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For James and Libby Waechter, 12-year-old twins with cerebral palsy, their backyard has never been so accessible, let alone adventurous.
"Oh my gosh, it is super fun," the twins' mother, Katie Waechter, 33, of Wellington, Colo., told ABCNews.com. "It's like going to one of those amusement parks and riding those rides. You get the butterflies in your stomach."
On May 4, construction was complete on the Waechter's very own, personalized backyard playground equipped with a large deck that includes a wheelchair ramp down to the yard, a 3,000-pound wheelchair swing the children can roll on to, as well as an elevated sandbox the twins can access with their wheelchairs.
The 15-week-long project was part of Colorado State University's Construction Management program, CM Cares, which focuses on students applying construction skills through community service projects.
"Before the class started our facultywent out there and did an evaluation," said CSU student and project member Kyle Snow. "They came up with the idea for the swing. It's a first of its kind. It's hard to imagine until you see how big it is."
Each year, the program receives about a dozen applications from families in the community requesting assistance, then each spring, the department selects three projects for the students to schedule, budget and complete from start to finish.
"They made sure they had someone come in and install a push button so the kids can get the door open on their own," Waechter explained. "Our deck is beautiful. The bridge from the deck, you go up this bridge to get on the swing, and they made it so that the kids can just go on there and sit and play without it having to be moving at all. It can be a fort, or a fun little play area. They can come down the bridge and they got this super cool raised sandbox too. It's been awesome."
Between monetary donations, material donations, labor, and fundraising, the James and Libby team, comprised of CSU students Kyle Snow, Zach Belsey, Cody Stoltenberg, Andrew Wood and Sara Podgorski, raised approximately $20,000 to complete the project.
"The biggest anticipation was when they brought the swing in with the crane," said Waechter. "They put it on this platform waiting for the concrete to dry, and for the kids, it was like Christmas waiting to open their presents."
Last night, Waechter and her husband discussed how nice this process has been for the family.
"Before when you're swinging your kid in the swing, you're the observer and the worker," she said. "And now, it's a full family event. We're all on the swing together. They just built this wonderland for the kids. The modifications for the kids, I can't even explain. The students easily gave 110%. It's perfection and beautiful."


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Desmond Tutu
"People like the Elders are not here to lead change, or end wars. They are here to remind you that wars can be ended."
Anti-apartheid leader
"Perhaps oppression dehumanises the oppressor as much as, if not more than, the oppressed. They need each other to become truly free, to become human."
Nobel Peace Laureate
"To talk about 'ethical leadership' is to speak from experience, not because you were a perfect leader but because you were thrust into difficult situations – stirring hatred or calling for cool heads, igniting a war or enshrining peace, reaching out to the poor or assuming they will perish. And maybe you helped to see humanity prevail."
Healing South Africa's wounds
"Forgiveness is not just an altruistic act, but one born of self-interest. Forgiveness helps give people the resilience to survive and remain human in the face of all efforts to dehumanise them."
The 'world's moral conscience'
"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
AMBITIOUS plans for a £70 million extension to Eastbourne's Arndale Centre are back on track and will go ahead.
Doubt had surrounded the regeneration programme for the town centre after a row between developers and Eastbourne Borough Council when the authority agreed to a new improved shopping centre going ahead at Sovereign Harbour.
L&G threatened to pull out of the deal after the rival out of town scheme at the Harbour was given the green light.
But this week the owners of the Arndale Centre re-affirmed their commitment to the much-needed facelift for the Arndale Centre.
In a joint statement with Eastbourne MP Stephen Lloyd released on Wednesday, Performance Retail Limited Partnership (PRLP), a joint venture between Legal & General and Strathclyde Pension Fund, said it had carried out a review of its proposals to extend the shopping centre in light of the decision of the planning committee of Eastbourne Borough Council to allow further out of centre fashion retailing.
The review has now been completed and PRLP said it remained "fully committed" to taking forward the preparatory work to extend the scheme. The proposed extension aims to significantly improve shopping facilities in Eastbourne's town centre, attracting new retailers and investment, and in turn facilitating its wider regeneration.
Simon Russian of Legal & General Property said, "While we remain concerned about fashion retailers locating in out of town parks, we want to reassure the residents of Eastbourne that we are still fully committed to taking the scheme forward, subject to positive interest from fashion retailers who want a presence in the town centre.
"We would like to thank Stephen Lloyd MP for his continued encouragement and support as well as local interest groups and residents who wish to see an enhanced mix of shopping and leisure activities in Eastbourne's town centre."
Welcoming the announcement, Stephen Lloyd said, "When I met Simon Russian and Andrew Rice in Parliament after the recent challenges, my absolute priority was to get the whole process back on course. We discussed how to keep the project moving forward positively for both Eastbourne and Legal & General and I was genuinely impressed at their commitment to our town.
"There cannot be many towns of our size, if any, across the whole of the United Kingdom in the current challenging economic environment, that are receiving such a substantial sum of money for a town centre regeneration.
"This extension of the Arndale Centre by PRLP represents a tremendous mark of confidence in Eastbourne's long term future and I am delighted we are back on track."


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Saints' defense looks to create more turnovers
METAIRIE, La. (AP) — The Saints' defense has made takeaways its top priority after forcing an NFC-low 19 turnovers in 2013.
Near the start of a workout in late May, New Orleans rookie cornerback Stanley Jean-Baptiste stripped wide receiver Andy Tanner after he made a short reception.
That play set the tone. Defenders have continued to punch and slap at the ball in the first two practices of minicamp.
Although New Orleans finished fourth in the NFL in yards allowed under new coordinator Rob Ryan last season — a dramatic improvement after yielding the most yards in NFL history a year earlier — Ryan won't be happy until he sees more turnovers. Seven fumble recoveries and 12 interceptions were not enough.
"That was a glaring weakness last year," he says. "We did pretty decent as a unit, but we want to be great, and to be great, you have to take the ball away."
They did more than just talk about it. They signed free agent Jairus Byrd, whose 22 interceptions since his rookie season in 2009 are the most for any NFL safety, and also picked up veteran Champ Bailey, whose 52 career interceptions are the most for any active cornerback.
In film sessions, Ryan has repeatedly shown cutups of Chicago safety Charles Tillman punching out the ball. In 2012, Tillman forced 10 fumbles, which is three more than the Saints managed as a whole in 2013.
"Great players can be imitated, and we're trying to do that here," Ryan said. "Imitation is the biggest form of flattery. We know we have to improve on that."
Linebacker Curtis Lofton's statistics were a perfect illustration of the Saints' strengths and weaknesses last year. He made a team-high 125 tackles for the resurgent defense but had a hand in only turnover, forcing a fumble against Miami. He did not recover a fumble or pick off a pass all season.
"We didn't create enough turnovers, so that's definitely an emphasis for us," he said. "We've been working on it, and it's showing up in practice. Then we are going to take what we do in practice and do it in games."
After winning the Super Bowl in 2009, New Orleans has returned to the playoffs in three of the last four years but has come up short of the NFC Championship Game each time. Seattle was the roadblock last year, hammering the Saints 34-7 in the regular season and beating them again 23-15 in the divisional round of the playoffs.
The Saints weren't that far behind the Seahawks in yards allowed per game (273.6 to 305.7) and registered 49 sacks to the Seahawks' 44, but Seattle had more than twice as many takeaways with 39.
"If you look at all the past great defenses, they forced a lot of turnovers," Bailey said. "There's a reason Seattle won the Super Bowl. They forced a lot of turnovers. If we don't get them, we won't go very far."
Ryan expects the presence of Byrd and Bailey to help close that gap. Bailey deflected a pass that turned into an interception in the Saints' first open practice of the summer.
Byrd is out for the summer after undergoing back surgery, but coach Sean Payton said he was on schedule to return for the beginning of training camp. In addition to his interceptions, he forced 11 fumbles in his five years with Buffalo.
That's not Tillman territory, but it beats what the Saints did last year.
"You can see guys attempting to punch through the ball, almost over-exaggerating it," said linebacker Junior Galette, who had 12 sacks last year but forced only one fumble. "Charles Tillman is a beast at it, and we are motivated to make the extra effort to knock it out."
NOTES: During one 11-on-11 session in Wednesday's practice, a machine on the side of the field cranked up crowd noise as the offense approached the line of scrimmage on each play. Coach Sean Payton said it was the first time he has piped in noise during minicamp. The Saints went 3-5 on the road in the regular season last year — their first losing record away from home under Payton since 2008. .Minicamp ends with another practice on Thursday.
AP NFL websites: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL


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posted by Thom Holwerda on Tue 21st Apr 2009 20:52 UTC
"RISCOS Ltd gets fired at from all sides, it seems. There are those who have RISC OS 5 and are fed up with RISCOS Ltd saying: "Yes, we want to do RISC OS Select on Iyonix, but..." Then there are those who have subscribed to ROL's Select scheme, but the features they want have not been implemented or they are frustrated by a lack of progress. It is fair to say ROL has made a large number of improvements to the OS over the years and many of these are 'under the hood' that are not always immediately obvious to users. There have been a few obvious user-facing improvements since the release of RISC OS 6, as part of Select 5, so let's take a look at these."


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A Saturday triple-header softball tournament will benefit the Wounded Warriors Program.
Teams will be from the Third Infantry Division-Aviation Brigade stationed at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Parris Island Marines and the Sun City Travel Team.
The Salute to Veterans Ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. with the Sun City Veterans Association Color Guard presenting the colors on the field. The National Anthem will be sung by members of the cast of the Savannah Theatre and a flyover of a C-130 will take place. As the color guard marches off the field to post the colors, bagpipers will play military anthems.
Iraq and Afghanistan Wounded Warriors will throw out the first pitches to Purple Heart veterans from Korea and Vietnam.
Proceeds from hot dog day and poppy sales will go to the Wounded Warriors Program. Free boxes will be distributed to residents to create care packages for the troops. The Car Crazy Club will hold a small car show.
The game schedule is:
10:45 a.m. - Sun City Travel Team plays Parris Island Marines
Noon - Parris Island Marines plays Third Infantry Division
1:20 p.m - Sun City Travel Team plays Third Infantry Division.


text:
A stroll across the island will take you through various musical ambiences that invite you to stop at one of the restaurants or bars. On one end of the island you can ascend to the lighthouse and take in a spectacular view. Or you can cross to the other side on a trail that may seem longer than it really is because of the hot weather.
Another option is to hire a boatman to give you a tour of the mangroves of the area, being sure to make a stop at Mamey Island before returning to the main island. If you'd like to dive or snorkel, bring along your gear and plenty of drinking water. The boatman can drop you off at Mamey Island and then pick you up after your dive and bring you back to Isla Grande.
How to arrive
- Car: Take the Panama - Colón Highway and turn off at the Sabanitas exit. In Sabanitas turn right when you reach the El Rey supermarket and drive through Portobelo. Around ten minutes after passing Portobelo you will come to an intersection. Take the road to the left and drive until you reach La Guaira, where you can park the car and ride a boat over to Isla Grande.
What to bring
- Water bottle
- Sunscreen
- Swimsuit
- Surfboard
- Camera
- Hat
- Diving or snorkeling gear
- Surfing
- Diving
- Walk to the lighthouse


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Newsboy Cap for me
Added Aug 26, 2013
by Yuki M
Amsterdam, Nethe...
I like this shape hats, they are good much with casual wears.
I have tried several patterns of this type hat, but they were not perfect for me.
I finally made my own pattern referring my favourite hat.
This hat is little bit loose fit for me. (I like loose fit because of it is good for hairstyle.)
The pattern and instruction are free download here !!
(→ http://wafflepatterns.tumblr.com/post/59417992932/free-sewing-pattern-newsboy-cap)
This PJ is also good for to use leftover fabrics.
Material Notes
Wool // Lining fabiric
4 Comments Sign in to add a post
Sep 3, 2013, 01.22 AMby ThePamster
Hi Yuki M, I have a question, will this fit a 23" head? I am going to be making a hat, soon and want to be sure it would fit properly. Thank you for offering this pattern to us for free, that was very nice of you. :)
1 Reply
Sep 3, 2013, 11.45 AMby Yuki M
Hello Pamster (and cute cat !)
The inside length is around 55cm (about 21.7") .
I think you can adjust the size to add length on the back side of the hat. (or just printout larger)
I strongly recommend to make a muslin for your perfect fit.
Cause everyone has own favour about fitting !
Hope you enjoy my pattern :)
Aug 27, 2013, 04.03 AMby kisses
Fab hat…thanks for the download. I am certainly going to use up my stash
1 Reply
Aug 30, 2013, 10.58 AMby Yuki M
Thanks kisses !!
Hope you enjoy the pattern!
Aug 26, 2013, 09.17 PMby Mary Athey
fab hat and it suits you so well. good on you for drafting your own pattern , a leather one would look fab on you as well x
1 Reply
Aug 30, 2013, 10.58 AMby Yuki M
Thanks Mary !
Aug 26, 2013, 09.06 PMby puffinlove
That looks very cute on you! And it's nice of you to put it as a free pattern. I enjoyed your blog too (I saw the Momu expo – it was fabulous!). I love your work – great patterns!
1 Reply
Aug 30, 2013, 10.57 AMby Yuki M
Thanks ! Ja, there are many nice museums in Belgium !!
Add to Favorites 9 people added it


text:
Thank you for visiting our past auction result archives. If you have an item identical (or similar) to this auction lot, please call, write or contact us to discuss. We will be able to help you.
Lot # 424 (of 1137) < Previous Lot | Next Lot >
1929 Rogers Peet #48 Babe Ruth SGC NM/MT 88 - Highest Graded!
Starting Bid - $1,000, Sold For - $3,851
Graded NM/MT 88 by SGC. This is the ONLY example graded at this level with none higher between the combined population reports of SGC and PSA. Ultra high-grade example of this classic Babe Ruth card, featuring an image of Ruth hitting a homer. This is one of the rarest multisport issues of the late 1920s. This series was a promotional vehicle for a chain of boys'-clothing stores in the New York and Boston areas. Each boy visiting the store with a parent would receive a set of four cards to be stored in a 14-page album specifically designed for this issue. Eight baseball players are included in the 44-card set and Babe Ruth is one of the key cards. Other sports featured in the set include football, hockey, golf, tennis, swimming, track, and aviation. Presented is an extremely high grade Rogers Peet example of Ruth that is certainly one of his rarest cards. Perfectly clean, front and back, with a flawless image, four razor-sharp corners, snow-white borders, and a flawless reverse. Centered to the bottom and approximately 60/40 L/R. It is interesting to note that this card was produced with the same image as the 1932 Sanella Margarine card. Few cards of Ruth date from the 1920s. This outstanding high-grade Babe Ruth card, dating from the heart of the career of the great "Bambino," represents a remarkable value in comparison to gum cards of Ruth from the 1930s. Reserve $1,000. Estimate $3,000+. SOLD FOR $3,851
(Click the smaller thumbnails to the left and right (if any) to cycle through each photo in the gallery of images for this lot.)


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Syllabus FAQs
We receive a steady stream of questions covering a vast range of topics, from whether you can use an electric cello in an exam to whether we are considering assessments for drum kit (no and yes respectively).
Many of the most common issues are dealt with in the relevant syllabus, the Examination Regulations & Information or in Your guide to ABRSM exams. This resource is packed with good advice on all aspects of preparing for and taking an exam. With its thorough list of contents and clear explanation of the exam process Your guide to ABRSM exams should be the first place you turn to when you have a query.
- Visit our separate exam booking FAQs for queries about entering an exam
The syllabus I've been working on has changed. Can I use pieces from last year's syllabus in my exam this year?
In the UK and Ireland you can play the pieces set for the previous year until the end of May. In other countries the overlap period for pieces is a full year (until the end of December).
You cannot mix pieces from the old and new syllabuses during these overlap periods. In all countries the overlap applies to pieces only: any changes to scales, sight-reading or aural tests come into effect on 1 January of the year the new syllabus begins.
New syllabuses are usually published around six months before their start date, to give candidates and teachers time to prepare.
May I bring a page-turner to my exam?
As of 1 June 2017, candidates at Grades 6–8 may bring a page-turner to assist with any awkward page-turns in their music; prior permission from ABRSM is no longer required. Accompanists for Grade 6–8 exams are also welcome to bring a page-turner. The Exam Regulations and syllabus statements regarding page-turners will be updated to reflect this change as they are re-issued. Examiners, local representatives and stewards have been informed.
Do I need to play repeats?
Da capo (DC) and dal segno (DS) indications should be followed but other repeats (including first-time bars) should not be played, unless stipulated in the syllabus. However, very short repeats may be played at the discretion of the teacher or candidate.
My pupil can't/won't sing in the singing part of the aural tests. What should I do?
Your pupil could either hum or whistle – the examiner will not be assessing vocal quality. Candidates with a limited vocal range should feel free to tell the examiner, who will endeavour (not guarantee) to find tests within the range specified.
I'm playing a concerto movement. Do I need to play the cadenza and are all the tuttis needed?
Cadenzas should not be played, unless specified in the syllabus. Tuttis are not usually required, other than those specifically stated in the syllabus. Candidates should arrange in advance with their accompanists which tuttis might usefully be omitted.
I have a copy of a piece in the syllabus, but it's a different edition from the one listed. Can I use my copy for the exam?
You can use any edition of the music unless the syllabus specifies a particular arrangement or transcription. Always check the syllabus.
Has the jazz syllabus changed?
No – all jazz syllabuses remain in force until further notice. We currently offer jazz exams at Grades 1 to 5 for piano, flute, clarinet, sax, trumpet and trombone. Also available are Jazz Ensemble exams and Performance Assessment in jazz.
I'm having trouble playing the ornaments as they are written in the music. Will I be penalized in my exam?
There is no single correct way to play ornaments and you should use your musical discretion. If you need to, it is better to simplify the ornaments. Examiners would rather hear a confident simplified version of an ornament than a performance that suffers because you are struggling to perform the suggested interpretation.
Can I use a photocopy of the music in my exam?
You should not make or use photocopies unless you have written permission from the publisher. You are allowed to photocopy individual pages in order to avoid a tricky page turn, but only if the publisher of the piece is signed up to the Music Publishers' Association (MPA) Code of Fair Practice. The Code of Fair Practice is available at www.mpaonline.org.uk and participating publishers are listed in Appendix B.


text:
It is possible that the main title of the report Vascular Malformations of the Brain is not the name you expected. Please check the synonyms listing to find the alternate name(s) and disorder subdivision(s) covered by this report.
As the name suggests, vascular malformations of the brain is an umbrella term for at least six conditions in which blood vessels of the brain are affected. Such malformations are classified into several types in which the symptoms, severity, and causes vary. These types of VMB are: (1) arteriovenous malformations (AVM), abnormal arteries and veins; (2) cavernous malformations (CM), enlarged blood-filled spaces; (3) venous angiomas (VA), abnormal veins; (4) telangiectasias (TA), enlarged capillary-sized vessels; (5) vein of Galen malformations (VGM); and (6) mixed malformations (MM).
NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
P.O. Box 5801
Bethesda, MD 20824
Tel: (301)496-5751
Fax: (301)402-2186
Tel: (800)352-9424
Email: email@example.com
Internet: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/
Vascular Disease Foundation
1075 S. Yukon Street
Suite 320
Lakewood, CO 80226
Tel: (303)989-0500
Fax: (303)989-0200
Tel: (888)833-4463
Email: email@example.com
Internet: http://www.vdf.org
MUMS National Parent-to-Parent Network
150 Custer Court
Green Bay, WI 54301-1243
Tel: (920)336-5333
Fax: (920)339-0995
Tel: (877)336-5333
Email: email@example.com
Internet: http://www.netnet.net/mums/
Genetic and Rare Diseases (GARD) Information Center
PO Box 8126
Gaithersburg, MD 20898-8126
Tel: (301)251-4925
Fax: (301)251-4911
Tel: (888)205-2311
Email: http://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/GARD/EmailForm.aspx
Internet: http://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/GARD
National Organization of Vascular Anomalies
PO Box 38216
Greensboro, NC 27438-8216
Email: email@example.com
Internet: http://www.novanews.org
Venous Disease Coalition
1075 S. Yukon Street, Suite 320
Suite 320
Lakewood, CO 80226
Tel: (303)989-0500
Fax: (303)989-0200
Tel: (888)833-4463
Email: email@example.com
Internet: http://www.venousdiseasecoalition.org
This is an abstract of a report from the National Organization for Rare Disorders, Inc. ® (NORD). A copy of the complete report can be obtained for a small fee by visiting the NORD website. The complete report contains additional information including symptoms, causes, affected population, related disorders, standard and investigational treatments (if available), and references from medical literature. For a full-text version of this topic, see http://www.rarediseases.org/search/rdblist.html
The information provided in this report is not intended for diagnostic purposes. It is provided for informational purposes only. NORD recommends that affected individuals seek the advice or counsel of their own personal physicians.
It is possible that the title of this topic is not the name you selected. Please check the Synonyms listing to find the alternate name(s) and Disorder Subdivision(s) covered by this report
This disease entry is based upon medical information available through the date at the end of the topic. Since NORD's resources are limited, it is not possible to keep every entry in the Rare Disease Database completely current and accurate. Please check with the agencies listed in the Resources section for the most current information about this disorder.
For additional information and assistance about rare disorders, please contact the National Organization for Rare Disorders at P.O. Box 1968, Danbury, CT 06813-1968; phone (203) 744-0100; web site www.rarediseases.org or email email@example.com
Last Updated: 3/28/2008
Copyright 1989, 1998, 2006 National Organization for Rare Disorders, Inc.
This information does not replace the advice of a doctor. Healthwise, Incorporated disclaims any warranty or liability for your use of this information.


text:
Sin eventos
We have adapted our privacy policy. This contains significant changes, as the transitional phase of the basic data protection regulation expires on 25 May 2018. These changes offer you an even higher protection of your data. We would like to make sure that you are aware of the changes and ask you to read the privacy policy. Mehr erfahrenclose


text: I did more Balkans travels in September and October, hoping to establish new ties with prospects of opening up in places with lots of players. Alas, no so far. We've had a sponsored Ladder this year, which is the first time for Ladder (but hopefully not the last), and bought out a whole inflatible in mid-October to hold all the three finals indoor on the ground. As usual, after the end of the summer season I did calculate the stats and drew more lines in our growth charts which are still not exponential


text:
Georgina BaillieSextape Scandal
Georgina Baillie is Andrew Sachs (from Fawlty Towers) granddaughter. Two British radio personalities, Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand left a message on Sachs` answering machine while on the air and blurted out that one of them had slept with Georgina. The publicity generated by this prank led to the discovery that Georgina was in a performance group called the Satanic Sluts. Well guess what, Georgina and the Satanic Sluts can now be found in the Scandals section. Login and watch her do unheavenly acts!
Want to see it?JOIN NOW for only 1 dollar!!Limited offer only todayHURRY UP!!!
Do you wanna know what is happening behind
the closed doors in Hollywood?Now you have a chance!!! Hurry up and get your own 12 months unlimited access to our site for just $1.00!!!Limited offer only TODAY


text:
ACLU demands information relating to CIA "kill list" and drone strikes on Americans
Steve Watson
February 3, 2012
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit this week against the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, and the CIA, demanding the release of any information pertaining to the deaths of three American citizens resulting directly from drone missile strikes in 2011.
Details regarding the deaths of accused Al Qaeda leaders Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Kahn, both American citizens, have been kept under wraps. Both men were reportedly killed in targeted drone attacks last year in Yemen.
The third US citizen to be killed was Awlaki's 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, who was killed in a drone attack two weeks after al-Awlaki and Kahn.
At the time Obama described the death of Awlaki as a "significant milestone" in the war on terror.
"Our government's deliberate and premeditated killing of American terrorism suspects raises profound questions that ought to be the subject of public debate," Nathan Freed Wessler of the ACLU writes.
"Unfortunately the Obama administration has released very little information about the practice — its official position is that the targeted killing program is a state secret — and some of the information it has released has been misleading." Wessler adds.
The ACLU is specifically seeking to uncover a Department of Justice memo that is said by government officials to have provided the legal justification for the killing of a U.S. citizen without due process.
Also in question is a CIA "kill list" that Awlaki is said to have been added to more than a year before he was killed. The ACLU is demanding information on the process by which Americans have been added to the secret list. A previous Freedom of Information Act request for the material was ignored by the government.
The CIA and the DOJ refuse to confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of records relating to a targeted killing program.
The ACLU says the response is incredible given that details have been published in the media and spoken of by government officials.
"Some officials, including President Obama, have spoken on the record about the program. They have publicly claimed responsibility for killing al-Awlaki, and they have more generally defended the government's right to kill citizens after a secret non-judicial process." The ACLU statment reads.
Last week Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta acknowledged that the U.S. has assumed the authority to conduct targeted assassinations of U.S. citizens on the recommendations of the CIA Director and the Secretary of Defense and pursuant to the President's authorization:
This week, President Obama followed up those sentiments by publicly defending the secret drone killing program:
"The public has a right to know the evidence and legal basis for the deliberate targeted killing of U.S. citizens," the ACLU's Wessler said. "So chilling a power must be opened to public scrutiny and debate."
Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones' Infowars.net, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.


text:
New blood may be needed at the top of IT departments to meet the changing demands being placed on CIOs.
The primary role of the CIO is shifting, from optimising and integrating packaged enterprise systems to identifying how new technologies can drive business advantage, according to Gartner research VP Mark Raskino.
"For a long time - maybe for two or three CIOs in a row - CIOs have been used to tidy up the mess made in the past," said Raskino, who has co-authored a new report CIO New Year's Resolutions, 2013.
"We've seen very large global ERP integration and standardisation projects. Those took the best part of a decade in some cases but they're mostly done now and I've met CIOs from all kinds of corporations who are saying the big question now is 'What next?'," he said.
What should come next, Raskino said, is that CIOs stop being order takers executing the demands of the board and start advising on the best ways to get business value from technologies like social media and mobile.
"Words like mobile and social are being used very vaguely, they don't describe capabilities or competencies. There's a loss of translation of ideas into action," he said.
"CIOs need to turn back towards being agenda formers as they were in the late 80s and early 90s," according to Raskino before many "got into a pattern of delivering packaged stuff from the industry".
The problem is that incumbent CIOs may not be the best qualified to carry out this more strategic role. Raskino argues that if a CIO was appointed "to spend the five years sorting out an ERP mess, you can't necessarily expect the same individual to become a progressive agenda setter after that," he said.
While some existing CIOs will adapt to the more strategic demands of the job, the high turnover of the post means that there will be a ready supply of new talent to meet this new challenge, he said.
"It's probable that we will start to see CIOs appointed who are being asked from the beginning to be more agenda forming."
Strategic vacuum
The failure of existing CIOs to provide this strategic guidance is creating a vacuum that few other business leaders or the IT industry executives are well-placed to fill, he said.
"The IT industry used to package ideas for businesses very well, that's why we had CRM and ERP. The industry doesn't need to provide that so much any more because a lot of the industry's revenue comes from consumers," he said.
And when it is left to other business leaders to set the technology agenda, they tend to favour strategies that are heavily influenced by consumer technology, which may not best serve business' needs, he said.
"You'll often see demands for tablet computers with scant justification for that," he said.
The failure of CIOs to provide the necessary technology strategy is leading to the creation of new roles to meet this need, he said.
"We are seeing the appointment of people like chief digital officers and chief data officers. It's symptomatic of businesses trying to create an agenda for the use of technology that isn't otherwise happening," he said.
Full Bio
Nick Heath is chief reporter for TechRepublic. He writes about the technology that IT decision makers need to know about, and the latest happenings in the European tech scene.


text:
UCLA is expected to file a formal appeal with the NCAA on Wednesday afternoon regarding its decision to declare freshman basketball player Shabazz Muhammad ineligible due to a violation of amateurism rules, people close to the situation who were not authorized to speak publicly told The Times.
UCLA's case is expected to be heard before the NCAA appeals committee this Friday, the people said.
If the committee sides with UCLA, Muhammad would likely become eligible immediately.
But if the committee ruled that a violation did occur, the appeal would be denied and Muhammad would have to go through the reinstatement process to regain his eligibility.
Both the appeals and reinstatement processes would be expedited, a person familiar with the situation said, "because the season is now underway," meaning a decision could be reached as early as Friday.
The NCAA announced Friday, less than two hours before UCLA's opener against Indiana State, that Muhammad was ineligible. UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero said that day that UCLA would appeal.


text:
[img_assist|nid=859|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=180|height=155]You've finally made the move to a Windows-free computer, you're enjoying your brand new Linux OS, no trojans/viruses, no slowdown, everything's perfect. Suddenly, you need to update the BIOS on your motherboard to support some new piece of hardware, but typically the motherboard vendor is offering only DOS based BIOS flash utilities. You panic! Fortunately, this problem is easy to solve...
Step 1: Download FreeDOS boot disk floppy image
FreeDOS, a free DOS-compatible operating system, is up to the challenge, no need for proprietary DOS versions. So, all you need is a bootable floppy disk image with FreeDOS kernel on it. We are fortunate that guys at FDOS site have prepared one suitable for us. Use the OEM Bootdisk version, the one with just kernel and command.com, because it leaves more free space on disk for the flash utility and new BIOS image. You can also find a local copy of this image attached at the end of this article. After you download the image, you need to decompress it. In other words:
wget http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/autogen/FDOEM.144.gz
gunzip FDOEM.144.gz
Step 2: Copy your BIOS flash utility and new BIOS image to the mounted floppy disk image
Requirement for this step is that you have support for the
vfat and
loop file systems in the kernel. Or you can have those features compiled as modules. In the latter case, load the modules before the next step, like this.
modprobe vfat
modprobe loop
/proc/fileystems to see if you have the needed file systems supported. If you do, you should be able to "loop mount" the floppy disk image to some temporary path:
mkdir /tmp/floppy
mount -t vfat -o loop FDOEM.144 /tmp/floppy
If the mount went without errors, copy BIOS flash utility and new BIOS image to the mounted floppy disk image. You'll probably have to unzip the archive you downloaded from your motherboard vendor site, to get to those two files. Here's just an example for my motherboard (in your case, files will have different names, of course):
# unzip 775Dual-VSTA\(2.60\).zip
Archive: 775Dual-VSTA(2.60).zip
inflating: 75DVSTA2.60
inflating: ASRflash.exe
# cp 75DVSTA2.60 ASRflash.exe /tmp/floppy
Doublecheck that everything went OK, that those two files weren't too big for the floppy:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
1424 990 434 70% /tmp/floppy
Finally, unmount the floppy disk image:
umount /tmp/floppy
Step 3: Burn a bootable CD which will emulate floppy device for us
Next step is to burn the floppy image to a CD/DVD-RW media, but in a way that it can be booted afterwards. First we need to make a bootable CD image, and then burn it. Notice that on some modern distributions,
cdrecord is renamed to
wodim, and
mkisofs to
genisoimage, but the parameters below should be the same.
mkisofs -o bootcd.iso -b FDOEM.144 FDOEM.144
cdrecord -v bootcd.iso
Step 4: Reboot, flash, reboot, enjoy your new BIOS
Finally reboot your machine, make sure that your CD drive is first in the boot sequence, and then run your BIOS upgrade procedure when the CD boots.
WARNING: Flashing motherboard BIOS is a dangerous activity that can render your motherboard inoperable! While the author of this article has successfully run this procedure many times, your mileage may vary. Be careful!
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 18:07
This is not flashing from Linux it is flashing from DOS without a floppydrive. The difference is that it's FreeDOS not MSDOS. Totally missleading topic.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 18:21
Stop picking at semantics, the topic was informative enough for me to understand what he was implying and direct me to his article. I found it informative and very helpful.
kamy (not verified)
Mon, 2007-03-12 12:26
What's important is the fact that it helped me and I understood what to do. Not everybody is born is a native english speaker.
Thank you dearly (not verified)
Wed, 2007-09-05 09:36
This was something I hadn't thought about recently with updating one of my machines.It worked great! Thanks
Would anyone know what I should do about putting a BIOS update on a floppy that requires XP without using XP .Its for a HP 751n I only have access to Linux boxes.I dont know anyone with Windows anymore and if I asked I might get spit at.So,........?Anyone?
Or maybe a bunch or people could post irrelevant comments that are amusing to smirk at.Any idiots care to take me up on that offer possibly?
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-12-10 21:53
Is it possible to make the BIOS-update with a Virtual machine in Linux ?
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2007-12-11 01:05
harmol (not verified)
Tue, 2009-07-28 17:23
Since the bios flash utility, needs to do a write of the saved "actual bios code", maybe a CD is not that suitable.
I was thinking of a host virtual engine on linux, running a dos guest operating system, of course in a small configuration for this purpose.
Did somebody tried to flash the bios using the http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/dosemu/dosemu-1.4.0-1.i386.rpm from http://dosemu.sourceforge.net?
Jason (not verified)
Thu, 2008-07-17 02:10
I tried to do this last month : ) It fails for sure.It is better to update via floppy/cdrom/2nd hdd if bios supports that or you could try the author's way.
MobileTrend (not verified)
Tue, 2008-08-05 10:45
I also tried it but it does not work.
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2008-08-05 21:26
Did a specific command not work? Did burning the iso not write to the CD? Did it brick your bios? Was it a FreeDOS compatibility issue with your brand of motherboard? Writing "doesn't work", doesn't help.
Note that this is a good article because it's specific and informative, even if it didn't work for *you*. The author did a good job explaining everything. Unlike your comment.
Thank you, Admin, for spending your time to write something that helps people even when they are ungrateful.
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2010-03-10 05:48
For the technical minority this BIOS-flashing discussion evidently is useful. It assumes proficiency & claims nothing else. Fair enough. However for the casual Linux lusr with **no interest or skill** in admin matters the explanations might just as well have been written in CHINESE. Surely it's better to light-one-candle ... just remember the infinite darkness.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 20:05
I Agree!!!
Lame strategy to get digged!
What a moron!
Mon, 2007-07-09 23:01
Anonymous Cowards who blast this method should be shot.
this is a perfect resolution to people who aren't trapped in windows hell.
you can flash a motherboard from linux, without using your stupid windows tools, jerks.
he didn't do this to get dugg, he did it to help people.
tracyanne (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 22:04
It helped me find what I needed.
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-03-12 17:29
The title is NOT misleading, to a Linux user. If you are a Linux user, the title communicates to you exactly what you need to know.
The author didn't focus on the details of the procedure steps when formulating the well-chosen title.
Yeah, I guess if you run a FreeDOS system (who does?), then you would have a right to complain that the title is totally misleading!
Tue, 2007-03-13 14:33
The title was misleading only to those who look for problems. I have Linux and I cannot flash my BIOS via conventional methods. The title of this article led me to it, and solved my problem. Any title that did not contain the term Linux would not have been found. You should be thanking the author, not crying about his title.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 18:19
Thank you very much! I purchased an Asus a8js yesterday, wiped off the Vista and linux. One of the things I wanted to do was update the BIOS but was having a hard time figuring out how. Your timely article helped immensely!
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 20:26
i wanna see how many morons bricks their machines...
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 20:34
I've just tested the procedure and updated my BIOS successfully - no problem at all. So, it actually works.
I've found elsewhere that the magic incantation to find your current BIOS version (without rebooting) is: dmidecode -s bios-version
Your comment is very childish, how old are you?
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-03-12 03:14
"..morons bricks..."
Anybody that would use such language and terminology are themselves most likely a moron.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 20:46
Many times over the years I've gone to freedos.org looking to d/l a boot disk but for some reason they don't provide one even though for most people bios flashing is the only reason they'd need the project. I didn't know about fdos.org. Great tutorial! You might want to add something about doing this from a usb drive since it's a waste to use a cd for this (and I don't have cdrw discs).
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 21:12
scavenger (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 21:42
Sun, 2007-03-11 22:58
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-03-12 00:27
A lot of people said yet this is a wrong way to say right things !!!
All the procedure is right and full functionally but it's not in LINUX OS but in FreeDos !!
Well Done surely !!!
Ciao !!!
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2007-03-13 08:16
If that's the case and you do have a floppy another way of doing this would be to use dosemu for creating boot floppy with bios update. A lot of vendors ship compressed floppy images as exe file (how to extract bios upgrade from there if not by using dosemu).
What I wanna know, would it be possible to create floppy image, insert boot menu to grub/lilo to boot from it and then flash bios? I mean, it can be done, but would it work?
Either way, there just isn't a way of upgrading bios without at least some kind of dos, whether it's M$ or some free version...
Rick Stockton (not verified)
Tue, 2007-03-13 23:00
If you're making a CD ISO and have no need to "limit yourself" to the standard formatted floppy size of 1.44Mb, you'll have room for bigger files and/or more tools if you use the 2.88 version of FDOEM:
Rick Stockton (not verified)
Wed, 2007-03-14 00:15
The FDSTD.288.gz "standard" image has a bunch of irrelevant (for THIS purpose) utilities, and IMPORTANT! uses UMB for lots of stuff, which you MUST NOT DO when updating BIOS.
Replace the config.sys on the "standard" 2.88 image with the 3-liner from the "oem" 1.44 image:
!rem SHELL=A:\COMMAND.COM /E:512 /MSG /P
should become just:
fugative (not verified)
Fri, 2007-08-17 16:27
I used the "flash bios - the ubuntu way" howto that was based based on this page (hope i got it the right way round!) with my shuttle xpc and it worked perfectly. tried to do the same with my HP zv5000 BUT the bios file (with installer) was over 2.5m. tried with the 2.88 freedos but still not big enough seems i might have to extract the bits from the .exe or just make a bootable rom, anyway still can't flash.
Oh, did the UMB bit as well
any ideas?
btw may have used a derivative of this page but thanks anyway (for the xpc, at least)
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-09-03 14:59
how to enable ramdisk?
my flash program required writeable medium and i dont have fat/fat32 partition.
Sat, 2007-03-24 21:57
Thank you very much - useful and informative
I just updated a Dell Dimension 4300 bios using a CD, and I learned a bit more command line stuff. The article helped me - it worked perfectly!
I'd like info re: usb stick booting.
*I only needed to change paths and sudo some commands. I am a linux novice, and this was very helpful.
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-03-26 02:46
So FreeDOS is Linux?
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-03-26 22:18
I am not being picky about the correct words, I'm being picky about the things as they are.
Why it's that so important that in the end you flash the BIOS from FreeDOS? Because FreeDOS does all the work of flashing with the BIOS vendor flash utility, you didn't show us how to do it directly from linux.
If you read something like this "Build a High Performance Cluster with Windows (no UNIX/Linux)" and in the article it says download ClusterKnoppix or some other livecd cluster oriented distro. What will you think?
And english is not my mother tongue, as you may noticed.
DiscoBay (not verified)
Mon, 2007-04-16 07:18
This was a great article! It was exactly what I needed. I had to upgrade an old machine that did not have Windoze or a floppy disk. The information you provided saved me a trip to the computer store to buy the floppy, and a trip to a friend's house to make a Windoze boot floppy.
Linux is truly a great system. It is amazing what you can do if you have the know-how!
Another great tool for my Linux toolbox. Thanks again.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2007-04-21 19:05
Great mini-howto! I don't understand why others bash it -
while you are technically not flashing from linux, the target audience is those who run linux or some other unixlike os. I was just in this audience: no windows, no dos, no floppy drive. I roughly knew what to do, but did not know where to find freedos, rarely edited iso images, never burnt a bootable cdrom before, this article saved me a few hours of research and trial/error. Thanks very much!
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2007-04-28 01:13
But what do I do if I'm flashing to fix my keyboard? Can I automate this so that it runs the flash program on boot?
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-07-23 16:07
Hook up a keyboard that works to do the flashing. Not that difficult of a problem.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2007-06-02 15:02
If I go ahead and update my laptop's BIOS, will I have to do an OS re-install too? (Ubuntu Linux, fyi).
Wed, 2007-06-27 21:18
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2007-07-10 15:10
I agree, this is a very very useful utility.
The title is not at all misleading - Most of the folks search for a way to update BIOS when they are running *nix.
til (not verified)
Tue, 2007-07-10 21:41
LG ships windows only firmware updates for their CD/DVD drives -
despite of selling an ATA drive with no mention of any requirement for M$ crap!
A case for a consumer class action?
Mon, 2007-07-16 17:23
Broken-Circle (not verified)
Sat, 2007-08-04 18:50
My BIOS updater said it needed MS-DOS ;_;
walken (not verified)
Mon, 2007-09-24 08:03
Thank you, this page is exactly what I needed. I knew about freedos but did not know how to make it into a bootable CD.
In the past I've booted freedos images using either syslinux (on USB sticks) or pxelinux (booting from network). In both cases this used 'memdisk', which is shipped with isolinux and provides a virtual floppy drives from the image contents. But on that one machine, the bios did not know how to boot from USB and the flash program was somehow incompatible with memdisk... I got stuck for a couple hours until I found your page.
Thanks !
Marco (not verified)
Mon, 2007-10-15 12:41
Consider replacing completely the bios with free software, and using LinuxBios. See http://www.linuxbios.org/.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2007-11-10 14:17
excellent !!!
thanks a lot
independent (not verified)
Sun, 2007-11-18 01:08
I just want to add to the comments. A really clear (can't understate how valuable that is) how-to for helping people get out of the problem of bios flashing. Works really well. However, you may want to save a copy of "FDOEM.144" if you intent to do some more flashing.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-12-09 06:56
Currently running Fedora 8. I performed step 1 and got the file unzipped but could not get the "modprobe" command to work in Step 2. Message shows "command not found" The ETC directory shows two relevant files: modprobe.d and modprobe.conf but modprobe isn't there. How can I run the modprobe command to load vfat and loop into my kernel? Your help is greatly appreciated.
John D.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-12-09 16:28
If it works, it means you just don't have
/sbin in your
Hidden (not verified)
Mon, 2008-08-18 03:24
I think you are totally right here
Spiffler (not verified)
Wed, 2009-04-01 19:41
zsh: command not found: SU
MZM (not verified)
Sun, 2007-12-09 11:22
Instad of writting to CD, image can also be written to USB flash drive with "dd if=FDOEM.144 of=/dev/MyUsbDevice". Set BIOS to boot from USB (USB-ZIP) and You will be able to backup Your existing BIOS to disk.
WARNING - dd will erase ALL data on target device! Double check of= parameter before running it!
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2008-10-30 14:32
perfect howto, and great hint with the dd and usb-flash drive!
i have just upgraded my abit a-n78hd bios and am really lucky everything worked fine...
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 2008-01-18 18:30
U could just use WINE
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2009-02-25 14:05
You CANNOT just use wine (for now, at least): wine can't access to protected bios area.
Wed, 2008-02-20 12:02
I've written notes on flashing the BIOS directly from linux.
This has the large advantage of being able to update the BIOS remotely,
and not mess around with boot media.
pilby (not verified)
Sat, 2009-05-02 00:36
flashrom worked beautifully. i had a similar deal. computers on mountaintops that i needed to flash remotely.
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 2008-04-11 18:33
Doublecheck that everything went OK, that those two files weren't too big for the floppy:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
1424 990 434 70% /tmp/floppy
how do we get that information? what command do we need?
lanzen (not verified)
Mon, 2008-04-21 14:59
Wow, thank you. This was really helpful! I didn't really fancy having to install windows to upgrade.
I have followed your instructions and all went well.
Thank you again.
Mats (not verified)
Wed, 2008-05-07 14:39
1. My files doesn't fit within 1440kB. Can I make the image larger?
2. Is it possible to make a bootable usb by do a "dd if=bootcd.iso of=/dev/sdb"? (/dev/sdb is my usb stick)
Thanks in advance
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2008-05-07 15:58
You can try with 2880kb, depending on your DVD device and/or BIOS, it just might work.
Mats (not verified)
Thu, 2008-05-08 20:06
Thanks, but 2880k is also too small. :(
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2008-09-16 17:23
You can temporarily format your swap partition as FAT, place the "big" files there and boot with a plain FreeDOS floppy/DVD...
azca (not verified)
Sat, 2009-01-03 07:00
The following is a brief outline of how I created a 4MB CD boot image to update the bios on a motherboard I have been considering buying.
I do not have this motherboard, but I have tested the bootable CD up to the point of actually flashing the bios.
FWIW, my computer runs PATA / IDE HDs and optical drives. Not SATA.
Adjust accordingly to your distro, hardware, etc.
I'm human, and make typos on occasion. So double check your input.
(Also, CD-RWs are great to practice on :D)
This is a compilation of various web pages, including the following:
And this one, of course :)
1. Create and cd to ~/bootcd
2. Download and gunzip FDOEM.144.gz
3. Create ~/bootcd/floppy
4. Loop mount FDOEM.144 and copy the loop mounted files to ~/bootcd/floppy
# mount -o loop -t vfat FDOEM.144 /mnt/floppy
$ cp -r /mnt/floppy/* ~/bootcd/floppy/
5. Unmount FDOEM.144
6. Create empty 4MB image: (Or whatever size you need.)
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=disk.img bs=1M seek=4 count=0
7. Create a DOS file system on the empty 4MB image
$ mkdosfs disk.img
8. Insert the FDOEM.144 boot sector into the 4MB disk image
(copy the 446 byte boot code from the 1.44MB floppy image.)
$ dd if=FDOEM.144 of=disk.img bs=1 count=446 seek=62 skip=62 conv=notrunc
9. Loop mount the 4MB image:
# mount -o loop -t vfat disk.img /mnt/floppy
10. Copy files from ~/cdboot/floppy to /mnt/floppy
# cp ~/cdboot/floppy/* /mnt/floppy/
11. Copy required BIOS files to /mnt/floppy
# cp DP0507C.BIO /mnt/floppy
# cp IFLASH.EXE /mnt/floppy
12. Unmount the 4MB image
13. You may now need to install the 'SYSLINUX' package for your distro, or download the tarball from:
I used the Ubuntu-8.04.1 package, and it seemed to work OK for this purpose.
14. Copy isolinux.bin to ~/bootcd
$ cp /usr/lib/syslinux/isolinux.bin ~/bootcd/
15. Copy memdisk to ~/bootcd
$ cp /usr/lib/syslinux/memdisk ~/bootcd/
16. Create ~/bootcd/bootmsg.txt
$ nano bootmsg.txt
$ cat bootmsg.txt
BIOS Update
17. Create ~/bootcd/isolinux.cfg
$ nano isolinux.cfg
$ cat isolinux.cfg
default Bios
prompt 1
timeout 1800
display bootmsg.txt
label Bios
kernel memdisk
append initrd=disk.img floppy c=10 h=64 s=32
18. You may now delete or move FDOEM.144 and ~/cdboot/floppy
$ cd ~/cdboot
$ rm FDOEM.144
$ rm -r floppy
19. Your ~/bootcd directory listing should now look something like this:
$ ls -al ~/bootcd
total 7728
drwxr-xr-x 2 username username 4096 2009-01-01 21:25 .
drwxr-xr-x 23 username username 4096 2009-01-01 21:21 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username 12 2009-01-01 21:19 bootmsg.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username 4194304 2009-01-01 21:20 disk.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username 14061 2009-01-01 21:25 isolinux.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username 143 2009-01-01 21:20 isolinux.cfg
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username 20068 2009-01-01 21:21 memdisk
20. Create ISO image:
$ cd ~/bootcd
$ genisoimage -o cdproject.iso -b isolinux.bin -c boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table .
21. Burn ~/bootcd/cdproject.iso
(Remember to adjust these options to your distro and hardware accordingly.)
$ wodim -v -dao -eject speed=2 driveropts=burnfree dev=/dev/scd1 -data cdproject.iso
22. Boot from CD and test.
End of proceedure.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2009-01-25 21:21
i am having the problem that the upgrade doesn't fit on the small boot image. has anyone tried the method above? does it work?
paul (not verified)
Sat, 2010-12-04 09:26
Azca's approach worked perfectly for me. I have been trying to upgrade the BIOS in an old P3 Dell Latitude CPx for about a week now. I lost the floppy module so am forced to use the CD.
I have tried a variety of methods and had no success with any of them. Part of the trouble is my own ignorance in that I'm just not as experienced with GNU/Linux as most of the people that participate in discussions like this. So I probably missed a detail or did something wrong.
At any rate, I was able to follow Azca's instructions without any trouble and had total success upgrading the Dell Latitude's BIOS.
Outstanding job, Azca! Thank you very much.
azca (not verified)
Sat, 2010-12-04 16:14
You're welcome, Paul. Glad it worked for you. :)
ACER_9410_Owner (not verified)
Tue, 2010-12-28 18:21
The steps by azca worked perfectly for me! Thanks!
Steps performed December 28 2010, using Ubuntu 10.04 with the 'local' FDOEM144 image provided on this page.
Updated an Acer 9410 to 1.24 BIOS, from http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_9410.html
(FWIW the ACER BIOS image was too large to fit the FDOEM144 image per original article's steps.)
Bill (not verified)
Sat, 2011-11-19 00:51
Hey there,
Like you, I was searching for how to flash my 4MB image onto my motherboard without DOS or Windows.
I tried the solution offered by Azca. It didn't work. Why?
I wanted to create a greater than 2.88MB boot CD. The key is this ... Azca's solution uses "memdisk" to boot the CD. "Memdisk" only understands 1.44MB and 2.88MB floppy images.
If you want a greater than 2.88MB boot CD, you need to make a Hard Disk ISO and somehow get that onto a CD and make the CD boot. The alternative is create a bootable USB key with appropriate space and boot structure and files.
If I knew the answer I would have posted it here. I am still searching ... When I find the answer, I will come back.
Just so you know ...
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2008-05-10 06:27
Wed, 2008-09-17 16:28
This worked perfectly to upgrade my Abit Fatality FP-ING SLI motherboard from bios 12 to bios 16.
This has now given me 45nm. process technology support and I am now running the Intel Core 2 Duo Wolfdale processor at 2.66GHz.
I have a second Abit motherboard to upgrade soon...
Great work-thanks!
Mon, 2008-10-27 09:44
I was having a heck of a time with this. I even gave up about a year ago. Then I came back to it today and finally figured it out.
This is an excellent set of instructions. It all works. My only thing to add - the hitch that held me back - was this:
You have to --in freeDOS-- say NO to all the expanded memory options, 386, all that stuff! This is very important because if you say Yes (which is the default) then you will get a protected mode error and get nowhere with the BIOS flashing.
I think this is a really important point to make and perhaps should even be noted in the main article. A lot of people like me who aren't familiar with the command line and nuances of DOS (or freeDOS) memory management are not going to know that you MUST say NO to the default options presented when you boot this freeDOS image. I am quite relieved now that I've finally figured it out. But I was really banging my head against a wall and giving up hope until I finally decided to look into the "protected mode" error I kept getting.
Thanks for the article! For the record, I agree the title is a little deceiving because the guide requires leaving Linux to flash the BIOS. However, its a very useful guide and there probably isn't any realistic way to flash the BIOS from within Linux (I was really looking hard and tried many other ways that didn't work before I figured out the protected mode problem) so it's a great way to do it with free software and 95% Linux.
Julian67 (not verified)
Tue, 2008-10-28 20:32
This is a very good guide, thank you. I successfully upgraded the BIOS on my new nVidia motherboard today hoping to resolve some ACPI issues. Your guide is perfect, my bootable CD worked just like a floppy, with the exception that it is read only so that the old BIOS could not be saved to it. The motherboard's ACPI implementation is still non-compliant and annoying :-) But I have a small collection of dos programs intended to run from floppy and a few of them are still useful so this is very useful experience and knowledge.
André Aziz (not verified)
Fri, 2008-10-31 15:54
It works! I upgrated my Asus P5B Deluxe without problems!
Mirko (not verified)
Tue, 2008-11-11 02:37
Smajd (not verified)
Mon, 2008-11-17 16:54
I didn't use this tutorial - and do it the same way - but if i found it before, it will take me much less time - it's good how-to. I've upgraded bios on my old ASUS P6000 this way - and it works!
Guido (not verified)
Tue, 2008-12-16 00:15
Brought my Abit iL-90MV from BIOS 1.1 to BIOS 1.4, following your instructions to the letter. Everything went without incident - absolutely foolproof.
Thank you very much!
Rick (not verified)
Fri, 2009-01-02 12:09
Fri, 2009-01-30 00:49
Hi, the FDOEM.144.gz file you mention is from 2007, better try something newer, like the FreeDOS diskette downloads on rugxulo.googlepages.com ... Or of course try to make the fdos.org people update the file there.
sixerjman (not verified)
Thu, 2009-04-16 07:16
Twice I've created CD's following the original instructions to the letter and the CD won't boot, goes right to the GRUB menu.
I had more success with the more detailed instructions which included SYSLINUX/ISOLINUX on a 2.88 Meg image, but ran into
an error loading boot.img .
sixerjman (not verified)
Thu, 2009-04-16 09:29
To be clear, for some reason the iso image is larger than 1.44 Meg, even though the contents of the file system with FreeDOS and the BIOS update is about 635K, and I can see it in the image (FDOEM.144).
ll /tmp/floppy
total 645
7 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 7168 1969-12-31 19:00 ./
0 drwxrwxrwt 13 root root 300 2009-04-16 03:07 ../
1 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 67 2004-02-22 09:16 autoexec.bat*
516 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 528384 2009-04-16 00:43 BDLCX_14.exe*
65 -r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 66090 2003-12-10 06:49 command.com*
1 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 52 2004-02-22 09:17 config.sys*
45 -r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 45562 2005-07-18 19:58 kernel.sys*
2 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1486 2004-02-22 11:50 readme*
10 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 9221 2005-07-18 19:58 sys.com*
root@dell566:/opt/BIOS upgrade # du /tmp/floppy
645 /tmp/floppy
root@dell566:/opt/BIOS upgrade # du -h /tmp/floppy
645K /tmp/floppy
/BIOS upgrade # ll
total 3888
4 drwxr-xr-x 3 dbrazziel dbrazziel 4096 2009-04-16 00:52 ./
4 drwxr-xr-x 3 dbrazziel adm 4096 2009-04-16 00:04 ../
520 -rw-r--r-- 1 dbrazziel dbrazziel 528384 2009-04-16 00:04 BDLCX_14.exe
1796 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1835008 2009-04-16 00:52 bootcd.iso
1444 -rw-r--r-- 1 dbrazziel dbrazziel 1474560 2005-07-18 19:53 FDOEM.144
pirx (not verified)
Thu, 2009-04-30 20:57
I followed the instructions and everything went perfect: Flash and reboot, linux came right up. Then I turned off the power to install the 1TB disk I needed the upgrade for. 5 beeps when I turned the power back on. (OMG I killed it).
I found that on this computer (tyan k8w) I had to clear the cmos by unplugging the power supply from the mother board and changing a jumper setting for 10 seconds. conclusion: don't panic.
Sat, 2009-08-01 17:36
Thank you for cutting to the chase with this article and making my bios flash process a seamless one. For my manufacturer, I also had to install wine to get the files out of the self-extracting EXE, but other than that I was able to follow your guide to the letter... this couldn't be easier. Thanks a million!
docetrago (not verified)
Sun, 2009-08-16 17:43
Very good job.
Keep on rockin' !
Sun, 2009-08-23 23:06
I did all the steps. I have a pen-driver so the DOS called it C:. using that it was possible to backup the old ROM.
Steve (not verified)
Tue, 2009-08-25 06:57
Hi his is almost what I need but I don't have a FDD is there a way to write this to a flash drive.
Tue, 2009-10-20 23:28
I just did that using dd to write the floppy image to the stick. In my case:
sudo dd if=FDOEM.144 of=/dev/sdc
The stick booted fine.
Azyx (not verified)
Fri, 2012-01-27 07:19
By the way..I used FAT16 on my 100MB USB-stick, because it was needed for BIOS update with Asus eeePC 900. That netbook have a flash-utility, so there you only need to lay the BIOS image directly on the USB-stick, but you may not us FAT32.
believer (not verified)
Sat, 2009-08-29 14:43
It worked! I was able to upgrade the BIOS of my Dell D630 from A15 to A16 (using D630_A16.EXE) from under Ubuntu 9.04. Thank you for your detailed instructions!
Sat, 2009-09-12 11:11
please consider trying/using flashrom for flashing a BIOS next time. This is a native, open-source Linux and BSD command line utility, no need to mess with floppies or CD-ROM drives, or DOS... You can even flash your BIOS via ssh whenever you like. Packages are available for Debian, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora, and some more distros.
Additionally, flashrom also supports a growing number of "external flashers", such as NICs (3Com right now, more will follow), NVIDIA graphics cards (patch is on the mailing list), SATA controller cards, and many more.
The full list of supported devices is available from:
Carl-Daniel Hai... (not verified)
Tue, 2010-02-02 12:25
The Linux kernel has a memory validation bug which caused these aborts only on some machines. It had nothing to do with DEVMEM or PAT, and it didn't happen on any developer machines even if they had the same mainboards as people who got the error.
Latest flashrom (revision 889 and later) has a workaround and our testers confirm it works fine for them. No kernel recompile necessary. Besides that, there's always the option of using one of the Linux+flashrom Live CDs.
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 2010-02-26 02:47
What is the "cost" of a failed BIOS_flash using flashrom ? Is the mobo nominally "bricked" ?
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2009-09-23 19:12
I realize this thread is devoted to flashing the bios on machines w/o floppy drive but I've seen a lot of confusing stuff out there on the topic of flashing a bios under Linux and wanted to say that its an easy process with a floppy.
I downloaded HP's bios flash utility to my HD on a Windows PC, created the flash utility floppy, booted the HP Pavilion ze5400 Laptop with the flash utility floppy and it flashed the bios beautifully.
Robert Voje (not verified)
Thu, 2009-10-29 22:16
This thread is also about not having Windows/Dos.
It's not all of us who have access to a Windows machine, especially late at night, when (at least I) usually does these kind of things.. ;)
scott (not verified)
Sat, 2009-09-26 18:35
I created a boot image and it works.
Now I want to create a separate different boot image and it keeps on telling me I am out of space.
How do you clear out the old to make room for the new??
cp: writing `/tmp/floppy/ep43ds3l.bin': No space left on device
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2009-09-26 19:36
Well, either delete files you've added, and put new ones instead, or just start from scratch.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2009-11-21 22:56
sm1234 (not verified)
Sat, 2009-12-19 19:54
I have sp42153.exe to flash my hp notebook PC. I have only ubuntu. I tried unetbootin to have bootable freedos. But it hangs at initdisk. Also I dont know what files to run from sp42153.exe even if I become successful in booting freedos. Can somebody help me? Thx
sm1234 (not verified)
Sat, 2009-12-19 20:48
I didnt complete the steps mentioned in the original article as I was getting errors in some of the steps. I know the .exe is winflash.exe file. I need to scratch it and install windows vista again as I didn't do dual booting earlier. I thought I can skip that process. So it appears there is no easy way to apply winflash based bios upgrades from linux?
James (not verified)
Sun, 2010-04-11 17:55
A winflash utility (*.exe) can usually be extracted like a zip file(in linux).
usually there is the flash (*.fd file) in the mix
You can use a various dos based flash programs to with that file.
hope that helps.
Henk (not verified)
Wed, 2009-12-30 14:34
I just tried flashrom on an MSI motherboard, it is just great!
Here is a typical session, back up your current bios:
# flashrom -r current_rom.img
flashrom v0.9.1-r710
No coreboot table found.
Found chipset "Intel ICH7M", enabling flash write... OK.
This chipset supports the following protocols: SPI.
Calibrating delay loop... OK.
Found chip "Macronix MX25L4005" (512 KB, SPI) at physical address 0xfff80000.
Reading flash... done.
You now have 512 KB image of the rom. (BTW the exact same image is suplied by MSI with the DOS based firmware update tools.)
So you once you are confident that the firmware images suplied by your vendor are 1-1 copy of the rom you could use flashrom.
Which is probably safer than these DOS based firmware tools...
Maverick (not verified)
Mon, 2010-02-01 05:42
You need to get on a Windows based PC and extract the major files with-in the self extractor. Then you should find HPQRUN.EXE in there along with the other files. Copy those on to your disk and run it in your initdisk.
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2010-02-03 01:42
I'm sure the (various) posters intension's are well-meaning, but to a **non-expert** the various sets of flashing-instructions are mostly babble.
Given the risk & extreme costs of mobo-BRICKING, only a bullet-proof bios-flashing scheme is of value to the vast majority of those who could profit from a bios update.
How bullet-proof? Say ... a standalone native Ubuntu-app displaying a single GUI-button labeled . Hellesbelles if UBUNTU OS can query-hardware on install and auto-configure the entire OS to function with that hardware it seems plausible < to this longtime, but casual Ubuntu lusr > for firmware BIOS to be treated the same way.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2010-02-13 17:40
If power fails during a write or erase, you need a second BIOS chip (DualBIOS etc.) or some other hardware-based recovery technology.
Usually people update their BIOS for fun and they deliberately risk their boards, only to complain if something goes wrong.
However, if an update is made available to fix/supply a feature that was promised on the box, many jurisdictions give you the option of either asking the vendor to do the upgrade for you free of cost (after all, the vendor sold a feature that needed fixing) or updating yourself and having the vendor recover for free if it goes wrong.
But "extreme cost"? Come on. Worst case is you send the mainboard to a specialized flash recovery shop and they repair it for $20 or less. If you live in a poor country, you can probably get that service for $5.
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 2010-02-26 02:42
I'm afraid you do NOT value bricked_board failure correctly. I start with functioning hardware/software ... and end with nothing. That's a (current) loss of complete system value. What may happen in the obscure future has no-current-value. It's that TOTAL LOSS that inhibits me from flashing. Almost everything vs nothing. Can't get more risky then that!
It's a profound and telling weakness in Linux-as-usrland OS that such a risk has NOT been systematically addressed ... as has OS installation, hardware recognition and update.
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 2010-03-12 15:24
The risk of failing flash is not a Linux problem. No flashing software out there can guarantee a working update (regardless of the operating system you use).
Without recovery features in hardware, you can complain as long as you want, but some updates are still going to brick your mainboard. If you want to be 100% sure you don't get a brick, buy a mainboard with two BIOS chips. It's that simple.
You wrote:
"It's a profound and telling weakness in Linux-as-usrland OS"
Well, it is a profound and telling weakness of most mainboards out there. The web is filled with reports about bricked machines, and it happens with all operating systems and all flashing programs.
You wrote:
"It's that TOTAL LOSS that inhibits me from flashing."
Good. If you can't deal with the risk of flashing, just don't flash and let someone else (repair center maybe) perform the BIOS update instead.
I will never understand why people want to update their BIOS if they can't handle the risk. Would you change the settings of the ABS (anti-lock braking system) in your car and accept the risk that braking may fail (total loss) due to your changes? Probably not. Would you drill your own teeth instead of going to a dentist? Probably not. Still, people insist that they should be allowed to do anything with their computers and that it should always work perfectly with no risks.
BIOS update tools are there to make it easier for people to reflash their BIOS, but these tools can't make it 100% safe.
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2010-12-28 13:14
Virus infected BIOS....Yes..it does exist. I have one.
Sun, 2010-10-31 09:28
If you purchase your hardware from vendors that know and do Linux, you will have no problems at all. ZaReason, my favorite and System 76 are two of the more famous Linux Vendors.
Hardware purchased from a Linux vendor will still run Windows, however hardware designed to only work well with Windows will sometimes not run Linux at all, or only after many modifications.
There are even lawsuits with BIOS vendors that catered to Windows to the detriment of Linux. Life isn't fair is it.
We can stop rewarding the players that rig their hardware to cause us difficulties. Say a 7 year, do not purchase after any event where their hardware was jury rigged to work less well with Linux. And reset the clock at each new occurrence.
If a company knew that if they screwed you over, you would not purchase their hardware, any of their hardware for a minimum of 7 years of good history playing nice with Linux, perhaps they would not attempt the BS in the first place.
Its not Linux's fault that you went to a big box store or manufacturer (Dell, Compaq) that only pays lip service to Linux but in reality only truly supports Windows.
Buy from a Linux vendor and avoid the hassles. ZaReason is my favorite, I have used them and will use them for future purchases...great hardware that always works with any distro of Linux. And I can even run Windows if I want too, but I do not.
Kunthar (not verified)
Sun, 2010-02-07 23:31
1. If machine trying to start and stop in short intervals, unplug the power, open the case, take out the battery, wait a little bit, then put it in again and start. This way, you can see the newly installed BIOS.
2. Gigabyte owners check owners manual. They have ezflash facility. Download BIOS update files, write them to the vfat formatted flash disk and shutdown. Select at the beginning to enter ezflash. Point flash and you're good to go.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2010-03-06 19:43
I need help!!
This worked great for me up until the very end. After generating the ISO image (using genisoimage) and writing it to disk I tried booting and it didn't work (error: command.com not found). After rebooting in Linux I looked at the top directory of the CD and found two files: boot.cat and fdoem.144
I was under the impression that the files should all show up in the top directory the way they did when fdoem.144 was mounted to /tmp/floppy... is that right?
I tried loop mounting bootcd.iso to /tmp/floppy the same way, and found the same two files.
I'm using Ununtu 8.10. My motherboard is almost 10 years old (Asus A7V133), so that may be the issue.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
George (not verified)
Sun, 2010-03-21 01:04
Francisco (not verified)
Fri, 2010-03-26 22:51
I tried this, but when I run the software to update te BIOS, it says that "it cannot be run in MS-DOS mode"....
Mi PC is a MSI Wind U120 netbook, the utility for updating the BIOS comes from the vendor itself.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.
Also mine utili... (not verified)
Wed, 2010-06-30 18:25
So what can I do now ??
Thu, 2011-08-04 12:57
This happened to me (Archive Manager in Debian6 couldn't open the .exe file from Gigabyte).. however 7zip did it, no problem:
cbtgc@debian6freepc:~/Desktop/test$ 7z e motherboard_bios_ga-8i915pduo2_ff.exe
7-Zip 9.04 beta Copyright (c) 1999-2009 Igor Pavlov 2009-05-30
p7zip Version 9.04 (locale=en_GB.UTF-8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,1 CPU)
Processing archive: motherboard_bios_ga-8i915pduo2_ff.exe
Extracting autoexec.bat
Extracting 8i9pdu2.ff
Extracting FLASH893.EXE
Everything is Ok
Files: 3
Size: 570920
Compressed: 575504
Thereafter all worked fine & dandy from a FreeDOS floppy :-D
much better now
Troy Bison (not verified)
Mon, 2010-04-05 01:00
Very clear instructions: worked fine - updating BIOS for Albatron KI690-AM2 (from 1.00e to 1.07) the BIOS now runs my AMD BE-2400 at the correct frequency now! Many thanks, would've taken ages to figure all this out.
Fri, 2010-04-09 05:12
Just updated the BIOS on an ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA (http://tinyurl.com/create.php) with their latest (http://tinyurl.com/ylladky) using my Ubuntu 9.04 machine to create the bootable update CD. Thanks!
Roadrunner (not verified)
Fri, 2010-04-16 20:38
The main problem is that vendors are still paying blind homage to Windows.
It's like religious zealots or something. Why are we stuck in this sorry f'ing state?
back to this topic....
Here's what I've tried:
Did the cd burn thing (what a waste of plastic)
the cd booted but said "could not find command interpreter" or close
(sorry it was late last night and I was f'ing fed up)
I looked in config.sys (damn, remember this file?) and there is a line
SHELL=\COMMAND.COM (other shite options here)
Also tried dd if=FDOEM.144 of=/dev/sdc1
Nothing worked, I think my box needs a BIOS update for this to work, oh wait, I am trying to update the BIOS. Gee thanks vendors.
I wish a rich person would start a real OpenHardware initiative, I would buy that stuff. Open video cards, open mobos, open north/southbridge, etc., etc., etc.
It's the year Twenty-Ten and we are stalled.
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2010-05-19 11:20
by computer from china, bios is open source, impossible to install windows. Richard Stallman own one of them.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2011-01-15 00:33
The longson is awesome, mips based ... so no natuarrly incompatable with windows ^^
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2010-06-09 04:10
WILL ALL THESE WORK with 64-bit Linux?
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 2010-08-27 16:38
Did the cd burn thing (what a waste of plastic)
use a rewriteable disk?
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 2010-08-27 16:53
Absolutely! Otherwise it's really a waste. Not terribly expensive, though. :)
Mon, 2010-09-20 04:32
It it was a matter of Windows but there is no standard Linux, is it RPM or DEB, Redhat or Ubuntu or any of the 100+ Distros. I am a Ubuntu user, OpenSUSE and Fedora its differant in all cases for almost everything. Yes a Ubuntu user can run RPM and a Ubuntu/Debian as well but OPENSuse doesn't read DEB's all that well they have other way to package softeware like YUM. So we need 'TRUE' standardization. Its getting better. Its easier and cheaper to stick with Windows as there is just one Windows. Yes compatibility is a disaster for hardware from XP to Vista, but from XP to 7 and Vista to 7 not so much. When and if Linux becomes standardized we might see more support out of the box for Windows. Just look at the VIRUS industry with Linux/OS-X/BSD and of UNIX there are few virus 5 at the last count not much of a market here, Windows has over 60,000 with a trillion dollar industry most is sadly self induced. I still believe Linux is the best OS out there by far, however due to good advertising and billions in sales Windows will alway stay the #1 OS for home users it easy for all. I do consider sometimes to crack open my piggy bank and buy a iMac you get UNIX stability and great tech support, there is a reason why so many are choosing to slowly to move to Apple, but I can't afford Apples over inflated prices. For example the iBook has the almost exact parts as a Dell Inspiron 1525/26 You can install OS-X on it I know I have done it. Yet I paid $599.99 a similar equiped iBook $1299.00 kind of a bit of a differance. I got my Dell pre-installed with Ubuntu and now in Canada they don't support it.
Bgs (not verified)
Tue, 2010-10-12 17:01
The kernel is the same across distros but for minor patches usually related to security or GUI. Vendors could give a statically linked binary (32 and 64 bit) for the flash. Problem solved :)
No need to make installable software, keep an eye on libraries and dependencies, versions, etc.
Another approach: Distribute a mini linux image that does the flash that you can boot from a usb stick. This way flahing is independent from you choice of host OS.
acculeer (not verified)
Thu, 2010-07-22 16:45
It works perfect.. ASustek board need MS for Biosupdate, but i use Linux only ..;-)
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2010-09-15 15:12
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2010-09-15 20:57
ahh thanks :)
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2010-10-10 05:07
now I don't have to keep an old machine with a floppy lying around with windows on it, just to make bios update floppies...
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2010-10-24 05:39
People with old computers might want to verify that the CD-RW disks that they have on hand will function with the PC that needs its BIOS flashed. I discovered that a 'TORiSAN CD-ROM CDR_U200 1.12' that I speculate was supplied with my Gateway SOLO 5150 laptop when it was new was incapable of reading a Plasmon 4X CD-RW disk. (I did not have other manufacturers' CD-RW disks to try with the 5150.)
I had used my desktop PC with a Sony DVD burner to burn a copy of Puppy Linux v5.1.1 to the Plasmon CD-RW disk. Later, I used the Sony to burn this same Puppy image file to a CD-R disk that the 5150 successfully boots.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2011-03-17 04:35
I've tried MANY other options without success! It's so made for Windows and floppy, both of which I don't and won't use.
Motherboard: KM4M-L (MS-6734)
Chipset: VIA VT8235
Tresa Titman (not verified)
Mon, 2011-05-02 09:01
I used this to flash my foxconn motherboard and every time I would get to the part in the award bios flasher it would say, press y to program or n to cancel and I would hit y and it would just sit there?????I did it over and over, made new disks, to no avail, then I thought I recalled reading along time ago about some motherboards having a jumper that is used to clear the cmos ( i believe this is what holds the bios settings) and that if this jumper is in place the bios is unwritable. well, i removed the jumper temporarily and sure enough, my new bios was flashed on the motherboard and I am now not getting the apic errors in my syslog anymore about the cpu error 40 something or other. anyway.
atrsoftgmbh (not verified)
Sun, 2011-07-03 17:15
found nothing to work for this one.
neither the ways that was suggested here nor flashrom project.
the board has no ide, only usb to flash from.
tyan support suggested to put m$ system files from windows 98 or 95 on a usb stick and their flash package unzipped and then flash from usb.... i think i should route this to m$ for their next process against mis-usage of proprietary software..
after studying this article i tried but the bios size is 4 mb so the whole thing didnt fit into the freedos floppy disk....
after playing with bootable syslinux i found that this does not work for this board - seems to have a problem to flash if sata is in use... boots but flash does freeze - after all system was still intact (my lord, i lost a kilo or so after finding the thing was stuck in a flash ...)
so i restored an old pentium 3 box.
added a spare ide disk.
live cd fdbase.iso from freedos was running, so i created a 2GB partition (less than 530 MB the usb based flash also does not work: legacy emulation of tyan 8230 handles the thing as a floppy and the boot fails on the tyan - so much for emulations).
fat 16 format from freedos for the 2 GB partition (i hate to use fat32 - its even incompatible to other windoses..).
than installation of a minimum freedos system, shutdown the old p3 box, remove the disk.
after this i putted the disk into my tyan box with a ide-sata bridge (oh, well, even this is today needed some times).
there is no ide on the board, so no boot of freedos directly for the tyan 8230 (the sata cd drives are not recognised, boot fails when it comes to the cd rom drivers).
fdisk the partition to see for its size in blocks (2mio +) and then copied the partition to my disk
dd count=4193000 bs=512 if=/dev/sdb of=/opt/tmp/fd.img # size of blocks in fdisk * 2 + 100 reserve and so on gave count)
then copied to the usb stick (corsair flash voyager 8GB, nice working for linux and now for usb3 even better... ).
dd bs=512 if=/opt/tmp/fd.img of=/dev/sdc # no need to give a count here
mounted the stick, then copied the tyan package.
cp -r tyan /mnt/2 && sync # after this the thing was still normally looking in loop mount ...
after reboot the usb stick was doing its job.
from the boot menu i had to choose the option only high mem - all others stuck.
the flash worked. no interferance by sata or so.
its a shame, but i found no way to install from live cd directly to the usb - seems there is no way to use the sata drives even in emulation mode as a ide for freedos.
I now try to see if its possible to get a freedos image with vmware player up and running and to use this as a replacement for the pentium 3 pc.
if there is anyone interested: i will put the zipped freedos image without the tyan stuff on the web side next week, so you can download it (6MB in gzip format) and then put your own package on this.
for the usb stick any bootable with 4 GB should do the job.
Bart (not verified)
Thu, 2011-08-04 02:19
If you are lucky to get hold of a boot image with cdrom drivers, use this as a boot.img with k3b and add your flash stuff as data to the cd-rw burn it as an multisession cd so you can add more flashware to the cd as needed. Once booted the cd data can be executed from the cd as your "C: drive"
marty (not verified)
Sun, 2011-08-07 16:38
Thanks for this very useful tutorial. I managed to update the BIOS on my ASUS K8V Deluxe motherboard. For some reason, the FreeDOS image from the fdos.org website does not contain command.com. I used the one from your website and that works fine. Keep up the good work!
Dovregubben (not verified)
Fri, 2011-08-19 02:33
It is possible to perform this procedure without creating an iso image and burning a CD. Simply put memdisk and the boot image on your hard drive (you can put it anywhere, but /boot is the preferred location), and then point your bootloader to it. In Grub 2, the commands (at the Grub command line) would be:
root (hd0,msdos1)
# (or whatever your boot partition is)
linux16 /boot/memdisk
# (or wherever you put it)
initrd16 /boot/FDOEM.144
You can also boot an iso image by adding iso as an argument to memdisk. In Grub Legacy it would be:
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/memdisk iso
initrd /boot FDOEM.144
I'm not familiar enough with lilo, isolinux, etc. to pull those off the top of my head, but you can figure it out.
Tue, 2011-08-23 12:11
...or you can use flashrom with awesome hot-flashing in two steps:
1. always backup (if something went wrong you'll need it)
$ flashrom -r current.bin
2. and update
$ flashrom -w latest.bin
3. Reboot
No voodoo required (except otherwise).
nick (not verified)
Mon, 2011-11-21 22:05
Yes, flashrom is a very nice piece of software. Use it frequently myself.
But, it is not recommended for laptops and has a limited, but growing MOBO support list.
HW Support for latest version 0.9.4 (-r1394)
If you do a apt-get install on ie Debian squeeze you get an old version, even with backports.
For latest HW support, found in this list, you need to install by ie svn co svn://flashrom.org/flashrom/trunk flashrom
They have complete instructions on the download page - and excellent IRC support.
dersuanius (not verified)
Sat, 2012-06-02 22:50
How it detects which memory ranges should it write the ROM BIOS code?
I read that it may change from some computers to others, and the size of them too.
In example, one has 512Kb, another maybe 1 Mb ...
In my case, BIOS.ROM has 1.1Mb length.
How do I know and specify this with flashrom?
Tom (not verified)
Thu, 2011-08-25 04:38
Thanks for the great instructions. The DOS BIOS for my Acer laptop is 2.5 MB and fits better with the 2.88 Normal Bootdisk from http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/ with the DOS folder removed to make more room. I then made a bootable CD using K3b / New Data Project / Edit Boot Images.
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2011-08-31 02:09
mkisofs -o bootcd.iso -b FDOEM.144 FDOEM.144
tried executing as root also
I: -input-charset not specified, using utf-8 (detected in locale settings)
Size of boot image is 0 sectors -> genisoimage: Error - boot image 'FDOEM.144' has not an allowable size.
Files inside tmp/floppy
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 51657 2011-08-30 18:26 AFUDOS.exe
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 67 2004-02-22 09:16 AUTOEXEC.BAT
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 34816 2011-08-30 19:03 bootcd.iso
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 85050 2011-08-20 10:21 COMMAND.COM
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 52 2004-02-22 09:17 CONFIG.SYS
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 2011-08-30 18:25 FDOEM.144
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 45449 2011-08-20 10:19 KERNEL.SYS
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1048576 2011-08-30 18:25 M3N78-EM-ASUS-0901.ROM
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1486 2004-02-22 11:50 README
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 11530 2011-08-20 10:19 sys.com
Any help!!
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2011-08-31 18:39
never mind figured it out
SenecaTuX (not verified)
Sat, 2012-06-02 21:47
Personalmente, prefiero emplear una unidad USB con ayuda de la estupenda aplicación UNetBootIn, que permite tomar una imagen ISO grabarla en un pendrive USB, haciéndolo autoarrancable.
Por lo demás, está bastante bien, aún pese a la pésima traducción.
Añadir que con dmidecode ( como administrador, claro), podemos ver el modelo exacto de la BIOS, fabricante, número de serie, etc.
Buena obra de bricolage casero.
¡ Y sin abrir el ordenador ni tener que sacar el chip de su zócalo y emplear una grabadora de EPROM!
Como avanzan los tiempos..
Duncs (not verified)
Tue, 2011-09-20 10:57
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2011-10-01 15:01
Sorry to say that, but your command of English is atrocious. Can't you at least use a basic grammar and spell checker? All these mistakes are painful to the eyes.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2011-12-18 22:38
There is no apostrophe in a plural. You failed.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2015-01-22 22:30
actually plurals in English can have apostrophes... for example: "I have many CD's"... and so on.
No apostrophes ... (not verified)
Thu, 2015-06-25 12:27
From Oxford Dictionaries Online:
When you are forming the plural of an initialism, you do not need to use an apostrophe, for example:
MPs: e.g. MPs voted against the bill.
CDs: e.g. I bought some new CDs today.
Source: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/initialisms
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2011-10-10 09:43
How do I fix this error...?
# cp FLASHIT.EXE KM2000FR.120 /tmp/floppy
# cp: writing `/tmp/floppy/KM2000FR.120': No space left on device
Will fixing this allow me to create .iso?
Dale Strickland... (not verified)
Sat, 2013-01-05 15:38
This article is ageing well. I've just used it to update the BIOS on a Dell Precision M6300 running OpenSUSE. After a memory upgrade from 2G to 8G, it wouldn't get past the BIOS POST. I put the old memory back and followed your instructions. Sorted. New memory now working nicely.
Thank you very much. You have saved me a lot of messing about.
simpleton (not verified)
Fri, 2013-03-01 00:47
ok, i struggled with this update bios with linux issue LONG ENOUGH. after two days, i had to do it my own way, or go buy and install windows (um, NO!). so, you need TWO usb flash disks. install USB IMAGE WRITER from software center (ubuntu, sabayon, fedora) its already install in mint 14. rename FDOEM.144 to FDOEM.144.iso, and use usb image writer to write it to usb flash disk. it will make a usb disk with a 1.44mb partition, and if you can't fit your 4mb bios update on there, like i couldn't. format the second USB FLASH DRIVE to fat16 (0x06) using disks. and just copy your MSDOS BIOS UPDATE files directly to the second flash drive. now make sure both are plugged in and reboot. press F12 or whatever at splash screen to select boot device. select one of the flash drives, if it doesn't boot to freeDOS command prompt, push power button and try again selecting the other flash drive to boot from, it WILL be one of them, and there is only two. next, when at command prompt. make sure your at the freeDOS flash drive by entering "dir" which you should see the 5 files in freeDOS, autoexec.bat, command.com, etc... ok now you go searching for the other drive. enter "B:" and hit enter if it asks you to insert a floppy drive (usb is already inserted) and then enter "dir" in that drive, it might still be the freeDOS drive, if its not the same files you saw earlier, and its not a thousand files+folders (freeDOS shouldn't be able to read your linux partitions), and if it has a file like "bios.bat" then you're probably on the second flash drive which you put your bios update files on. my second flash drive was "C:" and so thats what i typed when i got to the freeDOS prompt upon booting. so, once you get to your second flash drive with all the bios update files in it, and without modifying their directories (shouldn't be any) type "bios" which executes the "bios.bat" file which then executes the bios update. my flashed in less than a minute. done.
simpleton (not verified)
Fri, 2013-03-01 00:50
but the second flash drive could be D:, E:, F:, G:, H:, etc... make sure to enter "dir" after accessing any of them, to make sure you're on the second flash drive you put your msdos based bios update files one.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2013-07-28 20:32
This article worked flawlessly with Ubuntu 12.04. Had to sudo a couple of the commands, but no other changes needed. Installed A17 BIOS to a Dell Latitude D630. Thanks.
Mon, 2013-07-29 00:40
6 years later, and it worked perfectly. Thank you!
SC1420 user (not verified)
Sat, 2013-09-28 23:05
Upgraded a DELL SC1420 from BIOS version A03 to A04. First I tried the Linux bin, which I couldn't get to work, no matter the different suggestions on the web. Then I tried this way using the .exe and it just did the job. Perfect. Thank you.
admiralshlork (not verified)
Wed, 2014-02-12 06:50
admiralshlork (not verified)
Wed, 2014-02-12 06:51
using my own filename ofc
Stephen Angelico (not verified)
Sun, 2014-11-09 05:23
If you have a # prompt, you are root and don't need sudo. I don't know if using sudo as root causes problems, but I am sure it is unnecessary unless you need to do something as another user.
Oscar (not verified)
Wed, 2014-09-10 06:59
I tried installing this the way you described here on my Manjaro system. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work. However, I got to the step where we unmount the floppy drive (I couldn't get Step 3 to work). I managed to get my BIOS flashed using q-flash and usb drive, but when I rebooted my computer, there is a floppy disk icon on my desktop and there is 7 MiB of unallocated space showing up in gparted. The space and virtual floppy drive were not there before and I can't figure out how to remove it. Do you know anything that could help?