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    X220 Bios update problem with grub/memdisk

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by alpha21, Jun 21, 2011.

  1. alpha21

    alpha21 Newbie

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    hi,

    I'm still stuck on Bios 1.06. Since 1.16/1.17 finally dealed with the fan issue I decided to upgrade the bios version but encountered a weird problem I can not solve.
    I got the *.iso from lenovo, placed it in /boot together with memdisk, told grub where to find it, rebooted and selected it in the grub menu. Then I saw the menu from the *.iso, selected the 2nd option (update system), confirmed with y and then nothing happend for minutes. Cursor didn't work, F3 didn't work, only ctrl+alt+del triggerd a reboot.

    Does anyone else knows a workaround or could point me to a different method of upgrading the bios, preferably without the need of Windows?
     
    alpha21, Jun 21, 2011
    #1
  2. Colonel O'Neill

    Colonel O'Neill Notebook Deity

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    Maybe actually try burning the ISO?
     
    Colonel O'Neill, Jun 22, 2011
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  3. alpha21

    alpha21 Newbie

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    I would've done that, but the X220 doesn't have an optical drive.
     
    alpha21, Jun 22, 2011
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  4. Engmus

    Engmus Notebook Guru

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    If you dont have an external optical drive I would swap the physical HDD for a spare and install windows and do the update there.

    I would not continue to guess on a firmware update. =\
     
    Engmus, Jun 22, 2011
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  5. Colonel O'Neill

    Colonel O'Neill Notebook Deity

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    What about flashing the ISO to a bootable USB drive?

    Generally, I wouldn't mess with the procedure for a BIOS update... It could go wrong.
     
    Colonel O'Neill, Jun 22, 2011
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  6. alpha21

    alpha21 Newbie

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    Finally I got it to work!
    But I had to use a USB-stick with Grub4DOS and the update-image from Lenovo on it.
    Sadly a windows machine was required to write the MBR on the stick :/
     
    alpha21, Jun 24, 2011
    #6