[aklug] Flashing my linux box

I ran across a need to update my bios recently, however, the machine =20
I'm using doesn't have an externally bootable device (except for the =20
ethernet port).

Because of this I had to find a way to boot from the grub2 boot =20
loader. There is a ton of stuff out there about this, but none of it =20
worked as advertised.

This is the short version of how you might be able to do this for =20
yourself on a machine that is using grub2:

1. in the /etc/grub.d/40_custom file, at the end add:

menuentry "Boot FreeDOS" {
         set root=3D'(hd0,3)'
         linux16 /boot/memdisk
         initrd16 /boot/balder10.img
}

NOTE: the root entry will need to be adjusted to your specific environment.

2. run 'update-grub2'

copy the file /usr/lib/syslinux/memdisk to /boot

download the following file:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unoffi=
cial/balder/balder10.img

and put it in the /boot directory of your computer.

You should now be able to boot into 'dos'.

Because I wanted to use the biosflash tool from dell, I had to remove =20
some of the files from the balder10.img so that there would be enough =20
room. Here is what I did to accomplish that:

mkdir bootflop
mount /boot/balder10.img bootflop -o loop
cd bootflop
#removed enough files to make space for the biosflash tool
cp /path/to/biosflashtool .
cd ..
umount bootflop

This gives you a bootable image with the dos tool of your choice on =20
that image.

Hope this helps someone else.

Mike B.

----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.

---------
To unsubscribe, send email to <aklug-request@aklug.org>
with 'unsubscribe' in the message body.
Received on Sat Sep 18 23:25:55 2010