Backing Up CMOS Settings Under Linux
I first thought it was my imagination, but I have had two Dell Dimension computers change their boot drive order. I don't know when it happens because they change to boot the hard drive just after trying the floppy such that the CDROM is last. This makes it hard to boot from any CDROM until the CMOS gets changed back. As a computer user who is blind, this is annoying because one must look at the screen to set things back as there is no network interface or serial port or much of anything else up when in BIOS setup mode. I would be perfectly happy with an application that read the current settings, saved them to a file and then could force them back in if necessary. This may be that bug I read about concerning the lower 64KB of memory getting corrupted. In any case, both Dells in question had the very same thing happen to them with no other ill effects. Of course, if you change it back, one can not make it corrupt on demand. It's like a bolt out of the blue. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK Systems Engineer OSU Information Technology Department Telecommunications Services Group -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Backing Up CMOS Settings Under Linux
On Sun, May 03, 2009 at 03:19:50PM -0500, Martin McCormick wrote: I first thought it was my imagination, but I have had two Dell Dimension computers change their boot drive order. I don't know when it happens because they change to boot the hard drive just after trying the floppy such that the CDROM is last. This makes it hard to boot from any CDROM until the CMOS gets changed back. As a computer user who is blind, this is annoying because one must look at the screen to set things back as there is no network interface or serial port or much of anything else up when in BIOS setup mode. Perhaps you should try editing your /etc/fstab and mounting the devices by their UUIDs, rather than their /dev/ names. I'd go into more detail, but I have to head out; a quick Google search for mounting by UUID should suffice. -- http://fuzzydev.org/~pobega http://identi.ca/pobega -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Backing Up CMOS Settings Under Linux
On Sun, May 03, 2009 at 05:32:28PM -0400, Michael Pobega wrote: On Sun, May 03, 2009 at 03:19:50PM -0500, Martin McCormick wrote: I first thought it was my imagination, but I have had two Dell Dimension computers change their boot drive order. I don't know when it happens because they change to boot the hard drive just after trying the floppy such that the CDROM is last. This makes it hard to boot from any CDROM until the CMOS gets changed back. As a computer user who is blind, this is annoying because one must look at the screen to set things back as there is no network interface or serial port or much of anything else up when in BIOS setup mode. Perhaps you should try editing your /etc/fstab and mounting the devices by their UUIDs, rather than their /dev/ names. I'd go into more detail, but I have to head out; a quick Google search for mounting by UUID should suffice. AIUI, the problem is how to boot from CDROM instead of the hard drive. Can grub, booted by the bios, then boot a CDROM, or a floppy? Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Backing Up CMOS Settings Under Linux
Hi, On Sun, May 03, 2009 at 03:19:50PM -0500, Martin McCormick wrote: ... This makes it hard to boot from any CDROM until the CMOS gets changed back. As a computer user who is blind, this is annoying because one must look at the screen to set things back as there is no network interface or serial port or much of anything else up when in BIOS setup mode. ... I would be perfectly happy with an application that read the current settings, saved them to a file and then could force them back in if necessary. ... This is CMOS data normally accessed by BIOS. So fstab is not the issue. I do not know the answer but quick aptitude search with ~dcmos lead me to * libsmbios-bin * libsmbios-doc These certainly looks interesting. (These are normally used by hal) Description: Provide access to (SM)BIOS information -- utility binaries libsmbios aims towards providing access to as much BIOS information as possible. This package includes libsmbios' sample binaries/utilities. Another solution is live with boot from harddisk and find other way to boot CD. mbr package and grub comes to my thought. They may be configured so but I do not know how much support they provide for braille terminals but should be better than the support by BIOS. Good luck. Osamu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
