[lug] BIOS help

[Adams, Scott (FGWA-CO)]

It's an old laptop. It's a Dell Smartstep 100n. There is very little
info I can get out of the user manual or that I can find using google.
But I will keep trying and hope I can find something. I relly don't want
windo$e on this thing but it is the only OS that works for me.

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces at lug.boulder.co.us
[mailto:lug-bounces at lug.boulder.co.us] On Behalf Of Hugh Brown
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 10:05 AM
To: Boulder (Colorado) Linux Users Group -- General Mailing List
Subject: Re: [lug] BIOS help

On Thu, Oct 25, 2007 at 07:51:24AM -0600, Adams, Scott (FGWA-CO) wrote:
> I recently had a laptop with BIOS version A03. I decided that it was
> time to upgrade bios. Followed instructions for a harddrive update for
> the BIOS to version A11. After that the video would not work. I have
> searched google for several hours. The best solution I can find is
that
> I need to downgrade my BIOS to A09. This laptop does not have a floppy
> and the harddrive update for A09 says that is a newer BIOS on machine
so
> it won't install. Now for my questions. How do I downgrade my bios or
> even reset it? Also I cannot find a battery or info about one, do all
> computers have a removable CMOS battery??
> 
>  
> 
> Scott Adams
> 
>  

You are really at the mercy of the maker of the BIOS flashing tool. If
they won't let you downgrade you are likely stuck.  Sometimes the
flashing tool with have command line flags for altering behavior.  It's
also possible that the BIOS flashing tool and A09 BIOS can be put on a
usb stick and the upgrade performed that way.  I'd look for a utility to
convert the floppy image to a suitable usb image.

 Removing the CMOS battery will only reset the A11 bios to its default
settings.  As far as locating it, I'd look at the service manuals for
your laptop from the dell support website (from the bios version numbers
I'm assuming it is a dell). 

Good luck.

Hugh
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