I have the following problem : I have a server (P-II/440BX) running
slackware, i also have a drive (Barracuda-V 200GB) tha i want to use in
this mentioned server as a backup storage.

The drive is >137GB, so i need to update BIOS, i found the right image,
but it is an EXE file, i unziped it and now am a happy owner of 3 great
files, one .BAT, one .PIF, and one important image file that is embedded
in a executable, running it with wine gives the following info :

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Warning: unprotecting the first 64KB of memory to allow real-mode calls.
NULL pointer accesses will no longer be caught.
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄ Diskette Image Description ÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
Dell Dimension XPS Rxxx A13 FLASH BIOS.
Dell Dimension

vA13 - diskette 1 of 1
Dell Computer Corporation - www.dell.com
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ
1.44M diskette image (Disk eXPress type 2)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


the problem is that i dont have a Windows OS, and am to lazy to visit
somebody that has one --- but honestly, this wouldn't be the right
solution. But i am also not powerfull enough to know how to 'dd' this
EXE file to a floppy ... so, could anybody please help me ...

--Kermit


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On Thu, 14 Jul 2005 23:30:28 +0000, kermit_xc wrote:

> the problem is that i dont have a Windows OS, and am to lazy to visit
> somebody that has one --- but honestly, this wouldn't be the right
> solution. But i am also not powerfull enough to know how to 'dd' this
> EXE file to a floppy ... so, could anybody please help me ...

bad dell, baad!
anyway, see if it has an extract option. what you need is a 1.44mb floppy
image, or a flash util *.exe file + firmware *.bin. any other
format downloads on that page?
a LOT of other hw makers distribute flashutil + firmware binary. see if
you can dig it out on their ftp or something?
when you do, grab a minimum windows 98 system disk, mount floppy
as loopback device, copy flash tool and bin to in, unmount it.
burn it to a bootable cd (preferably rw)... i use k3b for this.
anyway, if you need it that much, send link, i have vmware around

Mad-Eye Moody wrote:
> bad dell, baad!
> anyway, see if it has an extract option. what you need is a 1.44mb floppy
> image, or a flash util *.exe file + firmware *.bin. any other
> format downloads on that page?
> a LOT of other hw makers distribute flashutil + firmware binary. see if
> you can dig it out on their ftp or something?
> when you do, grab a minimum windows 98 system disk, mount floppy
> as loopback device, copy flash tool and bin to in, unmount it.
> burn it to a bootable cd (preferably rw)... i use k3b for this.
> anyway, if you need it that much, send link, i have vmware around

exactly, this is the problem - I can't extract the image from the EXE
file - don't know the right ?offset? ... that is what i found so far,
after all the code for SFX routine.

hexdump -C -s 0x65e8 DE824261.EXE :

[hexdump]
| vA13 - diske|
|tte 1 of 1 |
| Dell|
| Computer Corpor|
|ation - www.dell|
|.com.w¦dX..b|îÀ©|
|)7ûÞ÷...Q..U<.**|
|¬"ª¢)ãÀ(ª..«Ö[..|
|s®Úì³\㦠..Ìåõóõ|
[/hexdump]

etc...

--Kermit


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On Fri, 15 Jul 2005 02:27:44 GMT, kermit_xc <no_sapm.kermit@it-faq.pl> wrote:

> Mad-Eye Moody wrote:
> > bad dell, baad!
> > anyway, see if it has an extract option. what you need is a 1.44mb floppy
> > image, or a flash util *.exe file + firmware *.bin. any other
> > format downloads on that page?

I checked for my BIOS, even the redhat links pointed to the
msdos .exe The old one I got was all-in-one exe, run from
boot floppy.

> exactly, this is the problem - I can't extract the image from the EXE
> file - don't know the right ?offset? ... that is what i found so far,
> after all the code for SFX routine.

You're about to flash BIOS, one step wrong you have scrap mobo,
do it by the book. You need an msdos boot floppy image, grab one
here: ftp://ftp.scatter.mine.nu/develop/msdos-boot.bz2 (160KB)

bzcat msdos-boot.bz2 | dd of=/dev/fd0

Be nice, limited resource (2 x 2KB/s), for a limited time only ...

--Grant.

On Fri, 15 Jul 2005 02:27:44 +0000, kermit_xc wrote:

> exactly, this is the problem - I can't extract the image from the EXE
> file - don't know the right ?offset? ... that is what i found so far,
> after all the code for SFX routine.

post link to file please... ill see what i can do.

> post link to file please... ill see what i can do.

http://ftp.us.dell.com/bios/XPSR_A13.EXE

thanks for interests

--Kermit

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> You're about to flash BIOS, one step wrong you have scrap mobo,
> do it by the book. You need an msdos boot floppy image, grab one
> here: ftp://ftp.scatter.mine.nu/develop/msdos-boot.bz2 (160KB)
>
> bzcat msdos-boot.bz2 | dd of=/dev/fd0
>
> Be nice, limited resource (2 x 2KB/s), for a limited time only ...

i have the FreeDOS image, but not the actaul, clean BIOS image ... but
yes, i am aware of the potential danger - thats why i am here


thank you
--Adam

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On Fri, 15 Jul 2005 05:56:32 GMT, kermit_xc <no_sapm.kermit@it-faq.pl> wrote:
>
> i have the FreeDOS image, but not the actaul, clean BIOS image ... but
> yes, i am aware of the potential danger - thats why i am here

Just looked at it, the .exe writes new floppy image, containing
a .exe that writes flash from inside itself... Odd. Having a
boot disk may not be the answer.

ftp://ftp.scatter.mine.nu/develop/de....EXE-image.bz2 (520KB)

for the floppy image, same method:
bzcat dell-XPSR_A13.EXE-image.bz2 | dd of=/dev/fd0

deltree:archive$ ls -l /mnt/floppy/
total 720
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 33 1999-10-01 10:09 autoexec.bat*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 93880 1998-05-11 20:01 command.com*
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 68871 1998-05-11 20:01 drvspace.bin*
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 222390 1998-05-11 20:01 io.sys*
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 9 1998-05-11 20:01 msdos.sys*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 340935 1999-09-29 11:40 xpsr_a13.exe*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 8329 1999-09-29 11:53 xpsr_a13.txt*

--Grant.

kermit_xc <no_sapm.kermit@it-faq.pl> wrote:
> [-- text/plain, encoding quoted-printable, charset: UTF-8, 37 lines --]
>
> I have the following problem : I have a server (P-II/440BX) running
> slackware, i also have a drive (Barracuda-V 200GB) tha i want to use in
> this mentioned server as a backup storage.
>
> The drive is >137GB, so i need to update BIOS, i found the right image,

Not for a non-booting drive. The bios upgrade is only needed for the BOOT
drive. With a "just for backup" disk, just leave it OUT of the BIOS setup
(2nd hard disk set to "None") and let the kernel (that _must_ be new enough,
of course) handle it after the boot.
--
************************************************** ******************
** Eef Hartman, Delft University of Technology, dept. EWI/TW **
** e-mail: E.J.M.Hartman@math.tudelft.nl, fax: +31-15-278 7295 **
** snail-mail: P.O. Box 5031, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands **
************************************************** ******************

kermit_xc wrote:
>>post link to file please... ill see what i can do.
>
>
> http://ftp.us.dell.com/bios/XPSR_A13.EXE
>
> thanks for interests
>
> --Kermit

XPSR_A13.exe is a self extracting archive (you knew that).
Rename it to XPSR_A13.zip and you should de able to open/extract it.
It contains 3 files:
DE824261.EXE, the program that writes the upgrade floppy (nothing to
extract from that).
MAKEDISK, a shortcut to be put on the windows desktop.
MAKEDISK.BAT a script that executes the program and tells it to write to
the floppy drive (if !%seddrv%! == !! set seddrv=A

You might try to change that to let it write to another location, say
/dev/fd0 or maybe even a file, although I doubt that it'll work.
I've never used wine or any dos emulation on linux so I can't help
you there, but i've made an image of the floppy on win2k, If you want it
I can send it to you.

Greetz, Michel.