ThinkPad 570e 2644 - Updating the BIOS

[mrjohnbarnabas]

I'm new to ThinkPads. I thought I'd got lucky by buying a 'ThinkPad that boots to BIOS' for £15 (reduced to 10 by the seller when I bought it without knowing more), and that's still my stance, though the bill is topping up.

Thankfully, in spite of my recklessness, there is only one fault I've yet noticed, one famous to the 570 as far as I've read - funny old video. In my limited experience of the BIOS and a handful of livecd's, it only comes into play after exiting the BIOS options, making unusual colours, becoming as bright as the screen will go, etc. When the power is toggled, it exits back to normal boot screen.

Other than that the screen is a faded red at startup which warms up to normal colours quickly - I sincerely hope that won't end up an expensive development, though what I've read hints that it's on its way out. I like it, for now.

In the meantime I've been stocking up on sandwich filling - hardware is as follows:

Code: Select all

ThinkPad 570e = 11.80
ThinkPad 600X CD Drive [Toshiba XM-1702B] = 4.85
ThinkPad 570 Ultrabase [SN:12P4017] = 7.99
ThinkPad Charger = 9.50
256mb RAM = 14.53
Novatech P05-6833100 (Ralink RT2560F) Mini PCI = 4.99
HDD Cover (essential, unlike caddy) = 5.05
30GB 4200RPM Hitachi Travelstar IDE 2.5" HDD = 9.99
Battery 10.8V (3.4Ah!) = 19.09

Running total: 87.79

I expect to add the cost of some 18650 batteries, the battery was the cheapest I could buy just to salvage a case/wiring, and required outsourcing to America!

Although the Mini PCI card is recognised, I've yet to be able to put it into action, but that's another story.

This has been my introduction, but
My question is this!

Although the cover for the drive has not yet come, I have clicked it into place, and kept it firm in its position, the pins are all in their pockets so to speak.
But the BIOS simply does not recognise it. The drive was listed as working and I have no reason to doubt the seller, also I would expect it to show up but malfunction if it was a faulty drive.
In rare cases if the CMOS charge is very low I read SOMEWHERE on the internet that it could affect the displaying of a drive, the CMOS will die in a few years time max and are 99p delivered so I've ordered one as an 'in case' measure.

But I think the most likely reason is that the BIOS hardware (1.02 not 1.07, BIOS version IUET20WW) needs updating.

Out of all the treats I've bought my ThinkPad, a floppy drive is not one, and my Macs certainly don't have them.
However the BIOS update is only available as a diskette, or as a download while the computer is active, which could be a huge deal of hassle considering I need the drive to put an OS onto in order to download it, for one thing.


I have put a WinXP partition on my MacBook in case there is a failproof way of putting the update.exe onto a CD-R, in a way that it behaves and is treated like a diskette. That would be the top solution.

But it's not the sort of thing you take chances with, and if so; the cheapest floppy option would be a USB floppy drive I can plug into my MacBook to put the .exe on, and then connect to the ThinkPad to boot it off. EXCEPT I somehow doubt an external floppy drive will be treated the same as a primary floppy drive.

In which case do I need to buy both a floppy drive for the Ultrabase for reading and an external floppy drive for the MacBook for writing?

Any help very much appreciated, thanks for reading this far! These forums have been wonderful, and I am already a big fan of these sturdy, modular, minimalist-boxy laptops!

John

[mrjohnbarnabas]

If that could be reduced to its simplest and most urgent form;

'Will an external (USB) floppy drive work for a BIOS update?'

Not to double post, but I realise the way I went about my first was waffley and daunting.

Thanks for your patience,

John

[Unknown_K]

You need something bootable, and USB on a system that old is not.

[mrjohnbarnabas]

Thank you very much, I'm grateful to know that.

I'm going to read up on what the extended benefits of the update BIOS are. I may save an awful lot of time and money by buying a new drive under 12GB if the only issue the update gets around is drive capacity.

I'll be running Debian with a simple x window manager ie: ratpoison OS as it is, so space isn't an issue, I was just a bit quick to pounce on the 30gb drive at the same price as the 4gb etc, didn't think the extra space would do any harm.

I'm very interested in trying CF via adaptor, light and quiet...

Unless someone has a notion as to a way around this, I'm contented that this has been resolved/surrendered.

Thank you again.

[ieee488]

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/BIOS_Upgrade

I just did a BIOS update on a Thinkpad600E which had no OS installed using the CD method. I did have another laptop that was running both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux, and I needed both OS to create my bootable CD.