BIOS floppies created with WINE
 

This is a partial success story that is not tested as I have yet to get my new mobo. my target mobo is a giga-byte k8vt800 PRO with 2 bios going to the download site I downloaded a couple of EXE files to check

1) Then rebooted with KNOPPIX 3.6 and running KDE clicked on the wine menu to config a normal wine.
2) opened a terminal and navigated to the area I put the files using linux knoppix structure
eg cd /mnt/hdc1/mobo/downloads
3) now I found I had to insert the msdos formatted floppy before the next command
4) wine filename.exe
brings up a dialog box and I browsed the wine way to A drive (my floppy)
5) then the floppy clicked away and made no changes to floppy mbr but put 3 files on it
autoexec.bat.....this merely points to the next 2 files
flash(version number).exe
mobo model-flash version number


COMMENTS
1) gigabyte does not need a boot disk and I am hoping this floppy uses gigabyte's QFlash facility
2) but still needs a windows like system to extract the exe files at its download site
3) Please remember I have yet to test it.

DOS is not Windows. In the old days, DOS was the foundation of the computer software. The GUI called Windows ran on top of DOS. All you need for a DOS boot disk is command.com. The autoexec.bat and config.sys are scripts that DOS runs to load up drivers and set the environment of DOS, but they are optional. Read the documentation for the flash utility. Do not use wine to flash your BIOS because it is a huge chance it will not flash correctly. If you do not want to use Microsoft's DOS, you can use freedos. I think the unzip utility should be able to extract exe files if its zip file.

Electro

thanks for your advice

1) the purpose of my post mentioning the dual bios is
(a) you are probably correct that wine may fail to use exe properly but
(b) I don't care, as I will have a dual bios and my reading of the online dox and download manual is ....if the first bios fails the second kicks in.
(c) then I report the results including grovelling if I fail......failure is not an option heh heh

2) So all other non-dual bios users I agree don't try this at home.

3) The exe file did not put any COMMAND.COM file onto floppy suggesting it is not needed. Yes I am aware you think it it needed, but my reading of the new mobo dox is I go into bios and the bios finds the floppy and sees the files. I don't boot into bios with the floppy already loaded.

Mdk user johnnyv reports gigabyte bios is correct
http://mandrakeusers.org/index.php?s...bios++gigabyte

I have now got this mobo and tested the bios update or flashing and it worked.....it worked .

yes. so its only the last mentioned file in (5) of my first flirt with this technuique

Oh, a follow up to this.

Gigabyte's self-extracting files are in RAR format - you can check this by running: and checking the last page or so of output.

The file can therefore be decompressed under GNU/Linux using unrar - no Windows needed whatsoever.

Tim

You little ripper......just did a md5sum on my wine extract and compared to your unrar version of same extracted bios and its sweeeeeeet.

for those who can use rpm try here if your distro has not got it
http://www.rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2htm...mit=Search+...

if link fails just use rpmfind.net and search for unrar

and that above links to rarlab if you need the source

Once again Tim well done