Make bootable USB with Middleton BIOS upgrade?

[Olwe]

I can't seem to figure out how to get the Middleton BIOS upgrade on a USB stick. I've been trying for a while now, but nothing seems to work. I've been to this site http://t61.wikispaces.com/, and I try to put the .iso onto the stick, but nothing doing. I'm on Ubuntu 14.10. Tried many different things on Win7 this afternoon. UltraISO is the latest failure. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong, what to do right?

[dr_st]

You need to first make the USB stick bootable with a special app. Google it...

[Qing Dao]

I know your pain. I gave up trying and installed XP onto an old 60GB hard drive just for situations like this. Have you tried the Rufus USB tool? That might work.

It is the one thing that grinds my grears about the middleton BIOS mods. After all that work, neither middleton nor his collaborators had the bright idea to use a better way to update the BIOS than the garbage they got from Lenovo. Supplying the BIOS as a single .ROM file and then posting links to both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Winphlash would have been too easy, I guess.

If I didn't want to risk a bad flash, I would try 64-bit Winphlash with those files. Theoretically it should work.

[Olwe]

When I google for "make a bootable USB" they all assume I want to boot into an operating system and use it a-la "OS on a stick." For example, the Ubuntu "Startup Disk Creator" app simply won't take an iso that is not an Ubuntu OS iso. Another app will acknowledge the Middleton iso, but insists on a CD to burn it to. And as I said, all attempts on the Windows side have likewise failed. So I'm still at square-one: I need to have a bootable USB that goes ahead and does the Middleton BIOS upgrade. This shouldn't be rocket science. . . BTW, is there a way to upgrade while running Ubuntu? I tried WINE, but it barfs.

[ajkula66]

Have you tried the Rufus USB tool? That might work.

I believe that Rufus should work as well, although I've never used it for this purpose.

[Olwe]

I tried Rufus, but, again, I think it supposes (like all the rest) that I want to load up a USB with an OS and then run the OS from the stick. In reality, I simply need a minimalist MS DOS command line OS with which to run the BIOS upgrade (I think it's a .bat file). The Middleton iso comes with a Windows app that supposedly will do the upgrade while you're in Windows, but I'm on Linux.

[Qing Dao]

I tried Rufus, but, again, I think it supposes (like all the rest) that I want to load up a USB with an OS and then run the OS from the stick. In reality, I simply need a minimalist MS DOS command line OS with which to run the BIOS upgrade (I think it's a .bat file). The Middleton iso comes with a Windows app that supposedly will do the upgrade while you're in Windows, but I'm on Linux.

The one program that comes with the BIOS update will only run on 32-bit Windows, although there is a 64-bit version of that program as well.

Look here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads ... os.549378/

I think I used that a while ago and it was the only way to do it cleanly on Win 7 64-bit. Not sure if wine will get it done for you, but maybe.

[Olwe]

Thanks, Qing Dao, this is probably the way to go. I'll try it out on my loaner Windows machine -- or inside my VirtualBox Win 8.1.

[Olwe]

So, to make a long short, I broke down and bought blank CDs -- from an antique store -- and the iso (#1 ctl fn swap) went on to the CD without a hitch. Put it in the T61, and it seemed to do the update just fine. BIOS now has 2011-03-18 for a date, 2.29 (7LETC9WW) for a version. Does that sound right?

[verachen]

You need to first make the USB stick bootable with a special app. Google it...

Yes, create a bootable media is very important for data recovery. If you want to create a bootable USB, here is one tool can be recommended to you, aomei backupper, you can use it to create a bootable USB, DVD/CD effectively. Hope you like it. Also you can search in google to find some more.

[paulgj2]

This is how I created a bootable USB drive to apply the Middleton BIOS for my X61:

1. Insert your USB drive

2. Download and run the Rufus program from https://rufus.akeo.ie/

3. Take default options to create a bootable disk

4. Download the Middleton ISO

5. Extract the ISO to a folder using 7-zip

6. copy the contents of the folder to the USB drive, when prompted to replace the command.com file say yes

7. Boot from the USB drive and update the BIOS

[thinkpadcollection]

rufus software is constantly updated, The latest version fixed the problems you had.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection.

[paulgj2]

I think Rufus always had the ability to make a basic bootable drive with freedos.