Dear Adam
Thanks for the suggestions.
I agree that Dell are good at only showing the right drivers for a
specific Service Tag. Which is what has confused me. They show 2 BIOS
files and label each as for different models, M5030 and N5031 but each
has the note "This PC".
I went back into the BIOS but cannot see anything to prevent an update
of the BIOS
Regarding the F5 suggestion. This was not possible. With the memory
stick in the USB port and after turning the laptop on, even while
pressing F5 constantly the memory stick boots just the same, to the user
menu. If I continue to press F5 constantly when I select fdos there is
no visible difference. And of course I execute the file with the same
result.
Thanks for the suggestions I am glad I tried them
Best wishes
Stpehnaos
On 11/04/2021 02:28, Adam Nielsen wrote:
I booted the stick, was a bit confused as to why freedos did not do
anything and fdos was the option, and found the BIOS file in drive C:\.
I ran it. It looked promising, but alas, alack, no.
-Start to flash ……. [ Y / N]: Y
- Error: Problem getting flash information
C:\>
I went back to the Dell website, entered my service tag: BQBD9N1 and
downloaded the latest BIOS file “M5030A05.EXE” (again, and remember the
A05 is a latter version to the installed BIOS which describes its
version as A02).
https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-uk/product-support/servicetag/0-YXhUR091TFhQWVdkR0VXeUY0cTREQT090/drivers
I deleted the BIOS file on the USB stick, copied over the new one and
tried again.
You've done everything correctly. Dell are very good about ensuring
you only see updates for the correct machine when you look it up by
service tag so you definitely have the right file.
The fact that it could not get the flash information means that
something else is interfering with what the program is trying to do.
Any best guesses welcome, or am I at the end of the line?
You can try pressing F5 a few times as FreeDOS is first booting which
will prevent it loading any DOS memory managers which can sometimes
interfere with direct hardware access. If this works you should see a
lot fewer messages on the screen before you see the C:\> prompt.
If that still doesn't work, all I can suggest is going into the BIOS
setup (F2 at the Dell logo) and make sure there aren't any options set
that might be preventing the BIOS from being updated for
security/antivirus reasons.
Cheers,
Adam.
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