to make more space for linux (24G). I still have Windows on the 14G partition. Is it safe to upgrade the BIOS without the hidden partition? I want to get a newer BIOS to fix the annoying fan issue. Thanks

- yes don't worry about it. bios upgrades have nothing to do with whats inside the harddrive.

== BIOS upgrade over PXE ==

Hi,

I have a Thinkpad X20 with a very early BIOS and Embedded Controller Program which I'd like to update. Currently, the only feasible way of doing this is over the network using PXE. I already have a fully functional PXE server using SYSLINUX, and have so far been able to boot the BIOS diskette image using MEMDISK, although I have not attempted to flash anything yet due to the warnings given on the page. Is there any safe way I can update both the Controller Program and the BIOS in the same session over the network in this manner? If not, what other methods would be suitable? I have a USB CD-ROM drive and could probably get hold of a USB floppy drive.

Thanks.

Update: I ended up burning CDs as described and successfully updated everything. I'd still like to know if there is a way I could do it entirely over the network, though.

== RE: grub initrd ==

"Another possibility which works even without a CD-drive or network is to boot the disk image via the grub initrd mechanism."

0) Interesting suggestion. Might be better of in its own section.

1) Could you please elaborate?

2) My first guess (pending your elaboration) would be to "chainload" the first block of the diskimage using the grub commandline, like:
blocklist (''path'')/''to''/''diskimage''
chainloader ''blockvalue''+1

But that's just a guess!

[[user:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] Fri Jul 15 12:20:47 CEST 2005

== bios/controller update sequence ==

The article says:
"If you go through the readme's on the IBM site they'll cleary state that you must update the Control Program first, then imediately update the BIOS"

When I look at the IBM udpate instructions for the T23, it says:
"If you need to update the BIOS as well as the Embedded Controller Program, update the BIOS first."

Comments?

> I would first contact IBM for clarification, but you should probably be following instructions specific to your model.

>> I did it following IBM's instructions to upgrade the BIOS first. Everything worked out great!

== Firmware upgrade for Intel minipci combo card ==

I just purchased an [[Intel 10/100 Ethernet Mini-PCI Adapter with 56K Modem]] that has an ancient (2.0.6) firmware version. I Downloaded the update file intlbtag.EXE but cabextract was unable to find any cabfiles inside it. I tried running the program via wine and that didn't work either.

Finally I ran the program on a windows machine and created a boot floppy. Then I went through the the process of converting the floppy to a bootable cd via linux and that worked like a charm. The cd successfully updated the minipc card's firmware.

Everything worked but I ended up needing a windows box to do it. Could this have been done without windows?

== Firmware upgrade for Wireless LAN MiniPCI COMBO Card using prism2_srec ==

The appropriate firmware installation program for the wlan card in my R32 can be extracted using cabextract as described in the article. It contains (besides some installation programs) a disk image (1awg06ww.IMG) that seems to be a simple dos boot disk. This image contains 3 .hex files (id010001.hex, pk010100.hex, sf010402.hex) that are recognized by prism2_srec to be "srec"-files. Trying to load them to RAM yields:

{{cmdroot|prism2_srec -v -r wlan0 sf010402.hex}}
S3 CRC-16 generation record: start=0x007E1800 len=65642 prog=1
Start address 0x00000000
srec summary for sf010402.hex
Component: 0x001f 1.4.2 (station firmware)
<snip>
Interface compatibility information:
role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
role=Actor variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
<snip>
Wireless LAN card information:
Components:
NICID: 0x8013 v1.0.0
PRIID: 0x0015 v1.0.7
STAID: 0x001f v1.3.6
Interface compatibility information:
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
PRI role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
STA role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
PRI role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
<snip>
This image is not meant to be downloaded to volatile memory.
Incompatible update data.

Has anyone tried to flash this device using prism2_srec yet?
What bothers me is, that the upgrade is for many different parts of the combo card. Does anyone have an opinion on whether this could work?

OK, I took the risk and successfully upgraded my station firmware, BUT when I tried to upgrade the primary firmware the system froze!!! The thinkpad won't start up with the miniPCI card inserted and all efforts to reflash it using the original DOS boot image failed!!!

I'm quite sure the system freeze was not caused directly by prism2_srec, because I have noticed rare system freezes since I have been using my PCMCIA wireless card.
Anyway, if anyone should own a TP R32, I'd be glad if he could tell me the base address of the Wlan card, or it's PCI address.

Thinkpad r32 owner here. I want to upgrade the firmware as well. If you need any information just send an email to haftbar[a]gmail.com [[User:Quickie|Quickie]] 02:12, 1 February 2006 (CET)

==Reorganization suggestion==
The Downloads section is rather long. Would it be an idea to put it on a separate, new page (say: BIOS_Downloads) and link to that new page from this page?

[[User:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] 21:27, 15 Oct 2005 (CEST)

> I agree with this suggestion.

== Upgrading BIOS and Embedded Control Program from Win XP ==

I'm trying to upgrade the BIOS and Embedded Controller Program from Windows XP following the instructions on the Lenovo website. The problem is the instructions are not very clear about this. The instructions basically state that I must upgrade them at the same time because the Control Program does not work with the older BIOS and the BIOS does not work with the older Control Program. They also state that I should upgrade the Control Program first.

But that means I must boot into XP after having upgraded the Control Program but with the older BIOS in order to then update the BIOS. But if this works then they are actually compatible and there's a contradiction. Am I missing something? I just want to make sure I don't end up with a non-functioning unit.

I have an X23 and want the latest BIOS (v 1.32) and Control Program (v 1.30).

Maybe there should be a note about this in the article? Or maybe I'm the only one who is this stupid :)

Update: I talked to Lenovo support. The situation apparently is that though the description says that the newer control program is not compatible with the older BIOS, they are not so incompatible as to cause the machine to stop working so it is actually possible to use incompatible versions of BIOS and control program. In fact according to the support person it makes no difference if the BIOS is upgraded before the control program or vice versa. So I upgraded the control program using the executable running in Windows XP, which rebooted the computer to perform the upgrade and then I booted Windows again to upgrade the BIOS in the same manner and it all worked fine. If anyone reading this finds it useful maybe you can put it in the article? Or if you find it superfluous just delete this section.

--[[User:xphinx|xphinx]] 12 March 2007

I have an X22 with BIOS version 1.21 and Embedded Controller version 1.17 and using the steps described by you, I succesfully updated my bios to the lastest versions from WindowsXP (BIOS v1.32 / EC v1.30)
Thanks!

== BIOS upgrade for T21 with T20 BIOS ==

Hi, I bought a used T21 recently (type 2647-8AU), and would like to update the BIOS to the latest version, but there's a problem: this T21 appears to have a T20 BIOS (IYET50WW, a/k/a T20 BIOS version 1.11). When I try updating this BIOS using one of IBM's T21 updaters - I tried KZET34WW/v1.16 (the latest one) and KZET16WW/v1.01 (the earliest one) - I get the following message:

<blockquote>
''The diskette in the default drive will not run on this system. Your system is now locked. To restart your system, press Ctrl+Alt+Del.''
</blockquote>

I suspect this message appears because the existing BIOS is a T20 BIOS.

There would appear to be two options: either use the most recent T20 updater (IYET61WW, a/k/a T20 v1.22), or find a way to defeat the block in the KZET34WW/v1.16 T21 updater. Obviously either option is risky in the absence of more information and/or detective work. And I don't know enough about T2x-series hardware to hazard a guess (i.e., were early T21s just T20s with a speed bump, did some T21s get T20 BIOSes by mistake due to factory error, or are the T20 and T21 similar enough that it doesn't matter whether a T20 or T21 BIOS is used).

Some relevant data gleaned from the stickers on the case bottom and the current BIOS:

<blockquote>
* '''Type:''' 2647-8AU (T21 with 800-MHz processor)
* '''S/N:''' 78-0GL1Z (zero-G-L-one-zed)
* '''Manufacture date:''' 03/2001
* '''BIOS version:''' IYET50WW (T20 BIOS v1.11)
* '''System unit S/N:''' (appears to be blank)
* '''System board S/N:''' J1HHS15CL5C
* '''System board P/N:''' 08K3747 (printed on motherboard)
</blockquote>

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

-Linux Spice

P.S. At first I thought this might be a Frankenstein ThinkPad with a T21 case and a T20 logic board - I did buy it used, after all - but it does have an 800-MHz processor, which was never an option for the T20 (both the BIOS and Linux report it as such), and all the other equipment checks out (except for the hard drive, which was replaced with a 40-GB model).

== BIOS format ==

Not sure if this is the right place, but...
Does anybody know what the formats for the various files are in the bios package (or, even better, the bios.bak file that gets dumped on your disk before updating)? I'm getting progressivel lower and lower level in figuring out just what happens when the computer boots, and the BIOS is the last step... (BTW, I have an x60s)

-- Unknown

Yes. It is a binary dump. Sometimes, there is junk in the start of the file. This should be data enough for you to figure out what you need.

--[[User:Hmh|hmh]] 13:30, 26 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS update gone bad ==

I tried to flash my [[:Category:600|ThinkPad 600]]'s bios with catastrophalic outcome; now the machine is unable to boot. I, being overly stupid and too self-confident, ignored all warnings about the media containing the bios image not being write-protected (I used one partition of the disk, in which I had installed FreeDOS). During the updating process, the machine started to write screens full of random characters in cyan coloured background. At that point I knew it was b0rked. I asked my friend about what to do now, he said I could open the machine up, locate the bios chip and use EPROM programmer/burner to write the bios image to the chip. He also said that because my machine is very old, there are probably not safeguards like dual bios or emergency bios update from floppy disk on boot. He continued by saying that the bios update file images from IBM/Lenovo website might not be actual , "pure" binaries which could be burned directly to the chip, instead they may contain some vendor-specific checksums which must be taken into account. In ThinkWiki there seems to be no page about bios flashing gone bad and restoring the machine to working condition. Or is there? I really need your help with this; I think I'm able to locate the bios, take it off and find a working EPROM burner, but where can I get a clean BIOS image without the vendor checksums? I'd be grateful for any references.

--[[User:Usv|Usv]] 12:45, 31 March 2007 (CEST)

== Upgraded BIOS using USB flash drive ==

I flashed my Thinkpad X41 succesfully with 2.09 BIOS using bootable USB flash drive with DOS 6.22 system files. (I guess Freedos would work aswell). I had such key laying around so I can't help you with making one (i used windows HP USB key format utility to make it long long time ago)
Everything is quite simple once you have USB key and are able to boot DOS from it.

I downloaded the non-diskette ThinkPad BIOS update utility (74uj15us.exe) from lenovo support site and extrated disk image from it using cabextract:
{{cmduser|cabextract -F "*.IMG" 74uj15us.exe}}

I mounted the image file (74UJ15US.IMG):
{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/mnt}}
{{cmdroot|mount -loop o 74UJ15US.IMG /tmp/mnt}}

I mounted the usb key and made a directory for ibm flash utility files under it:
{{cmdroot|mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbflash}}
{{cmdroot|mkdir /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

I copied the contents of /tmp/mnt to /mnt/usbflash/ibm:
{{cmdroot|cp /tmp/mnt/*.* /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

Then I unmounted the USB stick and rebooted from it to DOS (F12 during boot -> USB HDD). 
In the DOS Prompt: 
C:\cd ibm
C:\IBM\flash2 /U
I waited for about 1 minute, then my thinkpad made two beeps to signal that the flashing was complete.
--[[User:ladoga|ladoga]] 04:56 17 Apr 2007

Talk:BIOS Upgrade

2007-04-17T02:07:21Z

Ladoga: /* Upgraded BIOS using USB flash drive */

== Dead link ==

The link to the FreeDOS floppy (http://www.ankreuzen.de/freedos/files/fd9sr1/fdos1440.zip), which is needed to upgrade the BIOS from a CD, is dead. Is the information still valid? And is there a different source for the floppy image? [[User:Jamesavery|Jamesavery]] 05:49, 18 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade using WINE ==

Does anyone think this would be possible? [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 08:58, 28 January 2007 (CET)

: No this is not possible. [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 16:01, 12 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade without battery ==

Concerning the known problem with 600 series with batteries dead too soon, it is impossible to upgrade the bios without the battery because the original ibm update program doesn't allow this. I bought an old 600E without the battery. There was one workaround, but i think for the older releases of the bios, where you just extracted files and upgraded manualy, bypassing the ibm install program. The page that describes this (i lost the link) has a list of different files, that the ones found in current release so i never did figure out what to do? I would like to upgrade because i have really old bios, where ACPI doesn't cooperate so well with the operating system, either windows or linux.

If somebody finds a workaround please help. Thanks

//Edit

I've found the page on Vim's bios upgrade forum.. I don't know if it exactly for my model, since the files differ.. '''Is it possible, to upgrade bios in linux without the battery?'''

''I have found a working solution WOW on the other forum:

*** This is NOT a safe way to update the bios (disclaimer) ***

* First you need to make a BIOS update floppy disk (from the bios file from IBM - place disk in a: drive, run app and answer Y to the agreement) and then format another disk by right clicking on A: - format - make system bootdisk (assuming you have another machine spare)

* Copy all the files from the IBM Boot disk - in my case
$0029000.fl1
$0029000.fl2
FLASH2.EXE
PROD.DAT
UPDTFLSH.EXE
updtrom.exe
USERINT.EXE
UTILINFO.EXE
to the other clean bootdisk.

* Ensure that there is no config.sys and autoexec.bat so it just runs straight into DOS.

* Place the disk into the Laptop, reboot and allow the machine to load via the floppy

* At the command prompt, type "FLASH2.EXE /U" with no quotes then press enter.

The program will automatically search for the files *.FL1 & *.FL2 and load the bios first then the platform file.

The program will automatically update and perform erasing on the rom and then finish with "Update complete".

* Now reboot.

* Hold F1 down as you turn the laptop back on and go into Easy Setup under "Config" click on Initialize to ensure defaults and settings are error free.

* Save and exit...''

// EDIT

This worked on my machine.. I make no guarantees it will work on others.

The above procedure did not work on my T23 using the 1.20 bios; it kept returning error 14 (Low Battery). However, following those instructions and running "qkflash" rather than flash2 did work for the main bios, and later for the embedded controller.

--grythumn

== Bios upgrade & hidden partition ==

I have disabled the hidden partition to make more space for linux (24G). I still have Windows on the 14G partition. Is it safe to upgrade the BIOS without the hidden partition? I want to get a newer BIOS to fix the annoying fan issue. Thanks

- yes don't worry about it. bios upgrades have nothing to do with whats inside the harddrive.

== BIOS upgrade over PXE ==

Hi,

I have a Thinkpad X20 with a very early BIOS and Embedded Controller Program which I'd like to update. Currently, the only feasible way of doing this is over the network using PXE. I already have a fully functional PXE server using SYSLINUX, and have so far been able to boot the BIOS diskette image using MEMDISK, although I have not attempted to flash anything yet due to the warnings given on the page. Is there any safe way I can update both the Controller Program and the BIOS in the same session over the network in this manner? If not, what other methods would be suitable? I have a USB CD-ROM drive and could probably get hold of a USB floppy drive.

Thanks.

Update: I ended up burning CDs as described and successfully updated everything. I'd still like to know if there is a way I could do it entirely over the network, though.

== RE: grub initrd ==

"Another possibility which works even without a CD-drive or network is to boot the disk image via the grub initrd mechanism."

0) Interesting suggestion. Might be better of in its own section.

1) Could you please elaborate?

2) My first guess (pending your elaboration) would be to "chainload" the first block of the diskimage using the grub commandline, like:
blocklist (''path'')/''to''/''diskimage''
chainloader ''blockvalue''+1

But that's just a guess!

[[user:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] Fri Jul 15 12:20:47 CEST 2005

== bios/controller update sequence ==

The article says:
"If you go through the readme's on the IBM site they'll cleary state that you must update the Control Program first, then imediately update the BIOS"

When I look at the IBM udpate instructions for the T23, it says:
"If you need to update the BIOS as well as the Embedded Controller Program, update the BIOS first."

Comments?

> I would first contact IBM for clarification, but you should probably be following instructions specific to your model.

>> I did it following IBM's instructions to upgrade the BIOS first. Everything worked out great!

== Firmware upgrade for Intel minipci combo card ==

I just purchased an [[Intel 10/100 Ethernet Mini-PCI Adapter with 56K Modem]] that has an ancient (2.0.6) firmware version. I Downloaded the update file intlbtag.EXE but cabextract was unable to find any cabfiles inside it. I tried running the program via wine and that didn't work either.

Finally I ran the program on a windows machine and created a boot floppy. Then I went through the the process of converting the floppy to a bootable cd via linux and that worked like a charm. The cd successfully updated the minipc card's firmware.

Everything worked but I ended up needing a windows box to do it. Could this have been done without windows?

== Firmware upgrade for Wireless LAN MiniPCI COMBO Card using prism2_srec ==

The appropriate firmware installation program for the wlan card in my R32 can be extracted using cabextract as described in the article. It contains (besides some installation programs) a disk image (1awg06ww.IMG) that seems to be a simple dos boot disk. This image contains 3 .hex files (id010001.hex, pk010100.hex, sf010402.hex) that are recognized by prism2_srec to be "srec"-files. Trying to load them to RAM yields:

{{cmdroot|prism2_srec -v -r wlan0 sf010402.hex}}
S3 CRC-16 generation record: start=0x007E1800 len=65642 prog=1
Start address 0x00000000
srec summary for sf010402.hex
Component: 0x001f 1.4.2 (station firmware)
<snip>
Interface compatibility information:
role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
role=Actor variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
<snip>
Wireless LAN card information:
Components:
NICID: 0x8013 v1.0.0
PRIID: 0x0015 v1.0.7
STAID: 0x001f v1.3.6
Interface compatibility information:
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
PRI role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
STA role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
PRI role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
<snip>
This image is not meant to be downloaded to volatile memory.
Incompatible update data.

Has anyone tried to flash this device using prism2_srec yet?
What bothers me is, that the upgrade is for many different parts of the combo card. Does anyone have an opinion on whether this could work?

OK, I took the risk and successfully upgraded my station firmware, BUT when I tried to upgrade the primary firmware the system froze!!! The thinkpad won't start up with the miniPCI card inserted and all efforts to reflash it using the original DOS boot image failed!!!

I'm quite sure the system freeze was not caused directly by prism2_srec, because I have noticed rare system freezes since I have been using my PCMCIA wireless card.
Anyway, if anyone should own a TP R32, I'd be glad if he could tell me the base address of the Wlan card, or it's PCI address.

Thinkpad r32 owner here. I want to upgrade the firmware as well. If you need any information just send an email to haftbar[a]gmail.com [[User:Quickie|Quickie]] 02:12, 1 February 2006 (CET)

==Reorganization suggestion==
The Downloads section is rather long. Would it be an idea to put it on a separate, new page (say: BIOS_Downloads) and link to that new page from this page?

[[User:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] 21:27, 15 Oct 2005 (CEST)

> I agree with this suggestion.

== Upgrading BIOS and Embedded Control Program from Win XP ==

I'm trying to upgrade the BIOS and Embedded Controller Program from Windows XP following the instructions on the Lenovo website. The problem is the instructions are not very clear about this. The instructions basically state that I must upgrade them at the same time because the Control Program does not work with the older BIOS and the BIOS does not work with the older Control Program. They also state that I should upgrade the Control Program first.

But that means I must boot into XP after having upgraded the Control Program but with the older BIOS in order to then update the BIOS. But if this works then they are actually compatible and there's a contradiction. Am I missing something? I just want to make sure I don't end up with a non-functioning unit.

I have an X23 and want the latest BIOS (v 1.32) and Control Program (v 1.30).

Maybe there should be a note about this in the article? Or maybe I'm the only one who is this stupid :)

Update: I talked to Lenovo support. The situation apparently is that though the description says that the newer control program is not compatible with the older BIOS, they are not so incompatible as to cause the machine to stop working so it is actually possible to use incompatible versions of BIOS and control program. In fact according to the support person it makes no difference if the BIOS is upgraded before the control program or vice versa. So I upgraded the control program using the executable running in Windows XP, which rebooted the computer to perform the upgrade and then I booted Windows again to upgrade the BIOS in the same manner and it all worked fine. If anyone reading this finds it useful maybe you can put it in the article? Or if you find it superfluous just delete this section.

--[[User:xphinx|xphinx]] 12 March 2007

I have an X22 with BIOS version 1.21 and Embedded Controller version 1.17 and using the steps described by you, I succesfully updated my bios to the lastest versions from WindowsXP (BIOS v1.32 / EC v1.30)
Thanks!

== BIOS upgrade for T21 with T20 BIOS ==

Hi, I bought a used T21 recently (type 2647-8AU), and would like to update the BIOS to the latest version, but there's a problem: this T21 appears to have a T20 BIOS (IYET50WW, a/k/a T20 BIOS version 1.11). When I try updating this BIOS using one of IBM's T21 updaters - I tried KZET34WW/v1.16 (the latest one) and KZET16WW/v1.01 (the earliest one) - I get the following message:

<blockquote>
''The diskette in the default drive will not run on this system. Your system is now locked. To restart your system, press Ctrl+Alt+Del.''
</blockquote>

I suspect this message appears because the existing BIOS is a T20 BIOS.

There would appear to be two options: either use the most recent T20 updater (IYET61WW, a/k/a T20 v1.22), or find a way to defeat the block in the KZET34WW/v1.16 T21 updater. Obviously either option is risky in the absence of more information and/or detective work. And I don't know enough about T2x-series hardware to hazard a guess (i.e., were early T21s just T20s with a speed bump, did some T21s get T20 BIOSes by mistake due to factory error, or are the T20 and T21 similar enough that it doesn't matter whether a T20 or T21 BIOS is used).

Some relevant data gleaned from the stickers on the case bottom and the current BIOS:

<blockquote>
* '''Type:''' 2647-8AU (T21 with 800-MHz processor)
* '''S/N:''' 78-0GL1Z (zero-G-L-one-zed)
* '''Manufacture date:''' 03/2001
* '''BIOS version:''' IYET50WW (T20 BIOS v1.11)
* '''System unit S/N:''' (appears to be blank)
* '''System board S/N:''' J1HHS15CL5C
* '''System board P/N:''' 08K3747 (printed on motherboard)
</blockquote>

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

-Linux Spice

P.S. At first I thought this might be a Frankenstein ThinkPad with a T21 case and a T20 logic board - I did buy it used, after all - but it does have an 800-MHz processor, which was never an option for the T20 (both the BIOS and Linux report it as such), and all the other equipment checks out (except for the hard drive, which was replaced with a 40-GB model).

== BIOS format ==

Not sure if this is the right place, but...
Does anybody know what the formats for the various files are in the bios package (or, even better, the bios.bak file that gets dumped on your disk before updating)? I'm getting progressivel lower and lower level in figuring out just what happens when the computer boots, and the BIOS is the last step... (BTW, I have an x60s)

-- Unknown

Yes. It is a binary dump. Sometimes, there is junk in the start of the file. This should be data enough for you to figure out what you need.

--[[User:Hmh|hmh]] 13:30, 26 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS update gone bad ==

I tried to flash my [[:Category:600|ThinkPad 600]]'s bios with catastrophalic outcome; now the machine is unable to boot. I, being overly stupid and too self-confident, ignored all warnings about the media containing the bios image not being write-protected (I used one partition of the disk, in which I had installed FreeDOS). During the updating process, the machine started to write screens full of random characters in cyan coloured background. At that point I knew it was b0rked. I asked my friend about what to do now, he said I could open the machine up, locate the bios chip and use EPROM programmer/burner to write the bios image to the chip. He also said that because my machine is very old, there are probably not safeguards like dual bios or emergency bios update from floppy disk on boot. He continued by saying that the bios update file images from IBM/Lenovo website might not be actual , "pure" binaries which could be burned directly to the chip, instead they may contain some vendor-specific checksums which must be taken into account. In ThinkWiki there seems to be no page about bios flashing gone bad and restoring the machine to working condition. Or is there? I really need your help with this; I think I'm able to locate the bios, take it off and find a working EPROM burner, but where can I get a clean BIOS image without the vendor checksums? I'd be grateful for any references.

--[[User:Usv|Usv]] 12:45, 31 March 2007 (CEST)

== Upgraded BIOS using USB flash drive ==

I flashed my Thinkpad X41 succesfully with 2.09 BIOS using bootable USB flash drive with DOS 6.22 system files. (I guess Freedos would work aswell). I had such key laying around so I can't help you with making one (i used windows HP USB key format utility to make it long long time ago)
Everything is quite simple once you have USB key and are able to boot DOS from it.

I downloaded the non-diskette ThinkPad BIOS update utility (74uj15us.exe) from lenovo support site and extrated disk image from it using cabextract:
:{{cmduser|cabextract -F "*.IMG" 74uj15us.exe}}

I mounted the image file (74UJ15US.IMG):
:{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/mnt}}
:{{cmdroot|mount -loop o 74UJ15US.IMG /tmp/mnt}}

I mounted the usb key and made a directory for ibm flash utility files under it:
:{{cmdroot|mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbflash}}
:{{cmdroot|mkdir /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

I copied the contents of /tmp/mnt to /mnt/usbflash/ibm:
:{{cmdroot|cp /tmp/mnt/*.* /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

Then I unmounted the USB stick and rebooted from it to DOS (F12 during boot -> USB HDD). 
In the DOS Prompt: 
C:\cd ibm
C:\IBM\flash2 /U
I waited for about 1 minute, then my thinkpad made two beeps to signal that the flashing was complete.
--[[User:ladoga|ladoga]] 04:56 17 Apr 2007

Talk:BIOS Upgrade

2007-04-17T02:05:16Z

Ladoga:

== Dead link ==

The link to the FreeDOS floppy (http://www.ankreuzen.de/freedos/files/fd9sr1/fdos1440.zip), which is needed to upgrade the BIOS from a CD, is dead. Is the information still valid? And is there a different source for the floppy image? [[User:Jamesavery|Jamesavery]] 05:49, 18 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade using WINE ==

Does anyone think this would be possible? [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 08:58, 28 January 2007 (CET)

: No this is not possible. [[User:Mcalwell|Mcalwell]] 16:01, 12 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS upgrade without battery ==

Concerning the known problem with 600 series with batteries dead too soon, it is impossible to upgrade the bios without the battery because the original ibm update program doesn't allow this. I bought an old 600E without the battery. There was one workaround, but i think for the older releases of the bios, where you just extracted files and upgraded manualy, bypassing the ibm install program. The page that describes this (i lost the link) has a list of different files, that the ones found in current release so i never did figure out what to do? I would like to upgrade because i have really old bios, where ACPI doesn't cooperate so well with the operating system, either windows or linux.

If somebody finds a workaround please help. Thanks

//Edit

I've found the page on Vim's bios upgrade forum.. I don't know if it exactly for my model, since the files differ.. '''Is it possible, to upgrade bios in linux without the battery?'''

''I have found a working solution WOW on the other forum:

*** This is NOT a safe way to update the bios (disclaimer) ***

* First you need to make a BIOS update floppy disk (from the bios file from IBM - place disk in a: drive, run app and answer Y to the agreement) and then format another disk by right clicking on A: - format - make system bootdisk (assuming you have another machine spare)

* Copy all the files from the IBM Boot disk - in my case
$0029000.fl1
$0029000.fl2
FLASH2.EXE
PROD.DAT
UPDTFLSH.EXE
updtrom.exe
USERINT.EXE
UTILINFO.EXE
to the other clean bootdisk.

* Ensure that there is no config.sys and autoexec.bat so it just runs straight into DOS.

* Place the disk into the Laptop, reboot and allow the machine to load via the floppy

* At the command prompt, type "FLASH2.EXE /U" with no quotes then press enter.

The program will automatically search for the files *.FL1 & *.FL2 and load the bios first then the platform file.

The program will automatically update and perform erasing on the rom and then finish with "Update complete".

* Now reboot.

* Hold F1 down as you turn the laptop back on and go into Easy Setup under "Config" click on Initialize to ensure defaults and settings are error free.

* Save and exit...''

// EDIT

This worked on my machine.. I make no guarantees it will work on others.

The above procedure did not work on my T23 using the 1.20 bios; it kept returning error 14 (Low Battery). However, following those instructions and running "qkflash" rather than flash2 did work for the main bios, and later for the embedded controller.

--grythumn

== Bios upgrade & hidden partition ==

I have disabled the hidden partition to make more space for linux (24G). I still have Windows on the 14G partition. Is it safe to upgrade the BIOS without the hidden partition? I want to get a newer BIOS to fix the annoying fan issue. Thanks

- yes don't worry about it. bios upgrades have nothing to do with whats inside the harddrive.

== BIOS upgrade over PXE ==

Hi,

I have a Thinkpad X20 with a very early BIOS and Embedded Controller Program which I'd like to update. Currently, the only feasible way of doing this is over the network using PXE. I already have a fully functional PXE server using SYSLINUX, and have so far been able to boot the BIOS diskette image using MEMDISK, although I have not attempted to flash anything yet due to the warnings given on the page. Is there any safe way I can update both the Controller Program and the BIOS in the same session over the network in this manner? If not, what other methods would be suitable? I have a USB CD-ROM drive and could probably get hold of a USB floppy drive.

Thanks.

Update: I ended up burning CDs as described and successfully updated everything. I'd still like to know if there is a way I could do it entirely over the network, though.

== RE: grub initrd ==

"Another possibility which works even without a CD-drive or network is to boot the disk image via the grub initrd mechanism."

0) Interesting suggestion. Might be better of in its own section.

1) Could you please elaborate?

2) My first guess (pending your elaboration) would be to "chainload" the first block of the diskimage using the grub commandline, like:
blocklist (''path'')/''to''/''diskimage''
chainloader ''blockvalue''+1

But that's just a guess!

[[user:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] Fri Jul 15 12:20:47 CEST 2005

== bios/controller update sequence ==

The article says:
"If you go through the readme's on the IBM site they'll cleary state that you must update the Control Program first, then imediately update the BIOS"

When I look at the IBM udpate instructions for the T23, it says:
"If you need to update the BIOS as well as the Embedded Controller Program, update the BIOS first."

Comments?

> I would first contact IBM for clarification, but you should probably be following instructions specific to your model.

>> I did it following IBM's instructions to upgrade the BIOS first. Everything worked out great!

== Firmware upgrade for Intel minipci combo card ==

I just purchased an [[Intel 10/100 Ethernet Mini-PCI Adapter with 56K Modem]] that has an ancient (2.0.6) firmware version. I Downloaded the update file intlbtag.EXE but cabextract was unable to find any cabfiles inside it. I tried running the program via wine and that didn't work either.

Finally I ran the program on a windows machine and created a boot floppy. Then I went through the the process of converting the floppy to a bootable cd via linux and that worked like a charm. The cd successfully updated the minipc card's firmware.

Everything worked but I ended up needing a windows box to do it. Could this have been done without windows?

== Firmware upgrade for Wireless LAN MiniPCI COMBO Card using prism2_srec ==

The appropriate firmware installation program for the wlan card in my R32 can be extracted using cabextract as described in the article. It contains (besides some installation programs) a disk image (1awg06ww.IMG) that seems to be a simple dos boot disk. This image contains 3 .hex files (id010001.hex, pk010100.hex, sf010402.hex) that are recognized by prism2_srec to be "srec"-files. Trying to load them to RAM yields:

{{cmdroot|prism2_srec -v -r wlan0 sf010402.hex}}
S3 CRC-16 generation record: start=0x007E1800 len=65642 prog=1
Start address 0x00000000
srec summary for sf010402.hex
Component: 0x001f 1.4.2 (station firmware)
<snip>
Interface compatibility information:
role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
role=Actor variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
<snip>
Wireless LAN card information:
Components:
NICID: 0x8013 v1.0.0
PRIID: 0x0015 v1.0.7
STAID: 0x001f v1.3.6
Interface compatibility information:
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
PRI role=Supplier variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
PRI role=Supplier variant=1 range=4-4 iface=Primary Firmware-Driver (3)
STA role=Supplier variant=1 range=1-9 iface=Station Firmware-Driver (4)
PRI role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=2 range=1-1 iface=Controller-Firmware (2)
STA role=Actor variant=1 range=1-1 iface=Modem-Firmware (1)
<snip>
This image is not meant to be downloaded to volatile memory.
Incompatible update data.

Has anyone tried to flash this device using prism2_srec yet?
What bothers me is, that the upgrade is for many different parts of the combo card. Does anyone have an opinion on whether this could work?

OK, I took the risk and successfully upgraded my station firmware, BUT when I tried to upgrade the primary firmware the system froze!!! The thinkpad won't start up with the miniPCI card inserted and all efforts to reflash it using the original DOS boot image failed!!!

I'm quite sure the system freeze was not caused directly by prism2_srec, because I have noticed rare system freezes since I have been using my PCMCIA wireless card.
Anyway, if anyone should own a TP R32, I'd be glad if he could tell me the base address of the Wlan card, or it's PCI address.

Thinkpad r32 owner here. I want to upgrade the firmware as well. If you need any information just send an email to haftbar[a]gmail.com [[User:Quickie|Quickie]] 02:12, 1 February 2006 (CET)

==Reorganization suggestion==
The Downloads section is rather long. Would it be an idea to put it on a separate, new page (say: BIOS_Downloads) and link to that new page from this page?

[[User:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] 21:27, 15 Oct 2005 (CEST)

> I agree with this suggestion.

== Upgrading BIOS and Embedded Control Program from Win XP ==

I'm trying to upgrade the BIOS and Embedded Controller Program from Windows XP following the instructions on the Lenovo website. The problem is the instructions are not very clear about this. The instructions basically state that I must upgrade them at the same time because the Control Program does not work with the older BIOS and the BIOS does not work with the older Control Program. They also state that I should upgrade the Control Program first.

But that means I must boot into XP after having upgraded the Control Program but with the older BIOS in order to then update the BIOS. But if this works then they are actually compatible and there's a contradiction. Am I missing something? I just want to make sure I don't end up with a non-functioning unit.

I have an X23 and want the latest BIOS (v 1.32) and Control Program (v 1.30).

Maybe there should be a note about this in the article? Or maybe I'm the only one who is this stupid :)

Update: I talked to Lenovo support. The situation apparently is that though the description says that the newer control program is not compatible with the older BIOS, they are not so incompatible as to cause the machine to stop working so it is actually possible to use incompatible versions of BIOS and control program. In fact according to the support person it makes no difference if the BIOS is upgraded before the control program or vice versa. So I upgraded the control program using the executable running in Windows XP, which rebooted the computer to perform the upgrade and then I booted Windows again to upgrade the BIOS in the same manner and it all worked fine. If anyone reading this finds it useful maybe you can put it in the article? Or if you find it superfluous just delete this section.

--[[User:xphinx|xphinx]] 12 March 2007

I have an X22 with BIOS version 1.21 and Embedded Controller version 1.17 and using the steps described by you, I succesfully updated my bios to the lastest versions from WindowsXP (BIOS v1.32 / EC v1.30)
Thanks!

== BIOS upgrade for T21 with T20 BIOS ==

Hi, I bought a used T21 recently (type 2647-8AU), and would like to update the BIOS to the latest version, but there's a problem: this T21 appears to have a T20 BIOS (IYET50WW, a/k/a T20 BIOS version 1.11). When I try updating this BIOS using one of IBM's T21 updaters - I tried KZET34WW/v1.16 (the latest one) and KZET16WW/v1.01 (the earliest one) - I get the following message:

<blockquote>
''The diskette in the default drive will not run on this system. Your system is now locked. To restart your system, press Ctrl+Alt+Del.''
</blockquote>

I suspect this message appears because the existing BIOS is a T20 BIOS.

There would appear to be two options: either use the most recent T20 updater (IYET61WW, a/k/a T20 v1.22), or find a way to defeat the block in the KZET34WW/v1.16 T21 updater. Obviously either option is risky in the absence of more information and/or detective work. And I don't know enough about T2x-series hardware to hazard a guess (i.e., were early T21s just T20s with a speed bump, did some T21s get T20 BIOSes by mistake due to factory error, or are the T20 and T21 similar enough that it doesn't matter whether a T20 or T21 BIOS is used).

Some relevant data gleaned from the stickers on the case bottom and the current BIOS:

<blockquote>
* '''Type:''' 2647-8AU (T21 with 800-MHz processor)
* '''S/N:''' 78-0GL1Z (zero-G-L-one-zed)
* '''Manufacture date:''' 03/2001
* '''BIOS version:''' IYET50WW (T20 BIOS v1.11)
* '''System unit S/N:''' (appears to be blank)
* '''System board S/N:''' J1HHS15CL5C
* '''System board P/N:''' 08K3747 (printed on motherboard)
</blockquote>

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

-Linux Spice

P.S. At first I thought this might be a Frankenstein ThinkPad with a T21 case and a T20 logic board - I did buy it used, after all - but it does have an 800-MHz processor, which was never an option for the T20 (both the BIOS and Linux report it as such), and all the other equipment checks out (except for the hard drive, which was replaced with a 40-GB model).

== BIOS format ==

Not sure if this is the right place, but...
Does anybody know what the formats for the various files are in the bios package (or, even better, the bios.bak file that gets dumped on your disk before updating)? I'm getting progressivel lower and lower level in figuring out just what happens when the computer boots, and the BIOS is the last step... (BTW, I have an x60s)

-- Unknown

Yes. It is a binary dump. Sometimes, there is junk in the start of the file. This should be data enough for you to figure out what you need.

--[[User:Hmh|hmh]] 13:30, 26 February 2007 (CET)

== BIOS update gone bad ==

I tried to flash my [[:Category:600|ThinkPad 600]]'s bios with catastrophalic outcome; now the machine is unable to boot. I, being overly stupid and too self-confident, ignored all warnings about the media containing the bios image not being write-protected (I used one partition of the disk, in which I had installed FreeDOS). During the updating process, the machine started to write screens full of random characters in cyan coloured background. At that point I knew it was b0rked. I asked my friend about what to do now, he said I could open the machine up, locate the bios chip and use EPROM programmer/burner to write the bios image to the chip. He also said that because my machine is very old, there are probably not safeguards like dual bios or emergency bios update from floppy disk on boot. He continued by saying that the bios update file images from IBM/Lenovo website might not be actual , "pure" binaries which could be burned directly to the chip, instead they may contain some vendor-specific checksums which must be taken into account. In ThinkWiki there seems to be no page about bios flashing gone bad and restoring the machine to working condition. Or is there? I really need your help with this; I think I'm able to locate the bios, take it off and find a working EPROM burner, but where can I get a clean BIOS image without the vendor checksums? I'd be grateful for any references.

--[[User:Usv|Usv]] 12:45, 31 March 2007 (CEST)

== Upgraded BIOS using USB flash drive ==

I flashed my Thinkpad X41 succesfully with 2.09 BIOS using bootable USB flash drive with DOS 6.22 system files. (I guess Freedos would work aswell). I had such key laying around so I can't help you with making one (i used windows HP USB key format utility to make it long long time ago)
Everything is quite simple once you have USB key and are able to boot DOS from it.

I downloaded the non-diskette ThinkPad BIOS update utility (74uj15us.exe) from lenovo support site and extrated disk image from it using cabextract:
:{{cmduser|cabextract -F "*.IMG" 74uj15us.exe}}

I mounted the image file (74UJ15US.IMG):
:{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/mnt}}
:{{cmdroot|mount -loop o 74UJ15US.IMG /tmp/mnt}}

I mounted the usb key and made a directory for ibm flash utility files under it:
:{{cmdroot|mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbflash}}
:{{cmdroot|mkdir /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

I copied the contents of /tmp/mnt to /mnt/usbflash/ibm:
:{{cmdroot|cp /tmp/mnt/*.* /mnt/usbflash/ibm}}

Then I unmounted the USB stick and rebooted from it to DOS (F12 during boot -> USB HDD). 
In the DOS Prompt: 
C:\cd ibm
C:\IBM\flash2 /U
I waited for about 1 minute, then my thinkpad made two beeps to signal that the flashing was complete.
--[[User:ladoga|ladoga]] 12:45, 31 March 2007 (CEST)

BIOS Upgrade

2007-04-16T09:34:19Z

Ladoga: /* Updating via Grub and a Floppy Image */

__TOC__

This page is meant to describe ways to update the BIOS on a ThinkPad that only runs Linux for users that don't have ready access to Windows. If you have Windows on your ThinkPad you can just boot into it and follow instructions on the IBM website.

{{NOTE| In one case ([[APM setup on a type 2379 ThinkPad T40]]) it was not possible to upgrade the BIOS from Windows XP; a downgrade to Windows 98 was required to successfully run the BIOS upgrade app. The symptoms in this case were that, once the files had been extracted to the hard disk, and the machine was to reboot into the upgrade app, it would beep and hang just before reboot, requiring a power cycle. Once the power was cycled, it would simply reboot back into XP without performing any BIOS upgrade actions. So even if you have Windows, you may still need to use the info on this page.}}

----
==Before You Begin==
Updating the BIOS in Linux (with few exceptions) '''is not officially supported''' by IBM. However there are work arounds.

{{WARN|By following any of the instructions here you are accepting the '''very real risk''' of turning your thinkpad into a big expensive paper weight, as a firmware update gone wrong can create unfixable problems.

'''Proceed at your own risk!'''

It is also '''important''' to understand that all newer thinkpads have 2 seperate firmwares, the BIOS and the Control Program. A specific version of the Control Program will only work with specific versions of the BIOS. The IBM documentation is sometimes confusing about the order of update. Updating the Control Program first, then the BIOS seems to be the correct order. Make sure to do the updates immediately following each other, otherwise you risk turning your thinkpad into a very nice paper weight.}}

==BIOS Upgrade Paths==

For every firmware (either BIOS or Control Program) update on the IBM site there are two different firmware update programs provided. A list of links to firmware downloads can be found at [[BIOS Upgrade Downloads]] for nearly all Thinkpad Models.

===The Diskette Updater===

This installer appears to be a 16bit dos program which asks you to accept a license agreement. It will run in Windows, DOS, OS/2, or [http://dosemu.sf.net Dosemu] perfectly, but requires a real floppy disk attached via a real floppy control. The USB Floppy Drive to the new Thinkpads doesn't count.

===The Non Diskette Updater===
{{WARN|Though this process was successfully tested on one version of .exe files found on IBMs website this doesn't mean it will work for all of them. Use at your own risk.}}

This installer appears to be a 32bit windows exe which is designed for updating the BIOS directly from a running Windows OS. It turns out that the .exe is really a wrapper license program arround windows .cab files (this information is in [[How_to_change_the_BIOS_bootsplash_screen|BIOS-Bootsplash]]). If you install the Linux program [http://freshmeat.net/projects/cabextract/ '''cabextract'''] you can expand these files directly. Run the following:

:{{cmduser|cabextract FILENAME.exe}}

You will get 8 files in the current directory. One of them will be FILENAME.img. You can test that this is really a floppy image by running:

:{{cmdroot|mkdir mntfloppy}}
:{{cmdroot|mount -o loop FILENAME.img mntfloppy}}
:{{cmdroot|ls -la mntfloppy}}

If the results of {{cmdroot|ls -la mntfloppy}} look like a dos floppy, and no read errors were displayed, you have a pretty good chance that the floppy image is usable.

If you were able to create the boot floppy per the Diskette update method, and you have a Floppy with your Thinkpad, the update should be simple.

== Updating Thinkpad X Series ==

X Series Thinkpads do not have an internal drive. If there is no Windows installed, the BIOS must be updated by booting from an USB drive or a drive that is integrated in the docking station. Since a while Lenovo provides BIOS updates in form of bootable CD images. Unfortunately, these images are intended to be used with the docking station's CD drive. If you do not own such a drive, things get complicated.

The problem is that current BIOS updates are quite large, about 3 MB in size. Booting from CDs typically works like booting from a 1.44 MB or 2.88 MB floppy disk. The floppy image is stored on the CD and is referenced in the CD's boot record. Because the BIOS update file are that large, they do not fit on such a floppy image. Thus, they must be stored on the CD outside the virtual floppy image. To access these files a driver for the CD drive has to be loaded. Since Lenovo's CD images are intended to be used with a docking station's CD drive, it is not possible to use them for BIOS updates by booting from an USB CD drive.

But there is hope. The CD images provided by Lenovo can be modified such that they contain drivers for USB CD drives. I tested the following with a Thinkpad X60s.

The idea is to take Lenovo's ISO CD image and modify it such that a USB CD drive can be used instead the CD drive in the docking station. Unfortunately, simply replacing the drivers is not enough. While doing the BIOS update, the USB ports seem to get disabled or something. Therefore, before starting the update process the CD contents have to be copied to a RAM disk. I will describe the procedure step by step.

<ol>
<li>
Download the ISO image style BIOS update from Lenovo's website. This file will be refered to as <tt>/tmp/bios-lenovo.iso</tt>.
</li>

<li>
Extract the floppy image from this ISO image. You can use the following shell script for this task. Simply save this code into the file <tt>/tmp/extractbootimage.sh</tt>, set the x-flag (<tt>chmod +x /tmp/extractbootimage.sh</tt>) and call it using the command <tt>/tmp/extractbootimage.sh /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso /tmp/bios-lenovo.img</tt>. The floppy image contained in the ISO image will then be saved to <tt>/tmp/bios-lenovo.img</tt>. Here is the code of the shell script:
<pre>
#!/bin/bash

# This script extracts the floopy boot image from bootable ISO images
#
# Written by Joachim Selke (mail@joachim-selke.de), 2007-04-07

ISOFILE=$1
IMAGEFILE=$2

if [ ! -r $ISOFILE ]; then
echo $ISOFILE: file does not exist or is not readable
exit 1
fi

if [ -z $IMAGEFILE ]; then
echo Error: no image file specified
exit 1
fi

ISOFILESIZE=`stat -c %s $ISOFILE`

# collect El Torito data
# see http://www.phoenix.com/NR/rdonlyres/98D3219C-9CC9-4DF5-B496-A286D893E36A/0/specscdrom.pdf for reference

BOOTCATALOGPOINTERBYTE=$((17 * 0x800 + 0x47))

if [ $ISOFILESIZE -lt $(($BOOTCATALOGPOINTERBYTE + 4)) ]; then
echo ISO file is too short, possibly damaged
exit 1
fi

# absolute pointer to first sector of boot catalog:
BOOTCATALOG=`od -A n -t x4 -N 4 -j $BOOTCATALOGPOINTERBYTE $ISOFILE | tr -d [:blank:]`

BOOTCATALOGBYTE=$((0x$BOOTCATALOG * 0x800))

echo Boot catalog starts at byte $BOOTCATALOGBYTE

if [ $ISOFILESIZE -lt $(($BOOTCATALOGBYTE + 32 + 2)) ]; then
echo ISO file is too short, possibly damaged
exit 1
fi

# media type of boot image
# only floppy disk images are supported by this script
BOOTMEDIATYPE=`od -A n -t x1 -N 1 -j $(($BOOTCATALOGBYTE + 32 + 1)) $ISOFILE | tr -d [:blank:]`

if [ $BOOTMEDIATYPE -eq 1 ]; then
echo Boot media type is 1.2M floppy disk
IMAGEBLOCKS=$((1200 / 2))
elif [ $BOOTMEDIATYPE -eq 2 ]; then
echo Boot media type is 1.44M floppy disk
IMAGEBLOCKS=$((1440 / 2))
elif [ $BOOTMEDIATYPE -eq 3 ]; then
echo Boot media type is 2.88M floppy disk
IMAGEBLOCKS=$((2880 / 2))
else
echo Boot media type is $((0x$BOOTMEDIATYPE)). This type is not supported yet.
exit 1
fi

# absolute pointer to start of boot image
BOOTIMAGE=`od -A n -t x4 -N 4 -j $(($BOOTCATALOGBYTE + 32 + 8)) $ISOFILE | tr -d [:blank:]`

BOOTIMAGEBYTE=$((0x$BOOTIMAGE * 0x800))

echo Boot image starts at byte $BOOTIMAGEBYTE

if [ $ISOFILESIZE -lt $((0x$BOOTIMAGE * 0x800 + $IMAGEBLOCKS * 0x800)) ]; then
echo ISO file is too short, possibly damaged
exit 1
fi

echo Extracting boot image ...

dd if=$ISOFILE of=$IMAGEFILE bs=2K count=$IMAGEBLOCKS skip=$((0x$BOOTIMAGE))

echo Finished
</pre>
</li>

<li>
Mount the floppy image '''as root''' using the loop device:
:{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt}}
:{{cmdroot|mount -o loop /tmp/bios-lenovo.img /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt}}
The image is now mounted as <tt>/tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt</tt>.
</li>

<li>
Download needed drivers. First download some [http://panasonic.co.jp/pcc/products/drive/other/driver/f2h_usb.exe USB drivers] from Panasonic Japan. Save the file to <tt>/tmp/f2h_usb.exe</tt> This file is a self-extracting EXE file, that can be executed under Linux using [http://www.winehq.com/ Wine]:
:{{cmduser|wine /tmp/f2h_usb.exe}}
You will be asked where to save the extracted files. Choose <tt>/tmp</tt>. A new directory <tt>/tmp/F2h</tt> containing the needed drivers will be created.

Additionally, you will need drivers for the RAM disk mentioned. Download them from the [http://sourceforge.net/projects/srdisk ReSizeable RAMDisk project]. Unzip them to <tt>/tmp/srdisk</tt>.
</li>

<li>
Let's modify the floppy image:
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/F2h/Usbaspi.sys /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/F2h/USBCD.SYS /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/F2h/RAMFD.SYS /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/srdisk/srdxms.sys /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/srdisk/srdisk.exe /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/}}
Now add the following lines to <tt>/tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/config.sys</tt> replacing the line <tt>DEVICE = A:\IBMTPCD.SYS /R /C</tt>:
<pre>
DEVICE = A:\SRDXMS.SYS
DEVICE = A:\RAMFD.SYS
DEVICE = A:\USBASPI.SYS /V
DEVICE = A:\USBCD.SYS /D:TPCD001
</pre>
Finally, edit the file <tt>/tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/autoexec.bat</tt> replacing the last line (saying <tt>COMMAND.COM</tt>) by the following:
<pre>
A:\SRDISK 10000
COPY *.* D:
D:
COMMAND.COM
</pre>
</li>

<li>
Unmount the floppy image (as root):
:{{cmdroot|umount /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt}}
</li>

<li>
Copy the content of the original CD image to a new directory and create a new ISO file:
:{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso-mnt}}
:{{cmdroot|mount -o loop /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso-mnt}}
:{{cmduser|mkdir /tmp/bios-new.iso-mnt}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso-mnt/* /tmp/bios-new.iso-mnt}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/bios-lenovo.img /tmp/bios-new.iso-mnt/boot.img}}
:{{cmdroot|umount /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso-mnt}}
:{{cmduser|mkisofs -b boot.img -o /tmp/bios-new.iso /tmp/bios-new.iso-mnt/}}
</li>

<li>
The file <tt>/tmp/bios-new.iso</tt> is the modified ISO file. Just burn it to CD and use this CD for updating your BIOS (boot from it using your USB drive). Please give some comments here if it worked for you.
</li>

</ol>

==Updating via CD/DVD Drive==

The whole thing gets more complicated if you neither have Windows nor a floppy drive installed. This is what this page is intended to describe.

Another possibility which works even without a CD-drive or network is to boot the disk image via the grub initrd mechanism.

Be aware that IBM officially does '''not''' support this! The official statement to my support request was:

<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
I'm afraid we only support the options listed on our web page and no you
can't burn a CD/DVD, however you can try to use an external USB FDD
(floppy) drive. The experts recommend a IBM USB FDD, however they have also
tested it with a Sony USB FDD drive.

In order to make sure the drive is recognised you can boot up the FDD with
a bootable dos diskette for w98
</nowiki></pre>
</blockquote>

But it seems to be possible as Mathias Dalheimer describes this [http://mailman.linux-thinkpad.org/pipermail/linux-thinkpad/1998-January/009743.html here].

Another indication that it should work is that IBM uses PHLASH16.EXE (at least on T4x/p systems) to flash the BIOS into the chip. The same tool is used by [http://www.samsungpc.com/gb/support/p35/bios/bios-instructions.html other vendors] to flash the BIOS from bootable CD-ROMs.
{{WARN|Do '''not''' use the [http://syslinux.zytor.com/ SYSLINUX] image-loader [http://syslinux.zytor.com/memdisk.php MEMDISK] to boot the images! Some flash tools crash in that situation!}}

Some interesting but very technical information about the used flash tool can be found [http://www.paul.sladen.org/thinkpad-r31/wifi-card-pci-ids.html here].

===Creating a Floppy Image===
If you have created a boot floppy on another machine, you need to create an image file of that floppy. This can be easily done in linux by running a command line:

:{{cmdroot|1=dd bs=2x80x18b if=/dev/fd0 of=/tmp/floppy.img}}

You can also create a floppy image by using Ken Kato's [http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html VMware's back]. It is a free Windoze tool that creates a virtual floppy drive and allows you to produce an image file ready to be ISO'ed. Note: you might have to 'manually' (through application's interface) assign the virtual drive a volume letter in order to be seen by IBM's application (as, by default, it seems not to do it).

You should verify this {{path|floppy.img}} as explained above.

===Creating a Bootable CD from a Floppy Image===
Once you have your floppy image, either from imaging a real floppy, or from extracting them via the cabextract method above, you need to make a boot CD out of it.

The eltorito bootable CD standard is a wonderful thing. What this means is that a bootable CD can be made with a bootable floppy in such as way that the CD believes that it is a 2.88 MB floppy drive. This allows you to replace a boot floppy by a boot CD in nearly all situations.

It is very easy to create such a bootable CD ISO image in Linux using the mkisofs tool. To do this run a command as follows:

:{{cmdroot|mkisofs -b bootfloppy.img -o bootcd.iso bootfloppy.img}}

Note: You don't strictly need the last {{path|bootfloppy.img}}, however some versions of mkisofs get confused about why you would want to create an iso with no contents, and thus won't let you. You don't actually care about the contents of the CD, you only care that the <tt>-b <boot image></tt> is applied to the CD. For more info on this read {{cmduser|man mkisofs}}.

You can now burn the {{path|bootcd.iso}} in your favorite CD burning program.

To get an overview which models have been tested with this version, here is a list:

===Does work:===
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"
| '''Model''' || '''Tested by'''
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{600X}} (2645) ||
*Jonathan Byrne <jonathan@RemoveThisToMailMe.yamame.org>. BIOS 1.11 from spsuit55.exe worked perfectly using cabextract/CD method.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{A20p}} (2629-6VU) ||
*Chris Pickett http://www.sable.mcgill.ca/~cpicke/. BIOS 1.11 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{A21e}} (2628-JXU) ||
*Amit Gurdasani <gurdasani at yahoo dot com>. BIOS 1.13 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method. Alarmingly, after the BIOS update, the laptop beeped but did not shut down as was indicated onscreen -- that was frozen on the "do not shut down the laptop" screen. On power down and up again, the BIOS setup showed the newer BIOS image running, and Linux booted up fine. Linux ACPI didn't complain about the BIOS being too old either.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{A31p}} (2653) ||
*Matthias Meinke largeeddy@gmx.at, BIOS 1.09 1NET15WW flashed fine with cabextract/CD method.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{A31}} (2652) ||
*[[User:Wnoise|Aaron Denney]], BIOS 1.13 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R31}} ||
*[http://mailman.linux-thinkpad.org/pipermail/linux-thinkpad/1998-January/009743.html Mathias Dalheimer]
*Sebastian Sauer (with cabextract/CD method)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R40}} ||
*Matthew Lambie, http://lambie.org
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R50}} (1836-3SU) ||
*jlbartos <jlbartos at hotmail dot com>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R50e}} (1834-PTG) ||
*item <item at freemail dot hu> : successfully finished with cabextract/CD method for "1wuj25us.exe" (BIOS version 1WET90WW (2.10), Release Date: 2006/12/22)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R51}} (1829) ||
*Robert Uhl <rob dot uhl at gmx dot de>, Jellby <jellby at yahoo dot com>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R51}} (1830-RM7) ||
*Will Parker <stardotstar at sourcepoint dot com dot au> successfully flashed 3.20 using existing 3.04 ECP and retained custom boot splash.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R51}} (2887) ||
*Ingo van Lil <inguin at gmx dot de>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R52}} (1858) ||
*Stuart McCord <stuart dot mccord at gmail dot com> flashed both BIOS and ECP using cabextract, BIOS flashed first as on IBM website
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T20}} ||
*Franz Hassels <fhassel at suse dot com>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T22}} ||
*Daniel Maier <nusse teamidiot de>
*Mathias Behrle (with cabextract/CD method, Version 1.07 => 1.12) --[[User:Mathiasb|Mathiasb]] 11:58, 14 December 2006 (CET)
*Bob Skaroff (cabextract/CD), 1.06 => 1.12
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T23}} ||
*Bart Snapp <snapp at uiuc dot edu> Note: I followed IBM's instructions to flash the BIOS *first* and the Embedded Controller *second*.
*Moy Easwaran: BIOS 1.18 / EC 1.06a via cabextract and CD-boot. The BIOS-update exe generated errors in Windows 2000.
*Joe Renes: BIOS 1.18 / EC 1.06a on 2006-03-20 via cabextract and CD-boot. Piece of cake.
*Raphael Errani: BIOS 1.20 / EC 1.06a on 2006-11-06 via cabextract and CD-boot (using mkisofs). Worked without errors. 1st Bios, 2nd EC
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T30}} ||
*Martin GÃ¼hring <guehring at gmail.com> BIOS 2.10 via cabextract the Non-Diskette BIOS -> mkisofs '''in the directory the exe was extracted''' to generate the iso -> burn the iso -> boot the CD
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T40}} ||
*Sean Dague, http://dague.net
*Justin Mason, http://jmason.org
*Ivanhoe (Bios 3.19)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T40p}} ||
*Lukas KrÃ¤henbÃ¼hl, ismo at pop dot agri dot ch
*Thomas Achtemichuk, tom at tomchuk dot com. BIOS 3.15 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T41}} ||
*Lev Givon (Bios 3.15 / EC 3.04) <lev at columbia dot edu>
*Ernesto HernÃ¡ndez-Novich (Bios 3.19 / CP 3.04) < emhn at usb dot ve >
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T41p}} ||
*Nils Newman, work great. (Version: Bios 3.14 / Embedded Controller 3.04)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T42}} ||
*Dan (BIOS 3.20 / EC 3.04, cabextract/CD method) <tronic171 at evilphb.org>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T42p}} ||
*Robert Schiele <rschiele@uni-mannheim.de>, Joern Heissler <joern@heissler.de>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T43}} ||
*Conrad Rentsch <Conrad dot Rentsch at t-online dot de> (Version: Bios 1.29 / Embedded Controller 1.06)
*Tom Heady <tom-thinkwiki.org@punch.net>
*Florian Boucault <florian at boucault dot ath dot cx> (Model : 1871-W34 & Version: Bios 1.23 / Embedded Controller 1.03)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X20}} ||
*Neil Caunt <retardis at gmail dot com>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X21}} ||
*Patrick Leickner <ranma at web dot de>, (BIOS 2.21->2.25 / EC 1.31->1.36) via non-disk/cabextract/mkisofs/cdrecord
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X22}} ||
*David Emery <dave at skiddlydee dot com>, (EC 1.30, BIOS 1.32 using non-disk/cabextract/CD method)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X23}} ||
*Nils Faerber <nils dot faerber at kernelconcepts dot de> (Embedded Controller 1.30, BIOS 1.32 with cabextract/CD method)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X30}} ||
*Hella Breitkopf, [http://www.unixwitch.de/ www] (Embedded Controller 1.04, BIOS 1.07 with cabextract/CD method)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X31}} ||
*Grzegorz KuÅ›nierz <koniu at sheket dot org> (Embedded Controller 1.08, BIOS 3.01 with cabextract/CD method)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X40}} ||
*Robbie Stone <robbie@serendipity.cx>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{Z60m}} ||
*[[User:Morle|Morle]] 13:09, 20 May 2006 (CEST), (Embedded Controller 1.14 with cabextract/CD method)
|}

===Does not work:===
{|
| '''Model''' || '''Tested by'''
|}

Please note that testing this is '''at your own risk'''!!!

==Updating via Grub and a Floppy Image==

{{WARN|Many have warned '''not''' to use the [http://syslinux.zytor.com/ SYSLINUX] image-loader [http://syslinux.zytor.com/memdisk.php MEMDISK] to boot the images! Some flash tools may crash in that situation! Proceed at your own risk!}}

Floppy images may be booted from Grub via a utility called [http://syslinux.zytor.com/memdisk.php MEMDISK], which may be compiled from the [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/ '''SYSLINUX source''']. Copy the compiled memdisk image and the floppy image to your boot directory and configure grub as follows:

<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
title Bios Flash
kernel /boot/memdisk
initrd /boot/FILENAME.img
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

Again, proceed at your own risk. This was tested on an R51 type 2888.

This also worked for me on a T41p type 2373. -- [[User:MrStaticVoid|James Lee]] 20:55, 8 May 2006 (CEST)

And it worked for me on a X31 type 2673-CBU. -- [[User:JanTopinski|Jan Topinski]], 18 September 2006

And it worked for me too on a X31 type 2672-CXU, very useful. -- [[User:TheAnarcat|TheAnarcat]] 16:21, 7 March 2007 (CET)

And it worked for me on two X40 type 2371 -- [[User:Antialize|Jakob Truelsen]], 19 Jan 2007 -- BIOS: 2.07 1uuj21us.exe -- ECP: 1.62 1uhj10us.exe

Not working for me on T43 type 2668-F7G -- [[User:Maus3273|Maus3273]] 20:48, 30 January 2007 (CET) -- BIOS: 1.29 1YUJ18US.IMG -- I got into the bios program, but the machine never restarts after initiating the upgrade.

X41 type 2525-F8G -- [[User:ladoga|Lauri Koponen]], 11:08 16 Apr 2007 
BIOS: 2.09 (74UJ15US.IMG), is no go. (hangs while initialising the actual flashing process) I tried with 2.07 (74UJ13US.IMG) and 2.06 (74UJ12US.IMG) aswell and they all failed in the very same fashion. 
ECP: 1.02 74HJ03US.IMG, works.

==Updating with Network Boot Image==

BIOS, Embedded Controller (EC), CD/DVD and Harddisk firmware disks can be booted
over the network with [http://syslinux.zytor.com/pxe.php PXELINUX] as part of the [http://syslinux.zytor.com/ SYSLINUX] package.

This requires that you have a DHCP and tftp server configured and setup properly on
your network, and is probably not for the faint of heart.

Make sure the firmware bootdisk is in linux 'dd' format, as the self-extracting .exe disks
from the IBM website cannot be booted directly as such.

This worked on the {{R31}}, {{X22}}, {{T21}}, {{T30}} and {{T41p}} with various firmware updates.

==Updating via "IBM Predesktop area", suitable for model X (not have CDROM and floppy)==
It's so difficult to update BIOS and ECP without cdrom, floppy disk.
Don't know the reason why I couldn't update BIOS and ECP(1QHJ08US and 1QUJ19US) for my IBM Thinkpad X31.Hmm, may be cause of the dividing partition on my hard disk, that is:
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
Primary: ext3, ext3, ntfs
Extended: Ntsf, fat32
Bootloader: GRUB
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

No problem, you can use this way to do it:
* First, config in BIOS
In Security part:
# Remove all password of Subpervisor and Power on password
# Set Access IBM Predesktop Area to Normal
# Choose Enable "Flash BIOS updating by End User" in BIOS update Option.

In Config part:
# Choose Enable for Network flash over Lan

* Second, download the newest version of BIOS update and ECP update
Running: The program extract all files to the folder. There is a .img file (1QUJ19US.IMG, 1QUJ08US.IMG) in each folder.
Copy the imformation content in that img file and paste it to one FAT partition(using winimage or TotalCmd to extract)

as seen All files in 1QUJ19US.IMG is extracted to D:\BIOS
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
695,764 $018E000.FL1
163 0691.HSH
2,049 0691.PAT
163 0694.HSH
2,049 0694.PAT
163 0695.HSH
2,049 0695.PAT
2,049 06D0.PAT
163 06D1.HSH
2,049 06D1.PAT
163 06D2.HSH
2,049 06D2.PAT
163 06D6.HSH
2,049 06D6.PAT
2,049 06D8.PAT
697 CHKBMP.EXE
8,128 COMMAND.COM
26 CONFIG.SYS
24,860 FLASH2.EXE
26 LCREFLSH.BAT
170 LOGO.BAT
330 LOGO.SCR
111,925 PHLASH16.EXE
91,648 PREPARE.EXE
45 PROD.DAT
22,252 QKFLASH.EXE
9,923 README.TXT
4,260 TPCHKS.EXE
39,666 UPDTFLSH.EXE
6,958 UPDTMN.EXE
12,501 USERINT.EXE
15,254 UTILINFO.EXE
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

And all files in 1QUJ08US.IMG are: D:\ECP
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
315,404 $018E000.FL2
8,000 COMMAND.COM
36 CONFIG.SYS
16,910 ECFLASH2.EXE
45 PROD.DAT
17,812 QKFLASH.EXE
990 README.TXT
4,260 TPCHKS.EXE
89,738 UPDTEC.EXE
31,134 UPDTFLSH.EXE
12,501 USERINT.EXE
15,226 UTILINFO.EXE
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

* Okie, now plug AC Adapter, charge full battery to your laptop and continue third step:

** '''Flash BIOS first,'''
1. Power On, press blue button on keyboard: '''Access IBM'''

2. On "Utilities", double click " Diagnostic disk"

3. Your laptop will start PC-DOS, wait when this message appear:
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
Please insert the first floppy diskette and
Press any key to continue
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

4. Press Ctrl + Break, you will see :
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;"><pre><nowiki>Terminate batch job (Y/N) ?</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

5. Okie, press Y, you will get DOS prompt like D:\
{{NOTE|D:\ is my RAMDISK, C:\ is my disk format as FAT.!}}

6. Enter to c:\BIOS
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
c:
cd c:\BIOS
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

7. Run FLASH2.EXE /u $018E000.FL1

8. Wait flash progress compelete and reboot.
** '''Flash ECP'''
Follow above instruction from step 1 to 5

6. Enter to c:\ECP
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
c:
cd c:\ECP
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

7. run UPDTFLSH.EXE $018E000.FL2

8. Follow UPDTFLSH's instructions

9. Wait flash complete and auto turn off computer.

I done it on my IBM Thinkpad X31.

Enjoy,

Tested by nm.

==Check List==

The following is important to remember:
# You must update '''both''' the Control Program and the BIOS at the same time if your current Control Program is not compatible with the new BIOS (see below)
# You must find versions of the Control Program and BIOS that are compatible. Not all of them are, so follow the readmes on the IBM website carefully to determine which are.
# You must update the Control Program '''before''' you update the BIOS

When the Control Program '''and''' the BIOS need updating, have both update disks or CDs ready. Update the Control Program first and the system should switch itself off when finished. Insert the BIOS update disk and proceed to update the BIOS. When it's all finished, enter setup, reset the settings to their defaults and reboot. Enter setup again and tweak the settings as necessary.

BIOS Upgrade

2007-04-16T09:31:41Z

Ladoga: /* Updating via Grub and a Floppy Image */

__TOC__

This page is meant to describe ways to update the BIOS on a ThinkPad that only runs Linux for users that don't have ready access to Windows. If you have Windows on your ThinkPad you can just boot into it and follow instructions on the IBM website.

{{NOTE| In one case ([[APM setup on a type 2379 ThinkPad T40]]) it was not possible to upgrade the BIOS from Windows XP; a downgrade to Windows 98 was required to successfully run the BIOS upgrade app. The symptoms in this case were that, once the files had been extracted to the hard disk, and the machine was to reboot into the upgrade app, it would beep and hang just before reboot, requiring a power cycle. Once the power was cycled, it would simply reboot back into XP without performing any BIOS upgrade actions. So even if you have Windows, you may still need to use the info on this page.}}

----
==Before You Begin==
Updating the BIOS in Linux (with few exceptions) '''is not officially supported''' by IBM. However there are work arounds.

{{WARN|By following any of the instructions here you are accepting the '''very real risk''' of turning your thinkpad into a big expensive paper weight, as a firmware update gone wrong can create unfixable problems.

'''Proceed at your own risk!'''

It is also '''important''' to understand that all newer thinkpads have 2 seperate firmwares, the BIOS and the Control Program. A specific version of the Control Program will only work with specific versions of the BIOS. The IBM documentation is sometimes confusing about the order of update. Updating the Control Program first, then the BIOS seems to be the correct order. Make sure to do the updates immediately following each other, otherwise you risk turning your thinkpad into a very nice paper weight.}}

==BIOS Upgrade Paths==

For every firmware (either BIOS or Control Program) update on the IBM site there are two different firmware update programs provided. A list of links to firmware downloads can be found at [[BIOS Upgrade Downloads]] for nearly all Thinkpad Models.

===The Diskette Updater===

This installer appears to be a 16bit dos program which asks you to accept a license agreement. It will run in Windows, DOS, OS/2, or [http://dosemu.sf.net Dosemu] perfectly, but requires a real floppy disk attached via a real floppy control. The USB Floppy Drive to the new Thinkpads doesn't count.

===The Non Diskette Updater===
{{WARN|Though this process was successfully tested on one version of .exe files found on IBMs website this doesn't mean it will work for all of them. Use at your own risk.}}

This installer appears to be a 32bit windows exe which is designed for updating the BIOS directly from a running Windows OS. It turns out that the .exe is really a wrapper license program arround windows .cab files (this information is in [[How_to_change_the_BIOS_bootsplash_screen|BIOS-Bootsplash]]). If you install the Linux program [http://freshmeat.net/projects/cabextract/ '''cabextract'''] you can expand these files directly. Run the following:

:{{cmduser|cabextract FILENAME.exe}}

You will get 8 files in the current directory. One of them will be FILENAME.img. You can test that this is really a floppy image by running:

:{{cmdroot|mkdir mntfloppy}}
:{{cmdroot|mount -o loop FILENAME.img mntfloppy}}
:{{cmdroot|ls -la mntfloppy}}

If the results of {{cmdroot|ls -la mntfloppy}} look like a dos floppy, and no read errors were displayed, you have a pretty good chance that the floppy image is usable.

If you were able to create the boot floppy per the Diskette update method, and you have a Floppy with your Thinkpad, the update should be simple.

== Updating Thinkpad X Series ==

X Series Thinkpads do not have an internal drive. If there is no Windows installed, the BIOS must be updated by booting from an USB drive or a drive that is integrated in the docking station. Since a while Lenovo provides BIOS updates in form of bootable CD images. Unfortunately, these images are intended to be used with the docking station's CD drive. If you do not own such a drive, things get complicated.

The problem is that current BIOS updates are quite large, about 3 MB in size. Booting from CDs typically works like booting from a 1.44 MB or 2.88 MB floppy disk. The floppy image is stored on the CD and is referenced in the CD's boot record. Because the BIOS update file are that large, they do not fit on such a floppy image. Thus, they must be stored on the CD outside the virtual floppy image. To access these files a driver for the CD drive has to be loaded. Since Lenovo's CD images are intended to be used with a docking station's CD drive, it is not possible to use them for BIOS updates by booting from an USB CD drive.

But there is hope. The CD images provided by Lenovo can be modified such that they contain drivers for USB CD drives. I tested the following with a Thinkpad X60s.

The idea is to take Lenovo's ISO CD image and modify it such that a USB CD drive can be used instead the CD drive in the docking station. Unfortunately, simply replacing the drivers is not enough. While doing the BIOS update, the USB ports seem to get disabled or something. Therefore, before starting the update process the CD contents have to be copied to a RAM disk. I will describe the procedure step by step.

<ol>
<li>
Download the ISO image style BIOS update from Lenovo's website. This file will be refered to as <tt>/tmp/bios-lenovo.iso</tt>.
</li>

<li>
Extract the floppy image from this ISO image. You can use the following shell script for this task. Simply save this code into the file <tt>/tmp/extractbootimage.sh</tt>, set the x-flag (<tt>chmod +x /tmp/extractbootimage.sh</tt>) and call it using the command <tt>/tmp/extractbootimage.sh /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso /tmp/bios-lenovo.img</tt>. The floppy image contained in the ISO image will then be saved to <tt>/tmp/bios-lenovo.img</tt>. Here is the code of the shell script:
<pre>
#!/bin/bash

# This script extracts the floopy boot image from bootable ISO images
#
# Written by Joachim Selke (mail@joachim-selke.de), 2007-04-07

ISOFILE=$1
IMAGEFILE=$2

if [ ! -r $ISOFILE ]; then
echo $ISOFILE: file does not exist or is not readable
exit 1
fi

if [ -z $IMAGEFILE ]; then
echo Error: no image file specified
exit 1
fi

ISOFILESIZE=`stat -c %s $ISOFILE`

# collect El Torito data
# see http://www.phoenix.com/NR/rdonlyres/98D3219C-9CC9-4DF5-B496-A286D893E36A/0/specscdrom.pdf for reference

BOOTCATALOGPOINTERBYTE=$((17 * 0x800 + 0x47))

if [ $ISOFILESIZE -lt $(($BOOTCATALOGPOINTERBYTE + 4)) ]; then
echo ISO file is too short, possibly damaged
exit 1
fi

# absolute pointer to first sector of boot catalog:
BOOTCATALOG=`od -A n -t x4 -N 4 -j $BOOTCATALOGPOINTERBYTE $ISOFILE | tr -d [:blank:]`

BOOTCATALOGBYTE=$((0x$BOOTCATALOG * 0x800))

echo Boot catalog starts at byte $BOOTCATALOGBYTE

if [ $ISOFILESIZE -lt $(($BOOTCATALOGBYTE + 32 + 2)) ]; then
echo ISO file is too short, possibly damaged
exit 1
fi

# media type of boot image
# only floppy disk images are supported by this script
BOOTMEDIATYPE=`od -A n -t x1 -N 1 -j $(($BOOTCATALOGBYTE + 32 + 1)) $ISOFILE | tr -d [:blank:]`

if [ $BOOTMEDIATYPE -eq 1 ]; then
echo Boot media type is 1.2M floppy disk
IMAGEBLOCKS=$((1200 / 2))
elif [ $BOOTMEDIATYPE -eq 2 ]; then
echo Boot media type is 1.44M floppy disk
IMAGEBLOCKS=$((1440 / 2))
elif [ $BOOTMEDIATYPE -eq 3 ]; then
echo Boot media type is 2.88M floppy disk
IMAGEBLOCKS=$((2880 / 2))
else
echo Boot media type is $((0x$BOOTMEDIATYPE)). This type is not supported yet.
exit 1
fi

# absolute pointer to start of boot image
BOOTIMAGE=`od -A n -t x4 -N 4 -j $(($BOOTCATALOGBYTE + 32 + 8)) $ISOFILE | tr -d [:blank:]`

BOOTIMAGEBYTE=$((0x$BOOTIMAGE * 0x800))

echo Boot image starts at byte $BOOTIMAGEBYTE

if [ $ISOFILESIZE -lt $((0x$BOOTIMAGE * 0x800 + $IMAGEBLOCKS * 0x800)) ]; then
echo ISO file is too short, possibly damaged
exit 1
fi

echo Extracting boot image ...

dd if=$ISOFILE of=$IMAGEFILE bs=2K count=$IMAGEBLOCKS skip=$((0x$BOOTIMAGE))

echo Finished
</pre>
</li>

<li>
Mount the floppy image '''as root''' using the loop device:
:{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt}}
:{{cmdroot|mount -o loop /tmp/bios-lenovo.img /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt}}
The image is now mounted as <tt>/tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt</tt>.
</li>

<li>
Download needed drivers. First download some [http://panasonic.co.jp/pcc/products/drive/other/driver/f2h_usb.exe USB drivers] from Panasonic Japan. Save the file to <tt>/tmp/f2h_usb.exe</tt> This file is a self-extracting EXE file, that can be executed under Linux using [http://www.winehq.com/ Wine]:
:{{cmduser|wine /tmp/f2h_usb.exe}}
You will be asked where to save the extracted files. Choose <tt>/tmp</tt>. A new directory <tt>/tmp/F2h</tt> containing the needed drivers will be created.

Additionally, you will need drivers for the RAM disk mentioned. Download them from the [http://sourceforge.net/projects/srdisk ReSizeable RAMDisk project]. Unzip them to <tt>/tmp/srdisk</tt>.
</li>

<li>
Let's modify the floppy image:
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/F2h/Usbaspi.sys /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/F2h/USBCD.SYS /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/F2h/RAMFD.SYS /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/srdisk/srdxms.sys /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/srdisk/srdisk.exe /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/}}
Now add the following lines to <tt>/tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/config.sys</tt> replacing the line <tt>DEVICE = A:\IBMTPCD.SYS /R /C</tt>:
<pre>
DEVICE = A:\SRDXMS.SYS
DEVICE = A:\RAMFD.SYS
DEVICE = A:\USBASPI.SYS /V
DEVICE = A:\USBCD.SYS /D:TPCD001
</pre>
Finally, edit the file <tt>/tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/autoexec.bat</tt> replacing the last line (saying <tt>COMMAND.COM</tt>) by the following:
<pre>
A:\SRDISK 10000
COPY *.* D:
D:
COMMAND.COM
</pre>
</li>

<li>
Unmount the floppy image (as root):
:{{cmdroot|umount /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt}}
</li>

<li>
Copy the content of the original CD image to a new directory and create a new ISO file:
:{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso-mnt}}
:{{cmdroot|mount -o loop /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso-mnt}}
:{{cmduser|mkdir /tmp/bios-new.iso-mnt}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso-mnt/* /tmp/bios-new.iso-mnt}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/bios-lenovo.img /tmp/bios-new.iso-mnt/boot.img}}
:{{cmdroot|umount /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso-mnt}}
:{{cmduser|mkisofs -b boot.img -o /tmp/bios-new.iso /tmp/bios-new.iso-mnt/}}
</li>

<li>
The file <tt>/tmp/bios-new.iso</tt> is the modified ISO file. Just burn it to CD and use this CD for updating your BIOS (boot from it using your USB drive). Please give some comments here if it worked for you.
</li>

</ol>

==Updating via CD/DVD Drive==

The whole thing gets more complicated if you neither have Windows nor a floppy drive installed. This is what this page is intended to describe.

Another possibility which works even without a CD-drive or network is to boot the disk image via the grub initrd mechanism.

Be aware that IBM officially does '''not''' support this! The official statement to my support request was:

<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
I'm afraid we only support the options listed on our web page and no you
can't burn a CD/DVD, however you can try to use an external USB FDD
(floppy) drive. The experts recommend a IBM USB FDD, however they have also
tested it with a Sony USB FDD drive.

In order to make sure the drive is recognised you can boot up the FDD with
a bootable dos diskette for w98
</nowiki></pre>
</blockquote>

But it seems to be possible as Mathias Dalheimer describes this [http://mailman.linux-thinkpad.org/pipermail/linux-thinkpad/1998-January/009743.html here].

Another indication that it should work is that IBM uses PHLASH16.EXE (at least on T4x/p systems) to flash the BIOS into the chip. The same tool is used by [http://www.samsungpc.com/gb/support/p35/bios/bios-instructions.html other vendors] to flash the BIOS from bootable CD-ROMs.
{{WARN|Do '''not''' use the [http://syslinux.zytor.com/ SYSLINUX] image-loader [http://syslinux.zytor.com/memdisk.php MEMDISK] to boot the images! Some flash tools crash in that situation!}}

Some interesting but very technical information about the used flash tool can be found [http://www.paul.sladen.org/thinkpad-r31/wifi-card-pci-ids.html here].

===Creating a Floppy Image===
If you have created a boot floppy on another machine, you need to create an image file of that floppy. This can be easily done in linux by running a command line:

:{{cmdroot|1=dd bs=2x80x18b if=/dev/fd0 of=/tmp/floppy.img}}

You can also create a floppy image by using Ken Kato's [http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html VMware's back]. It is a free Windoze tool that creates a virtual floppy drive and allows you to produce an image file ready to be ISO'ed. Note: you might have to 'manually' (through application's interface) assign the virtual drive a volume letter in order to be seen by IBM's application (as, by default, it seems not to do it).

You should verify this {{path|floppy.img}} as explained above.

===Creating a Bootable CD from a Floppy Image===
Once you have your floppy image, either from imaging a real floppy, or from extracting them via the cabextract method above, you need to make a boot CD out of it.

The eltorito bootable CD standard is a wonderful thing. What this means is that a bootable CD can be made with a bootable floppy in such as way that the CD believes that it is a 2.88 MB floppy drive. This allows you to replace a boot floppy by a boot CD in nearly all situations.

It is very easy to create such a bootable CD ISO image in Linux using the mkisofs tool. To do this run a command as follows:

:{{cmdroot|mkisofs -b bootfloppy.img -o bootcd.iso bootfloppy.img}}

Note: You don't strictly need the last {{path|bootfloppy.img}}, however some versions of mkisofs get confused about why you would want to create an iso with no contents, and thus won't let you. You don't actually care about the contents of the CD, you only care that the <tt>-b <boot image></tt> is applied to the CD. For more info on this read {{cmduser|man mkisofs}}.

You can now burn the {{path|bootcd.iso}} in your favorite CD burning program.

To get an overview which models have been tested with this version, here is a list:

===Does work:===
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"
| '''Model''' || '''Tested by'''
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{600X}} (2645) ||
*Jonathan Byrne <jonathan@RemoveThisToMailMe.yamame.org>. BIOS 1.11 from spsuit55.exe worked perfectly using cabextract/CD method.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{A20p}} (2629-6VU) ||
*Chris Pickett http://www.sable.mcgill.ca/~cpicke/. BIOS 1.11 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{A21e}} (2628-JXU) ||
*Amit Gurdasani <gurdasani at yahoo dot com>. BIOS 1.13 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method. Alarmingly, after the BIOS update, the laptop beeped but did not shut down as was indicated onscreen -- that was frozen on the "do not shut down the laptop" screen. On power down and up again, the BIOS setup showed the newer BIOS image running, and Linux booted up fine. Linux ACPI didn't complain about the BIOS being too old either.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{A31p}} (2653) ||
*Matthias Meinke largeeddy@gmx.at, BIOS 1.09 1NET15WW flashed fine with cabextract/CD method.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{A31}} (2652) ||
*[[User:Wnoise|Aaron Denney]], BIOS 1.13 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R31}} ||
*[http://mailman.linux-thinkpad.org/pipermail/linux-thinkpad/1998-January/009743.html Mathias Dalheimer]
*Sebastian Sauer (with cabextract/CD method)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R40}} ||
*Matthew Lambie, http://lambie.org
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R50}} (1836-3SU) ||
*jlbartos <jlbartos at hotmail dot com>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R50e}} (1834-PTG) ||
*item <item at freemail dot hu> : successfully finished with cabextract/CD method for "1wuj25us.exe" (BIOS version 1WET90WW (2.10), Release Date: 2006/12/22)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R51}} (1829) ||
*Robert Uhl <rob dot uhl at gmx dot de>, Jellby <jellby at yahoo dot com>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R51}} (1830-RM7) ||
*Will Parker <stardotstar at sourcepoint dot com dot au> successfully flashed 3.20 using existing 3.04 ECP and retained custom boot splash.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R51}} (2887) ||
*Ingo van Lil <inguin at gmx dot de>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R52}} (1858) ||
*Stuart McCord <stuart dot mccord at gmail dot com> flashed both BIOS and ECP using cabextract, BIOS flashed first as on IBM website
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T20}} ||
*Franz Hassels <fhassel at suse dot com>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T22}} ||
*Daniel Maier <nusse teamidiot de>
*Mathias Behrle (with cabextract/CD method, Version 1.07 => 1.12) --[[User:Mathiasb|Mathiasb]] 11:58, 14 December 2006 (CET)
*Bob Skaroff (cabextract/CD), 1.06 => 1.12
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T23}} ||
*Bart Snapp <snapp at uiuc dot edu> Note: I followed IBM's instructions to flash the BIOS *first* and the Embedded Controller *second*.
*Moy Easwaran: BIOS 1.18 / EC 1.06a via cabextract and CD-boot. The BIOS-update exe generated errors in Windows 2000.
*Joe Renes: BIOS 1.18 / EC 1.06a on 2006-03-20 via cabextract and CD-boot. Piece of cake.
*Raphael Errani: BIOS 1.20 / EC 1.06a on 2006-11-06 via cabextract and CD-boot (using mkisofs). Worked without errors. 1st Bios, 2nd EC
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T30}} ||
*Martin GÃ¼hring <guehring at gmail.com> BIOS 2.10 via cabextract the Non-Diskette BIOS -> mkisofs '''in the directory the exe was extracted''' to generate the iso -> burn the iso -> boot the CD
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T40}} ||
*Sean Dague, http://dague.net
*Justin Mason, http://jmason.org
*Ivanhoe (Bios 3.19)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T40p}} ||
*Lukas KrÃ¤henbÃ¼hl, ismo at pop dot agri dot ch
*Thomas Achtemichuk, tom at tomchuk dot com. BIOS 3.15 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T41}} ||
*Lev Givon (Bios 3.15 / EC 3.04) <lev at columbia dot edu>
*Ernesto HernÃ¡ndez-Novich (Bios 3.19 / CP 3.04) < emhn at usb dot ve >
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T41p}} ||
*Nils Newman, work great. (Version: Bios 3.14 / Embedded Controller 3.04)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T42}} ||
*Dan (BIOS 3.20 / EC 3.04, cabextract/CD method) <tronic171 at evilphb.org>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T42p}} ||
*Robert Schiele <rschiele@uni-mannheim.de>, Joern Heissler <joern@heissler.de>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T43}} ||
*Conrad Rentsch <Conrad dot Rentsch at t-online dot de> (Version: Bios 1.29 / Embedded Controller 1.06)
*Tom Heady <tom-thinkwiki.org@punch.net>
*Florian Boucault <florian at boucault dot ath dot cx> (Model : 1871-W34 & Version: Bios 1.23 / Embedded Controller 1.03)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X20}} ||
*Neil Caunt <retardis at gmail dot com>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X21}} ||
*Patrick Leickner <ranma at web dot de>, (BIOS 2.21->2.25 / EC 1.31->1.36) via non-disk/cabextract/mkisofs/cdrecord
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X22}} ||
*David Emery <dave at skiddlydee dot com>, (EC 1.30, BIOS 1.32 using non-disk/cabextract/CD method)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X23}} ||
*Nils Faerber <nils dot faerber at kernelconcepts dot de> (Embedded Controller 1.30, BIOS 1.32 with cabextract/CD method)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X30}} ||
*Hella Breitkopf, [http://www.unixwitch.de/ www] (Embedded Controller 1.04, BIOS 1.07 with cabextract/CD method)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X31}} ||
*Grzegorz KuÅ›nierz <koniu at sheket dot org> (Embedded Controller 1.08, BIOS 3.01 with cabextract/CD method)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X40}} ||
*Robbie Stone <robbie@serendipity.cx>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{Z60m}} ||
*[[User:Morle|Morle]] 13:09, 20 May 2006 (CEST), (Embedded Controller 1.14 with cabextract/CD method)
|}

===Does not work:===
{|
| '''Model''' || '''Tested by'''
|}

Please note that testing this is '''at your own risk'''!!!

==Updating via Grub and a Floppy Image==

{{WARN|Many have warned '''not''' to use the [http://syslinux.zytor.com/ SYSLINUX] image-loader [http://syslinux.zytor.com/memdisk.php MEMDISK] to boot the images! Some flash tools may crash in that situation! Proceed at your own risk!}}

Floppy images may be booted from Grub via a utility called [http://syslinux.zytor.com/memdisk.php MEMDISK], which may be compiled from the [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/ '''SYSLINUX source''']. Copy the compiled memdisk image and the floppy image to your boot directory and configure grub as follows:

<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
title Bios Flash
kernel /boot/memdisk
initrd /boot/FILENAME.img
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

Again, proceed at your own risk. This was tested on an R51 type 2888.

This also worked for me on a T41p type 2373. -- [[User:MrStaticVoid|James Lee]] 20:55, 8 May 2006 (CEST)

And it worked for me on a X31 type 2673-CBU. -- [[User:JanTopinski|Jan Topinski]], 18 September 2006

And it worked for me too on a X31 type 2672-CXU, very useful. -- [[User:TheAnarcat|TheAnarcat]] 16:21, 7 March 2007 (CET)

And it worked for me on two X40 type 2371 -- [[User:Antialize|Jakob Truelsen]], 19 Jan 2007 -- BIOS: 2.07 1uuj21us.exe -- ECP: 1.62 1uhj10us.exe

Not working for me on T43 type 2668-F7G -- [[User:Maus3273|Maus3273]] 20:48, 30 January 2007 (CET) -- BIOS: 1.29 1YUJ18US.IMG -- I got into the bios program, but the machine never restarts after initiating the upgrade.

X41 type 2525-F8G -- [[User:ladoga|Lauri Koponen]], 11:08 16 Apr 2007 
BIOS: 2.09 (74UJ15US.IMG), is no go. (hangs while initialising the actual flash process) I tried with 2.07 (74UJ13US.IMG) and 2.06 (74UJ12US.IMG) aswell and they all failed in the very same fashion. 
ECP: 1.02 74HJ03US.IMG, works.

==Updating with Network Boot Image==

BIOS, Embedded Controller (EC), CD/DVD and Harddisk firmware disks can be booted
over the network with [http://syslinux.zytor.com/pxe.php PXELINUX] as part of the [http://syslinux.zytor.com/ SYSLINUX] package.

This requires that you have a DHCP and tftp server configured and setup properly on
your network, and is probably not for the faint of heart.

Make sure the firmware bootdisk is in linux 'dd' format, as the self-extracting .exe disks
from the IBM website cannot be booted directly as such.

This worked on the {{R31}}, {{X22}}, {{T21}}, {{T30}} and {{T41p}} with various firmware updates.

==Updating via "IBM Predesktop area", suitable for model X (not have CDROM and floppy)==
It's so difficult to update BIOS and ECP without cdrom, floppy disk.
Don't know the reason why I couldn't update BIOS and ECP(1QHJ08US and 1QUJ19US) for my IBM Thinkpad X31.Hmm, may be cause of the dividing partition on my hard disk, that is:
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
Primary: ext3, ext3, ntfs
Extended: Ntsf, fat32
Bootloader: GRUB
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

No problem, you can use this way to do it:
* First, config in BIOS
In Security part:
# Remove all password of Subpervisor and Power on password
# Set Access IBM Predesktop Area to Normal
# Choose Enable "Flash BIOS updating by End User" in BIOS update Option.

In Config part:
# Choose Enable for Network flash over Lan

* Second, download the newest version of BIOS update and ECP update
Running: The program extract all files to the folder. There is a .img file (1QUJ19US.IMG, 1QUJ08US.IMG) in each folder.
Copy the imformation content in that img file and paste it to one FAT partition(using winimage or TotalCmd to extract)

as seen All files in 1QUJ19US.IMG is extracted to D:\BIOS
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
695,764 $018E000.FL1
163 0691.HSH
2,049 0691.PAT
163 0694.HSH
2,049 0694.PAT
163 0695.HSH
2,049 0695.PAT
2,049 06D0.PAT
163 06D1.HSH
2,049 06D1.PAT
163 06D2.HSH
2,049 06D2.PAT
163 06D6.HSH
2,049 06D6.PAT
2,049 06D8.PAT
697 CHKBMP.EXE
8,128 COMMAND.COM
26 CONFIG.SYS
24,860 FLASH2.EXE
26 LCREFLSH.BAT
170 LOGO.BAT
330 LOGO.SCR
111,925 PHLASH16.EXE
91,648 PREPARE.EXE
45 PROD.DAT
22,252 QKFLASH.EXE
9,923 README.TXT
4,260 TPCHKS.EXE
39,666 UPDTFLSH.EXE
6,958 UPDTMN.EXE
12,501 USERINT.EXE
15,254 UTILINFO.EXE
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

And all files in 1QUJ08US.IMG are: D:\ECP
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
315,404 $018E000.FL2
8,000 COMMAND.COM
36 CONFIG.SYS
16,910 ECFLASH2.EXE
45 PROD.DAT
17,812 QKFLASH.EXE
990 README.TXT
4,260 TPCHKS.EXE
89,738 UPDTEC.EXE
31,134 UPDTFLSH.EXE
12,501 USERINT.EXE
15,226 UTILINFO.EXE
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

* Okie, now plug AC Adapter, charge full battery to your laptop and continue third step:

** '''Flash BIOS first,'''
1. Power On, press blue button on keyboard: '''Access IBM'''

2. On "Utilities", double click " Diagnostic disk"

3. Your laptop will start PC-DOS, wait when this message appear:
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
Please insert the first floppy diskette and
Press any key to continue
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

4. Press Ctrl + Break, you will see :
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;"><pre><nowiki>Terminate batch job (Y/N) ?</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

5. Okie, press Y, you will get DOS prompt like D:\
{{NOTE|D:\ is my RAMDISK, C:\ is my disk format as FAT.!}}

6. Enter to c:\BIOS
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
c:
cd c:\BIOS
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

7. Run FLASH2.EXE /u $018E000.FL1

8. Wait flash progress compelete and reboot.
** '''Flash ECP'''
Follow above instruction from step 1 to 5

6. Enter to c:\ECP
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
c:
cd c:\ECP
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

7. run UPDTFLSH.EXE $018E000.FL2

8. Follow UPDTFLSH's instructions

9. Wait flash complete and auto turn off computer.

I done it on my IBM Thinkpad X31.

Enjoy,

Tested by nm.

==Check List==

The following is important to remember:
# You must update '''both''' the Control Program and the BIOS at the same time if your current Control Program is not compatible with the new BIOS (see below)
# You must find versions of the Control Program and BIOS that are compatible. Not all of them are, so follow the readmes on the IBM website carefully to determine which are.
# You must update the Control Program '''before''' you update the BIOS

When the Control Program '''and''' the BIOS need updating, have both update disks or CDs ready. Update the Control Program first and the system should switch itself off when finished. Insert the BIOS update disk and proceed to update the BIOS. When it's all finished, enter setup, reset the settings to their defaults and reboot. Enter setup again and tweak the settings as necessary.

BIOS Upgrade

2007-04-16T08:28:18Z

Ladoga: /* Updating via Grub and a Floppy Image */

__TOC__

This page is meant to describe ways to update the BIOS on a ThinkPad that only runs Linux for users that don't have ready access to Windows. If you have Windows on your ThinkPad you can just boot into it and follow instructions on the IBM website.

{{NOTE| In one case ([[APM setup on a type 2379 ThinkPad T40]]) it was not possible to upgrade the BIOS from Windows XP; a downgrade to Windows 98 was required to successfully run the BIOS upgrade app. The symptoms in this case were that, once the files had been extracted to the hard disk, and the machine was to reboot into the upgrade app, it would beep and hang just before reboot, requiring a power cycle. Once the power was cycled, it would simply reboot back into XP without performing any BIOS upgrade actions. So even if you have Windows, you may still need to use the info on this page.}}

----
==Before You Begin==
Updating the BIOS in Linux (with few exceptions) '''is not officially supported''' by IBM. However there are work arounds.

{{WARN|By following any of the instructions here you are accepting the '''very real risk''' of turning your thinkpad into a big expensive paper weight, as a firmware update gone wrong can create unfixable problems.

'''Proceed at your own risk!'''

It is also '''important''' to understand that all newer thinkpads have 2 seperate firmwares, the BIOS and the Control Program. A specific version of the Control Program will only work with specific versions of the BIOS. The IBM documentation is sometimes confusing about the order of update. Updating the Control Program first, then the BIOS seems to be the correct order. Make sure to do the updates immediately following each other, otherwise you risk turning your thinkpad into a very nice paper weight.}}

==BIOS Upgrade Paths==

For every firmware (either BIOS or Control Program) update on the IBM site there are two different firmware update programs provided. A list of links to firmware downloads can be found at [[BIOS Upgrade Downloads]] for nearly all Thinkpad Models.

===The Diskette Updater===

This installer appears to be a 16bit dos program which asks you to accept a license agreement. It will run in Windows, DOS, OS/2, or [http://dosemu.sf.net Dosemu] perfectly, but requires a real floppy disk attached via a real floppy control. The USB Floppy Drive to the new Thinkpads doesn't count.

===The Non Diskette Updater===
{{WARN|Though this process was successfully tested on one version of .exe files found on IBMs website this doesn't mean it will work for all of them. Use at your own risk.}}

This installer appears to be a 32bit windows exe which is designed for updating the BIOS directly from a running Windows OS. It turns out that the .exe is really a wrapper license program arround windows .cab files (this information is in [[How_to_change_the_BIOS_bootsplash_screen|BIOS-Bootsplash]]). If you install the Linux program [http://freshmeat.net/projects/cabextract/ '''cabextract'''] you can expand these files directly. Run the following:

:{{cmduser|cabextract FILENAME.exe}}

You will get 8 files in the current directory. One of them will be FILENAME.img. You can test that this is really a floppy image by running:

:{{cmdroot|mkdir mntfloppy}}
:{{cmdroot|mount -o loop FILENAME.img mntfloppy}}
:{{cmdroot|ls -la mntfloppy}}

If the results of {{cmdroot|ls -la mntfloppy}} look like a dos floppy, and no read errors were displayed, you have a pretty good chance that the floppy image is usable.

If you were able to create the boot floppy per the Diskette update method, and you have a Floppy with your Thinkpad, the update should be simple.

== Updating Thinkpad X Series ==

X Series Thinkpads do not have an internal drive. If there is no Windows installed, the BIOS must be updated by booting from an USB drive or a drive that is integrated in the docking station. Since a while Lenovo provides BIOS updates in form of bootable CD images. Unfortunately, these images are intended to be used with the docking station's CD drive. If you do not own such a drive, things get complicated.

The problem is that current BIOS updates are quite large, about 3 MB in size. Booting from CDs typically works like booting from a 1.44 MB or 2.88 MB floppy disk. The floppy image is stored on the CD and is referenced in the CD's boot record. Because the BIOS update file are that large, they do not fit on such a floppy image. Thus, they must be stored on the CD outside the virtual floppy image. To access these files a driver for the CD drive has to be loaded. Since Lenovo's CD images are intended to be used with a docking station's CD drive, it is not possible to use them for BIOS updates by booting from an USB CD drive.

But there is hope. The CD images provided by Lenovo can be modified such that they contain drivers for USB CD drives. I tested the following with a Thinkpad X60s.

The idea is to take Lenovo's ISO CD image and modify it such that a USB CD drive can be used instead the CD drive in the docking station. Unfortunately, simply replacing the drivers is not enough. While doing the BIOS update, the USB ports seem to get disabled or something. Therefore, before starting the update process the CD contents have to be copied to a RAM disk. I will describe the procedure step by step.

<ol>
<li>
Download the ISO image style BIOS update from Lenovo's website. This file will be refered to as <tt>/tmp/bios-lenovo.iso</tt>.
</li>

<li>
Extract the floppy image from this ISO image. You can use the following shell script for this task. Simply save this code into the file <tt>/tmp/extractbootimage.sh</tt>, set the x-flag (<tt>chmod +x /tmp/extractbootimage.sh</tt>) and call it using the command <tt>/tmp/extractbootimage.sh /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso /tmp/bios-lenovo.img</tt>. The floppy image contained in the ISO image will then be saved to <tt>/tmp/bios-lenovo.img</tt>. Here is the code of the shell script:
<pre>
#!/bin/bash

# This script extracts the floopy boot image from bootable ISO images
#
# Written by Joachim Selke (mail@joachim-selke.de), 2007-04-07

ISOFILE=$1
IMAGEFILE=$2

if [ ! -r $ISOFILE ]; then
echo $ISOFILE: file does not exist or is not readable
exit 1
fi

if [ -z $IMAGEFILE ]; then
echo Error: no image file specified
exit 1
fi

ISOFILESIZE=`stat -c %s $ISOFILE`

# collect El Torito data
# see http://www.phoenix.com/NR/rdonlyres/98D3219C-9CC9-4DF5-B496-A286D893E36A/0/specscdrom.pdf for reference

BOOTCATALOGPOINTERBYTE=$((17 * 0x800 + 0x47))

if [ $ISOFILESIZE -lt $(($BOOTCATALOGPOINTERBYTE + 4)) ]; then
echo ISO file is too short, possibly damaged
exit 1
fi

# absolute pointer to first sector of boot catalog:
BOOTCATALOG=`od -A n -t x4 -N 4 -j $BOOTCATALOGPOINTERBYTE $ISOFILE | tr -d [:blank:]`

BOOTCATALOGBYTE=$((0x$BOOTCATALOG * 0x800))

echo Boot catalog starts at byte $BOOTCATALOGBYTE

if [ $ISOFILESIZE -lt $(($BOOTCATALOGBYTE + 32 + 2)) ]; then
echo ISO file is too short, possibly damaged
exit 1
fi

# media type of boot image
# only floppy disk images are supported by this script
BOOTMEDIATYPE=`od -A n -t x1 -N 1 -j $(($BOOTCATALOGBYTE + 32 + 1)) $ISOFILE | tr -d [:blank:]`

if [ $BOOTMEDIATYPE -eq 1 ]; then
echo Boot media type is 1.2M floppy disk
IMAGEBLOCKS=$((1200 / 2))
elif [ $BOOTMEDIATYPE -eq 2 ]; then
echo Boot media type is 1.44M floppy disk
IMAGEBLOCKS=$((1440 / 2))
elif [ $BOOTMEDIATYPE -eq 3 ]; then
echo Boot media type is 2.88M floppy disk
IMAGEBLOCKS=$((2880 / 2))
else
echo Boot media type is $((0x$BOOTMEDIATYPE)). This type is not supported yet.
exit 1
fi

# absolute pointer to start of boot image
BOOTIMAGE=`od -A n -t x4 -N 4 -j $(($BOOTCATALOGBYTE + 32 + 8)) $ISOFILE | tr -d [:blank:]`

BOOTIMAGEBYTE=$((0x$BOOTIMAGE * 0x800))

echo Boot image starts at byte $BOOTIMAGEBYTE

if [ $ISOFILESIZE -lt $((0x$BOOTIMAGE * 0x800 + $IMAGEBLOCKS * 0x800)) ]; then
echo ISO file is too short, possibly damaged
exit 1
fi

echo Extracting boot image ...

dd if=$ISOFILE of=$IMAGEFILE bs=2K count=$IMAGEBLOCKS skip=$((0x$BOOTIMAGE))

echo Finished
</pre>
</li>

<li>
Mount the floppy image '''as root''' using the loop device:
:{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt}}
:{{cmdroot|mount -o loop /tmp/bios-lenovo.img /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt}}
The image is now mounted as <tt>/tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt</tt>.
</li>

<li>
Download needed drivers. First download some [http://panasonic.co.jp/pcc/products/drive/other/driver/f2h_usb.exe USB drivers] from Panasonic Japan. Save the file to <tt>/tmp/f2h_usb.exe</tt> This file is a self-extracting EXE file, that can be executed under Linux using [http://www.winehq.com/ Wine]:
:{{cmduser|wine /tmp/f2h_usb.exe}}
You will be asked where to save the extracted files. Choose <tt>/tmp</tt>. A new directory <tt>/tmp/F2h</tt> containing the needed drivers will be created.

Additionally, you will need drivers for the RAM disk mentioned. Download them from the [http://sourceforge.net/projects/srdisk ReSizeable RAMDisk project]. Unzip them to <tt>/tmp/srdisk</tt>.
</li>

<li>
Let's modify the floppy image:
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/F2h/Usbaspi.sys /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/F2h/USBCD.SYS /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/F2h/RAMFD.SYS /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/srdisk/srdxms.sys /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/srdisk/srdisk.exe /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/}}
Now add the following lines to <tt>/tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/config.sys</tt> replacing the line <tt>DEVICE = A:\IBMTPCD.SYS /R /C</tt>:
<pre>
DEVICE = A:\SRDXMS.SYS
DEVICE = A:\RAMFD.SYS
DEVICE = A:\USBASPI.SYS /V
DEVICE = A:\USBCD.SYS /D:TPCD001
</pre>
Finally, edit the file <tt>/tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt/autoexec.bat</tt> replacing the last line (saying <tt>COMMAND.COM</tt>) by the following:
<pre>
A:\SRDISK 10000
COPY *.* D:
D:
COMMAND.COM
</pre>
</li>

<li>
Unmount the floppy image (as root):
:{{cmdroot|umount /tmp/bios-lenovo.img-mnt}}
</li>

<li>
Copy the content of the original CD image to a new directory and create a new ISO file:
:{{cmdroot|mkdir /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso-mnt}}
:{{cmdroot|mount -o loop /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso-mnt}}
:{{cmduser|mkdir /tmp/bios-new.iso-mnt}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso-mnt/* /tmp/bios-new.iso-mnt}}
:{{cmduser|cp /tmp/bios-lenovo.img /tmp/bios-new.iso-mnt/boot.img}}
:{{cmdroot|umount /tmp/bios-lenovo.iso-mnt}}
:{{cmduser|mkisofs -b boot.img -o /tmp/bios-new.iso /tmp/bios-new.iso-mnt/}}
</li>

<li>
The file <tt>/tmp/bios-new.iso</tt> is the modified ISO file. Just burn it to CD and use this CD for updating your BIOS (boot from it using your USB drive). Please give some comments here if it worked for you.
</li>

</ol>

==Updating via CD/DVD Drive==

The whole thing gets more complicated if you neither have Windows nor a floppy drive installed. This is what this page is intended to describe.

Another possibility which works even without a CD-drive or network is to boot the disk image via the grub initrd mechanism.

Be aware that IBM officially does '''not''' support this! The official statement to my support request was:

<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
I'm afraid we only support the options listed on our web page and no you
can't burn a CD/DVD, however you can try to use an external USB FDD
(floppy) drive. The experts recommend a IBM USB FDD, however they have also
tested it with a Sony USB FDD drive.

In order to make sure the drive is recognised you can boot up the FDD with
a bootable dos diskette for w98
</nowiki></pre>
</blockquote>

But it seems to be possible as Mathias Dalheimer describes this [http://mailman.linux-thinkpad.org/pipermail/linux-thinkpad/1998-January/009743.html here].

Another indication that it should work is that IBM uses PHLASH16.EXE (at least on T4x/p systems) to flash the BIOS into the chip. The same tool is used by [http://www.samsungpc.com/gb/support/p35/bios/bios-instructions.html other vendors] to flash the BIOS from bootable CD-ROMs.
{{WARN|Do '''not''' use the [http://syslinux.zytor.com/ SYSLINUX] image-loader [http://syslinux.zytor.com/memdisk.php MEMDISK] to boot the images! Some flash tools crash in that situation!}}

Some interesting but very technical information about the used flash tool can be found [http://www.paul.sladen.org/thinkpad-r31/wifi-card-pci-ids.html here].

===Creating a Floppy Image===
If you have created a boot floppy on another machine, you need to create an image file of that floppy. This can be easily done in linux by running a command line:

:{{cmdroot|1=dd bs=2x80x18b if=/dev/fd0 of=/tmp/floppy.img}}

You can also create a floppy image by using Ken Kato's [http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html VMware's back]. It is a free Windoze tool that creates a virtual floppy drive and allows you to produce an image file ready to be ISO'ed. Note: you might have to 'manually' (through application's interface) assign the virtual drive a volume letter in order to be seen by IBM's application (as, by default, it seems not to do it).

You should verify this {{path|floppy.img}} as explained above.

===Creating a Bootable CD from a Floppy Image===
Once you have your floppy image, either from imaging a real floppy, or from extracting them via the cabextract method above, you need to make a boot CD out of it.

The eltorito bootable CD standard is a wonderful thing. What this means is that a bootable CD can be made with a bootable floppy in such as way that the CD believes that it is a 2.88 MB floppy drive. This allows you to replace a boot floppy by a boot CD in nearly all situations.

It is very easy to create such a bootable CD ISO image in Linux using the mkisofs tool. To do this run a command as follows:

:{{cmdroot|mkisofs -b bootfloppy.img -o bootcd.iso bootfloppy.img}}

Note: You don't strictly need the last {{path|bootfloppy.img}}, however some versions of mkisofs get confused about why you would want to create an iso with no contents, and thus won't let you. You don't actually care about the contents of the CD, you only care that the <tt>-b <boot image></tt> is applied to the CD. For more info on this read {{cmduser|man mkisofs}}.

You can now burn the {{path|bootcd.iso}} in your favorite CD burning program.

To get an overview which models have been tested with this version, here is a list:

===Does work:===
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"
| '''Model''' || '''Tested by'''
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{600X}} (2645) ||
*Jonathan Byrne <jonathan@RemoveThisToMailMe.yamame.org>. BIOS 1.11 from spsuit55.exe worked perfectly using cabextract/CD method.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{A20p}} (2629-6VU) ||
*Chris Pickett http://www.sable.mcgill.ca/~cpicke/. BIOS 1.11 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{A21e}} (2628-JXU) ||
*Amit Gurdasani <gurdasani at yahoo dot com>. BIOS 1.13 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method. Alarmingly, after the BIOS update, the laptop beeped but did not shut down as was indicated onscreen -- that was frozen on the "do not shut down the laptop" screen. On power down and up again, the BIOS setup showed the newer BIOS image running, and Linux booted up fine. Linux ACPI didn't complain about the BIOS being too old either.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{A31p}} (2653) ||
*Matthias Meinke largeeddy@gmx.at, BIOS 1.09 1NET15WW flashed fine with cabextract/CD method.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{A31}} (2652) ||
*[[User:Wnoise|Aaron Denney]], BIOS 1.13 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R31}} ||
*[http://mailman.linux-thinkpad.org/pipermail/linux-thinkpad/1998-January/009743.html Mathias Dalheimer]
*Sebastian Sauer (with cabextract/CD method)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R40}} ||
*Matthew Lambie, http://lambie.org
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R50}} (1836-3SU) ||
*jlbartos <jlbartos at hotmail dot com>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R50e}} (1834-PTG) ||
*item <item at freemail dot hu> : successfully finished with cabextract/CD method for "1wuj25us.exe" (BIOS version 1WET90WW (2.10), Release Date: 2006/12/22)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R51}} (1829) ||
*Robert Uhl <rob dot uhl at gmx dot de>, Jellby <jellby at yahoo dot com>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R51}} (1830-RM7) ||
*Will Parker <stardotstar at sourcepoint dot com dot au> successfully flashed 3.20 using existing 3.04 ECP and retained custom boot splash.
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R51}} (2887) ||
*Ingo van Lil <inguin at gmx dot de>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{R52}} (1858) ||
*Stuart McCord <stuart dot mccord at gmail dot com> flashed both BIOS and ECP using cabextract, BIOS flashed first as on IBM website
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T20}} ||
*Franz Hassels <fhassel at suse dot com>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T22}} ||
*Daniel Maier <nusse teamidiot de>
*Mathias Behrle (with cabextract/CD method, Version 1.07 => 1.12) --[[User:Mathiasb|Mathiasb]] 11:58, 14 December 2006 (CET)
*Bob Skaroff (cabextract/CD), 1.06 => 1.12
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T23}} ||
*Bart Snapp <snapp at uiuc dot edu> Note: I followed IBM's instructions to flash the BIOS *first* and the Embedded Controller *second*.
*Moy Easwaran: BIOS 1.18 / EC 1.06a via cabextract and CD-boot. The BIOS-update exe generated errors in Windows 2000.
*Joe Renes: BIOS 1.18 / EC 1.06a on 2006-03-20 via cabextract and CD-boot. Piece of cake.
*Raphael Errani: BIOS 1.20 / EC 1.06a on 2006-11-06 via cabextract and CD-boot (using mkisofs). Worked without errors. 1st Bios, 2nd EC
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T30}} ||
*Martin GÃ¼hring <guehring at gmail.com> BIOS 2.10 via cabextract the Non-Diskette BIOS -> mkisofs '''in the directory the exe was extracted''' to generate the iso -> burn the iso -> boot the CD
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T40}} ||
*Sean Dague, http://dague.net
*Justin Mason, http://jmason.org
*Ivanhoe (Bios 3.19)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T40p}} ||
*Lukas KrÃ¤henbÃ¼hl, ismo at pop dot agri dot ch
*Thomas Achtemichuk, tom at tomchuk dot com. BIOS 3.15 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T41}} ||
*Lev Givon (Bios 3.15 / EC 3.04) <lev at columbia dot edu>
*Ernesto HernÃ¡ndez-Novich (Bios 3.19 / CP 3.04) < emhn at usb dot ve >
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T41p}} ||
*Nils Newman, work great. (Version: Bios 3.14 / Embedded Controller 3.04)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T42}} ||
*Dan (BIOS 3.20 / EC 3.04, cabextract/CD method) <tronic171 at evilphb.org>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T42p}} ||
*Robert Schiele <rschiele@uni-mannheim.de>, Joern Heissler <joern@heissler.de>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{T43}} ||
*Conrad Rentsch <Conrad dot Rentsch at t-online dot de> (Version: Bios 1.29 / Embedded Controller 1.06)
*Tom Heady <tom-thinkwiki.org@punch.net>
*Florian Boucault <florian at boucault dot ath dot cx> (Model : 1871-W34 & Version: Bios 1.23 / Embedded Controller 1.03)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X20}} ||
*Neil Caunt <retardis at gmail dot com>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X21}} ||
*Patrick Leickner <ranma at web dot de>, (BIOS 2.21->2.25 / EC 1.31->1.36) via non-disk/cabextract/mkisofs/cdrecord
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X22}} ||
*David Emery <dave at skiddlydee dot com>, (EC 1.30, BIOS 1.32 using non-disk/cabextract/CD method)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X23}} ||
*Nils Faerber <nils dot faerber at kernelconcepts dot de> (Embedded Controller 1.30, BIOS 1.32 with cabextract/CD method)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X30}} ||
*Hella Breitkopf, [http://www.unixwitch.de/ www] (Embedded Controller 1.04, BIOS 1.07 with cabextract/CD method)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X31}} ||
*Grzegorz KuÅ›nierz <koniu at sheket dot org> (Embedded Controller 1.08, BIOS 3.01 with cabextract/CD method)
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{X40}} ||
*Robbie Stone <robbie@serendipity.cx>
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" | {{Z60m}} ||
*[[User:Morle|Morle]] 13:09, 20 May 2006 (CEST), (Embedded Controller 1.14 with cabextract/CD method)
|}

===Does not work:===
{|
| '''Model''' || '''Tested by'''
|}

Please note that testing this is '''at your own risk'''!!!

==Updating via Grub and a Floppy Image==

{{WARN|Many have warned '''not''' to use the [http://syslinux.zytor.com/ SYSLINUX] image-loader [http://syslinux.zytor.com/memdisk.php MEMDISK] to boot the images! Some flash tools may crash in that situation! Proceed at your own risk!}}

Floppy images may be booted from Grub via a utility called [http://syslinux.zytor.com/memdisk.php MEMDISK], which may be compiled from the [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/ '''SYSLINUX source''']. Copy the compiled memdisk image and the floppy image to your boot directory and configure grub as follows:

<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
title Bios Flash
kernel /boot/memdisk
initrd /boot/FILENAME.img
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

Again, proceed at your own risk. This was tested on an R51 type 2888.

This also worked for me on a T41p type 2373. -- [[User:MrStaticVoid|James Lee]] 20:55, 8 May 2006 (CEST)

And it worked for me on a X31 type 2673-CBU. -- [[User:JanTopinski|Jan Topinski]], 18 September 2006

And it worked for me too on a X31 type 2672-CXU, very useful. -- [[User:TheAnarcat|TheAnarcat]] 16:21, 7 March 2007 (CET)

And it worked for me on two X40 type 2371 -- [[User:Antialize|Jakob Truelsen]], 19 Jan 2007 -- BIOS: 2.07 1uuj21us.exe -- ECP: 1.62 1uhj10us.exe

Not working for me on T43 type 2668-F7G -- [[User:Maus3273|Maus3273]] 20:48, 30 January 2007 (CET) -- BIOS: 1.29 1YUJ18US.IMG -- I got into the bios program, but the machine never restarts after initiating the upgrade.

X41 type 2525-F8G -- [[User:ladoga|Lauri Koponen]], 11:08 16 Apr 2007 
BIOS: 2.09 74UJ15US.IMG, no go. (hangs at the beginning of the flash process) 
ECP: 1.02 74HJ03US.IMG, works.

==Updating with Network Boot Image==

BIOS, Embedded Controller (EC), CD/DVD and Harddisk firmware disks can be booted
over the network with [http://syslinux.zytor.com/pxe.php PXELINUX] as part of the [http://syslinux.zytor.com/ SYSLINUX] package.

This requires that you have a DHCP and tftp server configured and setup properly on
your network, and is probably not for the faint of heart.

Make sure the firmware bootdisk is in linux 'dd' format, as the self-extracting .exe disks
from the IBM website cannot be booted directly as such.

This worked on the {{R31}}, {{X22}}, {{T21}}, {{T30}} and {{T41p}} with various firmware updates.

==Updating via "IBM Predesktop area", suitable for model X (not have CDROM and floppy)==
It's so difficult to update BIOS and ECP without cdrom, floppy disk.
Don't know the reason why I couldn't update BIOS and ECP(1QHJ08US and 1QUJ19US) for my IBM Thinkpad X31.Hmm, may be cause of the dividing partition on my hard disk, that is:
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
Primary: ext3, ext3, ntfs
Extended: Ntsf, fat32
Bootloader: GRUB
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

No problem, you can use this way to do it:
* First, config in BIOS
In Security part:
# Remove all password of Subpervisor and Power on password
# Set Access IBM Predesktop Area to Normal
# Choose Enable "Flash BIOS updating by End User" in BIOS update Option.

In Config part:
# Choose Enable for Network flash over Lan

* Second, download the newest version of BIOS update and ECP update
Running: The program extract all files to the folder. There is a .img file (1QUJ19US.IMG, 1QUJ08US.IMG) in each folder.
Copy the imformation content in that img file and paste it to one FAT partition(using winimage or TotalCmd to extract)

as seen All files in 1QUJ19US.IMG is extracted to D:\BIOS
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
695,764 $018E000.FL1
163 0691.HSH
2,049 0691.PAT
163 0694.HSH
2,049 0694.PAT
163 0695.HSH
2,049 0695.PAT
2,049 06D0.PAT
163 06D1.HSH
2,049 06D1.PAT
163 06D2.HSH
2,049 06D2.PAT
163 06D6.HSH
2,049 06D6.PAT
2,049 06D8.PAT
697 CHKBMP.EXE
8,128 COMMAND.COM
26 CONFIG.SYS
24,860 FLASH2.EXE
26 LCREFLSH.BAT
170 LOGO.BAT
330 LOGO.SCR
111,925 PHLASH16.EXE
91,648 PREPARE.EXE
45 PROD.DAT
22,252 QKFLASH.EXE
9,923 README.TXT
4,260 TPCHKS.EXE
39,666 UPDTFLSH.EXE
6,958 UPDTMN.EXE
12,501 USERINT.EXE
15,254 UTILINFO.EXE
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

And all files in 1QUJ08US.IMG are: D:\ECP
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
315,404 $018E000.FL2
8,000 COMMAND.COM
36 CONFIG.SYS
16,910 ECFLASH2.EXE
45 PROD.DAT
17,812 QKFLASH.EXE
990 README.TXT
4,260 TPCHKS.EXE
89,738 UPDTEC.EXE
31,134 UPDTFLSH.EXE
12,501 USERINT.EXE
15,226 UTILINFO.EXE
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

* Okie, now plug AC Adapter, charge full battery to your laptop and continue third step:

** '''Flash BIOS first,'''
1. Power On, press blue button on keyboard: '''Access IBM'''

2. On "Utilities", double click " Diagnostic disk"

3. Your laptop will start PC-DOS, wait when this message appear:
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
Please insert the first floppy diskette and
Press any key to continue
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

4. Press Ctrl + Break, you will see :
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;"><pre><nowiki>Terminate batch job (Y/N) ?</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

5. Okie, press Y, you will get DOS prompt like D:\
{{NOTE|D:\ is my RAMDISK, C:\ is my disk format as FAT.!}}

6. Enter to c:\BIOS
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
c:
cd c:\BIOS
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

7. Run FLASH2.EXE /u $018E000.FL1

8. Wait flash progress compelete and reboot.
** '''Flash ECP'''
Follow above instruction from step 1 to 5

6. Enter to c:\ECP
<blockquote style="background: white; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em;">
<pre><nowiki>
c:
cd c:\ECP
</nowiki></pre></blockquote>

7. run UPDTFLSH.EXE $018E000.FL2

8. Follow UPDTFLSH's instructions

9. Wait flash complete and auto turn off computer.

I done it on my IBM Thinkpad X31.

Enjoy,

Tested by nm.

==Check List==

The following is important to remember:
# You must update '''both''' the Control Program and the BIOS at the same time if your current Control Program is not compatible with the new BIOS (see below)
# You must find versions of the Control Program and BIOS that are compatible. Not all of them are, so follow the readmes on the IBM website carefully to determine which are.
# You must update the Control Program '''before''' you update the BIOS

When the Control Program '''and''' the BIOS need updating, have both update disks or CDs ready. Update the Control Program first and the system should switch itself off when finished. Insert the BIOS update disk and proceed to update the BIOS. When it's all finished, enter setup, reset the settings to their defaults and reboot. Enter setup again and tweak the settings as necessary.

Problems with ACPI suspend-to-ram

2006-08-15T16:28:04Z

Ladoga: /* Troubles on resume */

The following glitches may or may not occur in relation to suspending to RAM:

==Troubles on suspend==
;Permissions:If your suspend is failing, and a {{cmdroot|tail /var/log/acpid}} shows "Permission denied" errors, be sure that your new ACPI event and action scripts have the appropriate permissions.

;Broken sysfs interface:You may experience problems when using {{cmdroot|echo standby > /sys/power/state}} or {{cmdroot|echo mem > /sys/power/state}} (machine goes to sleep and wakes up immediately). This can be avoided by using {{cmdroot|echo -n 3 >/proc/acpi/sleep}} to get it to sleep. This can be also happen if hotplug daemon is still running.

;Hangs on "switching to UP code":You may be using a [[How to make use of Dynamic Frequency Scaling|frequency scaling governor]] such as "conservative" or "ondemand", which sometimes have problems with suspending. Switching to a governor such as "powersave" or "performance" before suspending may solve this problem.

;MySQL daemon running:If you're running MySQL, sleep may also not work, so stop MySQL first, then sleep. Remember to restart MySQL when you wakeup.

;LCD backlight remains on during sleep:When your system is equiped with a Radeon Mobility graphic controller your [[Problem with LCD backlight remaining on during ACPI sleep|LCD backlight may not turn off automatically]]. Use [[radeontool]] to switch off your backlight prior suspend in your sleep action script.

;High power drain during sleep:Also, you might want to take note of the [[Problem with high power drain in ACPI sleep]].

==Troubles on resume==
;Blank display on resume:When resuming from a suspend-to-ram the display might remain black or might only show the pre-suspend output (the system is still rebootable via {{key|ctrl}}{{key|alt}}{{key|del}}). See [[Problem with display remaining black after resume]] for solutions.
;Garbage on text consoles on resume:When resuming from suspend-to-ram the text console displays may show garbage instead of actual text. The machine is otherwise still responsive and X displays fine. If all of this is true, then adding the kernel option '''acpi_sleep=s3_bios,s3_mode''' in your menu.lst or lilo.conf may solve the problem.
;Broken hardware support after resume:
:*The '''serial port''' of the port replicator might not work after resume.
:*The '''parallel port''' might not work after resume. A possible fix is to unload and reload the parallel port drivers: {{cmdroot|rmmod lp parport_pc parport; modprobe lp}}.
:*Problems with the '''CD-RW/DVD drive''' after wake up from ram have been experienced.
:*There is a known Problem regarding '''battery info''' after suspend to RAM. A [http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0511.0/2429.html small patch] exists for kernels 2.6.14/2.6.15.
:*On {{X20}} and {{X21}} (and possibly other) models, the '''sleep LED''' is not reset properly on resume and will keep blinking. If you have the [[ibm-acpi]] kernel module loaded with the <tt>experimental=1</tt> option, you can switch it off on resume by appending the following line to your suspend script:
echo 7 off > /proc/acpi/ibm/led

;Crash on resume:
:*When using '''older ATI proprietary drivers''' a crash on resume can be solved by using [http://freshmeat.net/projects/vbetool/ vbetool]. See the example suspend script [[Problem with display remaining black after resume#Solution for ThinkPads with Intel I830 Chipset]]. This is no longer necessary with recent revisions of the ATI proprietary driver.
:*A crash could also be caused by having '''apic support''' enabled in the kernel config. Try disabling it (in the "Processor type and features" section).
:*On machines with Savage chipsets, the '''savagefb framebuffer driver''' might crash the machine on resume. Make sure it is disabled in your kernel config and use the standard vesafb driver instead.
:*Sonoma chipset based laptops ({{R52}}, {{T43}}, {{T43p}}, {{X41}}, {{X41T}}) utilize the '''SATA layer for disk access''' and SATA does not have power-management support yet. Suspend to RAM crashes these machines on resume. See the [[Problems with SATA and Linux#Hang on resume from suspend to RAM|relevant section]] on the [[Problems with SATA and Linux]] page.
:*When system resumes it hangs right after restarting tasks. This may be fixed by passing ec_intr=0 on kernel cmdline.
;Shutdown on resume:
:If your system immediately begins to shut down right after resume, make sure you don't have acpid running with the power button tied to shutdown. The system is simply sensing the power button event and shutting down. This issue has been reported as a bug against the kernel ACPI subsystem, refer to [http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6612 kernel.org bugzilla bug #6612].

;Immediate suspend on resume:
:When running GNOME, sometimes gnome-power-manager will put the system back into suspend immediately after resuming. This is caused by a known bug in HAL that causes some ACPI events to be reported incorrectly after a suspend-to-ram. A simple workaround can be found [http://live.gnome.org/GnomePowerManager/Faq#head-b8b1280115b0a51c2cc27b13a57121130ebf36cb here].
:Note that suspend being triggered by unrelated ACPI events such as disconnecting the AC adapter may also be fixed by the above method.

Talk:Problems with ACPI suspend-to-ram

2006-08-05T05:02:05Z

Ladoga:

After a few resumes with my T43, I get "big green boxes" on my consoles tty1 and tty2.
tyy3 to tty6 stays completly black (there should be login prompt).
But X still working fine.

This is a minor issue, but anyone with the same problem and a fix/workaround?

--[[User:Defiant|Defiant]] 13:40, 02 Jun 2006 (CEST)
----
I have a similar issue on my T60. It seems like the problem is with the framebuffer; that the card is attempting to use the lowest resolution possible when I have the framebuffer set much higher, but that's just my intuition. I'm using hibernate with both <code>EnableVbetool</code> and <code>VbetoolPost</code> set to <code>yes</code>.

An interesting thing is that if I manually call hibernate from an xterm inside X, I get no negative effects. It even fixes the console "big green boxes" if I previously suspended not in X. Also, on resume I see the following messages on the xterm (all previous output is cleared):

Allocated buffer at 0x11010 (base is 0x0)
ES: 0x1101 EBX: 0x0000
Calling INT 0x15 (F000: 5E79)
EAX is 0x1005F08
Calling INT 0x15 (F000: 5E79)
EAX is 0x1005F08
Calling INT 0x15 (F000: 5E79)
EAX is 0x5F08
Calling INT 0x15 (F000: 5E79)
EAX is 0x5F08
Calling INT 0x15 (F000: 5E79)
EAX is 0x45F08
Function not supported

Any ideas?

-- [[User:Deason|Deason]] 05:39, 14 July 2006 (CEST)
----
Just to update/confirm: suspend to RAM only works if I have X running, and I switch to the console running X after resuming. Editing the ACPI sleep script to switch to vt 7 before switching back to the original console seems to work fine, though. It just means that I can't suspend to RAM if I'm not running X. (Putting a check for that in the ACPI sleep script would also be a good idea.) I've tried using <code>EnableVbetool</code>, <code>VbetoolPost</code>, <code>RestoreVCSAData</code>, and <code>RestoreVbeStateFrom</code> from hiberante, but none seem to solve this without switching to X.

-- [[User:Deason|Deason]] 21:48, 16 July 2006 (CEST)
----
Yes it's the vga framebuffer freaking out at you. Try adding '''acpi_sleep=s3_bios,s3_mode''' kernel option to /boot/grub/menu.lst

The s3_mode part fixed the green boxes for me. (debian testing, kernel 2.6.16, TP x41)

--[[User:Ladoga|Ladoga]] 06:46, 5 August 2006 (CEST)

Talk:Problems with ACPI suspend-to-ram

2006-08-05T04:46:25Z

Ladoga: Fix for garbled framebuffer console.

After a few resumes with my T43, I get "big green boxes" on my consoles tty1 and tty2.
tyy3 to tty6 stays completly black (there should be login prompt).
But X still working fine.

This is a minor issue, but anyone with the same problem and a fix/workaround?

--[[User:Defiant|Defiant]] 13:40, 02 Jun 2006 (CEST)
----
I have a similar issue on my T60. It seems like the problem is with the framebuffer; that the card is attempting to use the lowest resolution possible when I have the framebuffer set much higher, but that's just my intuition. I'm using hibernate with both <code>EnableVbetool</code> and <code>VbetoolPost</code> set to <code>yes</code>.

An interesting thing is that if I manually call hibernate from an xterm inside X, I get no negative effects. It even fixes the console "big green boxes" if I previously suspended not in X. Also, on resume I see the following messages on the xterm (all previous output is cleared):

Allocated buffer at 0x11010 (base is 0x0)
ES: 0x1101 EBX: 0x0000
Calling INT 0x15 (F000: 5E79)
EAX is 0x1005F08
Calling INT 0x15 (F000: 5E79)
EAX is 0x1005F08
Calling INT 0x15 (F000: 5E79)
EAX is 0x5F08
Calling INT 0x15 (F000: 5E79)
EAX is 0x5F08
Calling INT 0x15 (F000: 5E79)
EAX is 0x45F08
Function not supported

Any ideas?

-- [[User:Deason|Deason]] 05:39, 14 July 2006 (CEST)
----
Just to update/confirm: suspend to RAM only works if I have X running, and I switch to the console running X after resuming. Editing the ACPI sleep script to switch to vt 7 before switching back to the original console seems to work fine, though. It just means that I can't suspend to RAM if I'm not running X. (Putting a check for that in the ACPI sleep script would also be a good idea.) I've tried using <code>EnableVbetool</code>, <code>VbetoolPost</code>, <code>RestoreVCSAData</code>, and <code>RestoreVbeStateFrom</code> from hiberante, but none seem to solve this without switching to X.

-- [[User:Deason|Deason]] 21:48, 16 July 2006 (CEST)

== Fix for garbled framebuffer console. ==

try to add following kernel option to /boot/grub/menu.lst

'''acpi_sleep=s3_bios,s3_mode'''

i think the s3_mode fixed the green boxes for me. (kernel 2.6.16)
--[[User:Ladoga|Ladoga]] 06:46, 5 August 2006 (CEST)