Is there a way to flash bios from mint

[rajumukherjee]

Hey. All gurus out there i have been using mint around 30 Days. I have a problem with bios the f2 Key is not working so i cant change the boot order. Last time i flashed a bios from windows but on lunix mint and wine installed. It could not be done. Is there any way to do it without formating the whole hdd. Using lenevo g580, Celeron dul core 1.8 ghz. Inbuilt intel 4000 Graphic card. 1tb hdd.. And 4gb ddr3 RAM. could not find any bootable iso for my models all in exe format for win7/8. No device error except when used hard disk as external drive got some bad sector and my touch pad sometimes become unresponsive

[Neil Edmond]

Most manufacturers will provide a bootable ISO image to flash the BIOS in addition to the Windows flash utility. No installed OS needed (or even a HDD for that matter) that way.

[rajumukherjee]

uote="Neil Edmond"]Most manufacturers will provide a bootable ISO image to flash the BIOS in addition to the Windows flash utility. No installed OS needed (or even a HDD
I dont know how to flash a bios file into a iso format i could not find on any at lenevo websites can you be more specific. i have exe file from lenovo. they do have bios iso file in cd format for think pad txxx model which do not bother about operating system. no idea which version of bios thinkpad txxx model have will they run for g580 or not. on searching for g580 they have only exe file to use which runs on windows only. do you suggest running bios bootable cd for other version model

[Mute Ant]

''Is there a way to flash bios from mint'' No. Changing the BIOS is not something you want to get wrong. If the manufacturer only provides a Windows exe file, that's what you have to use, in Windows, or do without. You certainly don't want to pick some other model's code because it's easier to install.

[pagester]

From what i've seen before, if you've got a defective device (boot drive, bad cd, etc), trying to get to the bios settings can be a challenge because said defective devices will cause a time out error that cannot be recovered from on boot. This is not an O/S fault.

You may have a hardware error (as stated above) that is causing this problem. I've been through this before. I've actually got a machine that will refuse bios accssability simply because I had a mouse plugged into the ps2 port. So a USB mouse solved it.

Best of luck.

[rajumukherjee]

From what i've seen before, if you've got a defective device (boot drive, bad cd, etc), trying to get to the bios settings can be a challenge because said defective devices will cause a time out error that cannot be recovered from on boot. This is not an O/S fault.

You may have a hardware error (as stated above) that is causing this problem. I've been through this before. I've actually got a machine that will refuse bios accssability simply because I had a mouse plugged into the ps2 port. So a USB mouse solved it.

Best of luck.

Hardware error, hmm boot drive if you mean USB drive the device pickup Ubuntu bootable easily from boot menu but not the windows within lunix environment. As for cd it's recently changed and work well for all other purpose except booting from it. well my touch pad sometime. Do not response. And have 25 bad sector as per hdd scan but what that has to with bios file
Any no problem when using with Windows 7/8/8.1. Still want to say it's hardware error?????

[rajumukherjee]

''Is there a way to flash bios from mint'' No. Changing the BIOS is not something you want to get wrong. If the manufacturer only provides a Windows exe file, that's what you have to use, in Windows, or do without. You certainly don't want to pick some other model's code because it's easier to install.

So what do you suggest going back to Windows flashing bios and return to lunix

[pagester]

I agree with the other posters here...

The bios is the root of everything.
You cannot pass go with a bios if your devices that they interface with are defective. I've been through this an insane amount of times and if your motherboard works with windows but absolutely refuses to work with any version of linux, then you need to get another motherboard.

This is real, and it does happen. I have had several computers that completely fail to boot linux, just because - it is not windows.
You could call it a conspiracy, but me I just call it time to move on. If we play the conspiracy theory route, I'd say it's because you're trying to do this on an IBM/Lenovo machine.
Chinese Asus or Acer seems to be pretty good for me.
Then again genuine Intel everything works pretty good too.

[WharfRat]

I was going to try this on an older dell machine, but decided against it. It does look doable though

http://www.linuxinsight.com/how-to-flas ... drive.html

Good luck

[pagester]

I absolutely love these 'salt of the earth' solutions!
Great job!

[Spearmint2]

you can download the windows exe file, change to zip and then open in engrampa (Archive Manager) and extract the needed BIOS update file. If your computer's BIOS has a QuickFlash, Q-Flash, or similar inbuilt, then you can do it from there using that extracted BIOS update file. I use Gigabyte motherboards and they have that, here's a video on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFLRCwhjujM

many other ways not as easy.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fl ... from_Linux

[Mark Phelps]

Whichever method you choose, BEFORE you flash the BIOS, make sure that BOTH of the following are true:
1) You have a way to save the current working BIOS to some external media that you can use later to restore it
2) You have a way to boot into some routine, if the BIOS flash fails, in order to restore the working BIOS that you saved.

If either of these is not true, flashing your BIOS risks "bricking" your machine -- and rendering it completely unusable.

[deleted]

some motherboards (like ASUS) allow you to flash the bios from a motherboard utility.
-Hinto

[rajumukherjee]

I agree with the other posters here...

The bios is the root of everything.
You cannot pass go with a bios if your devices that they interface with are defective. I've been through this an insane amount of times and if your motherboard works with windows but absolutely refuses to work with any version of linux, then you need to get another motherboard.

This is real, and it does happen. I have had several computers that completely fail to boot linux, just because - it is not windows.
You could call it a conspiracy, but me I just call it time to move on. If we play the conspiracy theory route, I'd say it's because you're trying to do this on an IBM/Lenovo machine.
Chinese Asus or Acer seems to be pretty good for me.
Then again genuine Intel everything works pretty good too.

may be true but mine did not ship with any os preinstalled on it

[rajumukherjee]

you can download the windows exe file, change to zip and then open in engrampa (Archive Manager) and extract the needed BIOS update file. If your computer's BIOS has a QuickFlash, Q-Flash, or similar inbuilt, then you can do it from there using that extracted BIOS update file. I use Gigabyte motherboards and they have that, here's a video on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFLRCwhjujM

many other ways not as easy.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fl ... from_Linux

unfortunately my bios is different from yours i dont think it would work thanks anyway

[rajumukherjee]

Whichever method you choose, BEFORE you flash the BIOS, make sure that BOTH of the following are true:
1) You have a way to save the current working BIOS to some external media that you can use later to restore it
2) You have a way to boot into some routine, if the BIOS flash fails, in order to restore the working BIOS that you saved.

If either of these is not true, flashing your BIOS risks "bricking" your machine -- and rendering it completely unusable.

ahem i had flashed it once and now the problems arise. got the same copy

[Mark Phelps]

ahem i had flashed it once and now the problems arise. got the same copy

So apparently, you did NOT save off a copy of the old BIOS before you flashed it, right? So, you have nothing to go back to.

Maybe you mentioned it already, and if you did, I missed it -- but is this a laptop? And, if so, how old is it? Asking, because I certainly would not have flashed the BIOS on a laptop expecting it to fix what is apparently a keyboard problem. IF it's a laptop, first thing you should have looked into is replacing the keyboard. I did that recently on an HP laptop, and the replacement keyboard cost $25 USD and the whole replacement operation took 15 minutes.

[rajumukherjee]

ahem i had flashed it once and now the problems arise. got the same copy

So apparently, you did NOT save off a copy of the old BIOS before you flashed it, right? So, you have nothing to go back to.

Maybe you mentioned it already, and if you did, I missed it -- but is this a laptop? And, if so, how old is it? Asking, because I certainly would not have flashed the BIOS on a laptop expecting it to fix what is apparently a keyboard problem. IF it's a laptop, first thing you should have looked into is replacing the keyboard. I did that recently on an HP laptop, and the replacement keyboard cost $25 USD and the whole replacement operation took 15 minutes.

Keyboard problem you mention but when I flashed the BIOS yes without copies of old dumb me actually had no idea. Anyway the f2 keys worked fine no hiccups on Windows 7/8/8.1 and everything started to get rough on mint. Wondering weather it's a conspiracy or not. By the way my touch pad may be faulty but keyboard no way. I purchased it at nehruplace a computer supermarket in new Delhi back in 2012. 2nd Gen motherboard emerald Lake or something cellron 1.6ghz duel core processor 4gb ddr3 ram and 320gb of hdd look good then. HD display and smart cooling surround sound looked fine to me.

[DrHu]

There is also the issue that a windows OS expects to be first and can sometimes prevent BIOS interaction or other OS's from running

• Instead, jumping directly into the WinOS, first installed or already there via an OEM arrangement
  --the notebook or desktop comes with the OS already installed.

Microsoft's method of updating the hardware from the internet should be considered as unsafe
--since the standard method of using a BIOS manufacturer's boot file(s) to reflash a BIOS is more reliable, and will save the current BIOS before flashing

• I assume the winOS method does that as well, but it is less controlled (by the user)..

[Mark Phelps]

Anyway the f2 keys worked fine no hiccups on Windows 7/8/8.1 and everything started to get rough on mint.

Was this before the BIOS upgrade? If so, then you did not need to do the BIOS upgrade -- which you now seem unable to rollback from.

By the way my touch pad may be faulty but keyboard no way.

If the keyboard works OK in Windows, but not in Mint, then it's likely keyboard drivers, and flashing the BIOS will not help those.

And, it IS possible for keyboards to fail, especially on laptops, since they are flimsy to begin with and have to take a lot of abuse. I've replaced several keyboards on laptops over the years -- with the touchpads still working fine.

And ... I agree with Dr. Hu -- never use an OS-based utility to do BIOS flashing. I've flashed numerous BIOS updates across a variety of machines over the years and in ALL cases, I used routines that were built into the motherboard or booted from diskette, CD, or USB.

You need to check with the website for your PC brand to see if there are BIOS flashing utilities that can be burned to CD, or written to USB. If not, you are likely to have to resort to paying a professional service to reflash your BIOS.