Hi! > OK, and thanks to all. I have now read the Dell website about updating > from within Linux and noted the fact that I should use FreeDOS base 1.0
Or newer, I guess. > Although the upgrade will not give me Virtualisation, I have another > reason for continuing with upgrading the BIOS. It provides better > support for the battery. So it seems to me that although Windows 7 is > on the laptop the issue remains, how to upgrade the BIOS using my 64 GB > memory stick, FreeDOS and other things. I was put off by the fact that > something special had to be done to make the BIOS upgrade file available > after the boot to FreeDOS. I was comfortable with booting FreeDOS from > a CD/DVD and just wanted to put the memory stick in, navigate to it and > run the file, but that was not to be. The main point is that you first have to boot DOS. Just opening some DOS file in Linux or running DOS in a window in Linux is not what you need. If you would do that, you will still have booted Linux, not DOS. So you need a DOS boot disk. Because your update is so big, this is not a boot diskette any more. In this century, you can use a CD, DVD or USB stick. For making a DOS boot USB stick, you can use UNetbootin: https://unetbootin.github.io/#distros It already has a menu item to download and install FreeDOS for you, apparently. The alternative is that you download FreeDOS yourself and give the file to UNetbootin. The next task is to put your BIOS update file and update tool at a place where you can open it in DOS. As explained, if you use the FreeDOS IMG file and dd, you end up having a 32 MB DOS USB drive partition where you can add and remove files easily. If you use ISO, replacing files works in a different way. Because you already have Windows on your harddisk at the moment, you can also make a FAT partition on your harddisk (DOS does not see NTFS partitions) and put the BIOS tool and update files there instead of on the stick. No matter which way you select, you always have to boot from your DOS boot medium at some point. Then, when asked whether to install DOS on your harddisk, you could say no. But as you only have Windows on your harddisk at the moment, you can just as well say yes and throw Windows out to have a look at FreeDOS, of course. Either after booting the DOS installed on your harddisk or by simply leaving the install process without installing DOS, you will have a DOS command prompt. As soon as you are at the DOS command prompt, you can type the commands given by the Dell BIOS update instructions to update your BIOS. I guess we could also use some chat to help you interactively :-) > We are, I suggest, still in business and that the objective has not > changed, just the circumstances, the laptop has Windows 7 on it. I want > to prepare the memory stick using my PC with Windows 10 on it, insert > the stick into the laptop, boot the laptop and then obey any instructions. If you want to prepare your DOS boot stick on Windows 10, no problem! You can use Rufus to make a bootable FreeDOS USB stick. Check this: http://rufus.ie/ As soon as you have booted DOS from the stick, you can follow the Dell instructions. Obviously, you want to add the BIOS update and tools on your USB stick before booting from it, or at least put the files at another location which you can access from DOS :-) Regards, Eric _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
