Can't update hard drive firmware

[DiGiTY]

i've been trying to update the hard drive firmware to version AOL2 in my X41T, but can't find a way yet. i have a bad battery that doesn't charge (battery is not charge error upon trying to update), so I can't use the Windows based updater. i only have access to a USB DVD drive, so when i trying updating with the burned ISO I get the "no optical drives found" error (even though i'm booting from a optical drive). and i don't have a USB floppy drive so i can't use diskette utility

i've tried making a bootable USB flash drive from the diskette i made on my desktop computer (and using mkbt for a bootsect.bin file) and it doesn't boot ('replace disk and strike a key' error)

any ideas?

[ryengineer]

The reason is the firmware can only be updated via Ultrabay device in the X4 Ultrabase and thus your thinkpad does not support any other device:

The hard drive firmware update utility bootable CD does not support USB optical disc drives, PCMCIA/CardBUS optical disc drives, optical disc drives in a docking station bay, or any other drives other than the optical disc drive in the ThinkPad UltraBay. Other drives will not be updated correctly by this firmware update utility.

Hard drive firmware update utility (Bootable CD ISO) - ThinkPad.

RTM

[DiGiTY]

release to manufacturer?

i finally was able to update the firmware via USB flash drive. downloaded msdos 6.22 disk image from bootdiskdotcom, extracted the .exe with WinRAR and got the .ima file, opened the .ima file in WinImage and wrote the disk image to the USB flash drive okaying error messages. used the AOL2 diskette utility to make a real floppy, then copied everything from that floppy to the USB flash drive (except autoexec.bat, command.com and config.sys). booted off the USB flash drive and ran the firmware flasher manually (fw.exe)

oddly enough only writing that dos 6.22 image to the USB flash drive got it booting correctly for me

hopefully this is helpful to someone else