windows 7 - Dell BIOS update appears inefective

07
2014-07
  • reubenjohn

    My Dell XPS M1330 currently has BIOS version A11 which is too outdated to install windows 7 Home Premium. I followed the instructions on the Dell support site, downloaded the appropriate BIOS update executable (M1330A15.EXE) and ran it.

    Since my battery has worn out it flagged an error saying that my computer didn't have a battery, but I can work around that by using M1330A15.EXE /forceit from a cmd prompt with elevated permissions.

    It confirms that I want to update from A11 to A15 and I press OK. This causes Windows to shutdown. All good so far.

    The problem:
    After the shutdown there is a black screen for a few minutes after which windows starts normally. However when I check the BIOS version (with msinfo32.exe), it still shows A11!

    It appears like the BIOS update was never flashed and that the black screen just timed out and started windows again :(. Any help or insight will be appreciated since there is no service center in my locality for the appropriate battery and vista is creating a lot of problems for me!

    Edit:
    The reason I need to update my BIOS is because Windows 7 CD gives the warning:

    The following issues are preventing Windows from upgrading... Windows cannot be installed on this computer with the current system BIOS version.

    Contact your computer manufacturer for a BIOS update,... OEM Name: Dell Inc.; OEM Model: XPS M1330 ; BIOS Version: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A11;...

    Also, it still shows A11 even in my BIOS setup screen!

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    Related Question

    Update BIOS on Dell with Linux with no floppy drive, when firmware is not in the firmware-tools repository
  • Shane

    I'd like to update my BIOS on my Dell Studio XPS 1340. I have the .exe file for installing it with Windows, but I don't have Windows installed on this computer. I'm currently running Ubuntu 9.04 64-bit.

    What can I do to update my BIOS from A07 to A11 now? I have no floppy drive available, and looking around the Dell linux firmware tools pages shows that my model (SystemID: 0x0271) isn't in their repository.

    I'm not opposed to going out and buying a new thumb drive if necessary.


    • Related Answers
  • Multiverse IT

    If it's a DOS based installer, you can use an Boot CD instead - the CD just needs to have DOS booting on it. try www.bootdisk.com for some downloadable ones. Otherwise, if it's a Windows based installer, I would suggest creating a WinPE/BartPE boot CD and installing off a flash drive (WinPE/BartPE Flash drive should also work).

  • Neal

    If you are not using Windows for idealogical reasons, you may want to look at FreeDos rather than Microsoft based solutions (you may want to look at it anyway, of course).

    I have, in the past, written image files of Dos boot floppies to cds to get a proper Dos boot cd - you'd end up with a coaster after your single use, but it saves messing about getting Dos and USB to work together (mkisofs's -b option will get you going).

  • Ryan Thompson

    Edit: As ~quack pointed out below, this script uses the same repository that you reference in your question, so of course it won't work. It may be that Dell only maintains this repository for computers on which they support Linux.

    Does dellbiosupdate.sh not work? It's what I've been using. Just download the shell script and run it as root. It will tell you your system info, your current bios rev, and list all available bios revs, then ask you what to do.

  • Moab

    Convert the floppy image to CD, burn the Cd, boot from it and flash from there. Just did it on my Thinkpad T42 last week.

    This may only work for floppy based flash utilities, as some windows based flash utilities are too large to fit on a floppy image, even though it is a Cd you are still limited to 1.44mb of space for the files.

    Some Dell flash updaters that run in windows will run in DOS also, but may not fit on a DOS floppy image converted to CD.

    http://www.biosflash.com/e/bios-boot-cd.htm

  • 0sumgain

    I wrote instructions a while back specifically for Ubuntu/Debian systems. As requested, here's the gist of it:

    1. Use gparted to create a single FAT16 formatted partition on the flash drive.
    2. Use unetbootin to install a bootable FreeDOS onto the flash drive.
    3. Copy your motherboard's BIOS update and flashing utility files into the root of flash drive.

    Both gparted and unetbootin are available via apt-get and probably via yum.

    http://0sumgain.blogspot.com/2009/11/updating-motherboard-bios-from-ubuntu.html