[redmini]

yes think she was but obviously not very well, she can't even install microsoft office so do not no why she even attempted it, an did brick the machine.

What is this method of flashing the bios, I don't quiet understand?
an im in Southport mate

[fbyte]

I'm in London, so it's a little far away 8)

Anyway, the recovery method is explained here:
Dell Mini 9 USB pendrive recovery from failed BIOS flash | fosk.it! 2.0

I never have to do it, but I've used similar methods with desktops.

You need to create a bootable USB disk (floppy, cd, pendrive,etc) and plug into the mini. The USB disk contains the PHLASH16.EXE and bios file.

Disconnect the power and battery.
press and hold FN+B and attach the adapter plug.
If the mini is not completely f*ck the power led will flash an the mini would read from the USB disk, and automaticly update the bios (it would reboot after it's done)

The USB pen drive image in the previous link contains the latest bios A05 so if it works, it would also give you the F11 and F12 keys 8)

[fbyte]

If you don't want to play with the Linux and dd, I found a Windows version of the Phoenix critdisk.bat tool that allows you to directly create a recovery flash disk using a USB stick (instead of the floppy)

The "trick" is that the boot in the recovery disk is kind of special, it loads the MINIDOS.SYS file which is the one that would execute the PHFLASH16.EXE and load the BIOS.WPH.

Just run WINCRIS.EXE, leave the default values and press "start", it would create a bootable (recovery) usb disk.

I've add the latest A05 bios to the zip file, so it would give you the Fx function keys (if it works)

[redmini]

sorry to be annoying, but I think I understand the concept of the linux one, but I dont have a linux machine in the house or know what dd is ? I have my dads windows laptop and my macbook pro could you explain how to boot the bios from windows

really really sorry to be so annoying


EDIT: just had a quick look at the picture, think I understand, I'll have a go and report back

---------- Post added at 05:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:39 PM ----------

THANK YOU !
to fbyte and Ichiban

I now have one working Dell Mini as it was, thanks you so much for all the help guys you have saved many many hours or work

[fbyte]

Glad it work 8)

Now remember, never ever update the bios directly from Windows, the chance of things going wrong increase by quite a lot 8)

[Ichiban]

Great! Glad it all worked out on the end.

I hope you didn't go and order that USB enclosure before fbyte set you on the right path.

I'm going to grab a copy of that flashing utility myself. With 5 mini's in my own circle of friends, there's always a chance someone will be needing it.

[redmini]

i'll just tell my mum never to try and attempt to try an install/update anything !!

yer I did get it just to be on the safe side incase anything went wrong with the bios flash I took out the hard drive an backed up the data first, was under £20 so wasn't bothered, just added peace of mind

[Hoppman]

Thanks fbyte and Ichiban, fbyte's crdisk_A05 file had the fix I needed after bricking my wife's mini 9 with the Bios update for version 5. Fbytes fix should be linked up at the front with the instructions on recovering the Bios using the linux tools. I have done plenty of Bios updates using the Windows exe and never had a problem before. My wife had some files she needed on her mini and so was not realy happy with me. I was going to send it back to Dell and then I found the fix, created my bootable USB drive and flashed it without a problem. Thanks for having the skills I didn't to create the bootable flash drive and execute the bios crash recovery tool.

[fbyte]

Glad that it help you.

All BIOS should have that option of automatic recovery, maybe one day I will do some more digging in the process, because basically that recover bootable disk is a DOS (freedos) with a special boot loader that at the end executes the winflash.exe to flash the bios in the same way you would do it from DOS.
It could be used for something else bypassing the BIOS completely

Anyway, I know flashing from Windows is quicker, but in all my years of dealing with PC (since 80286) the only "process" I'm still do without breathing
or making any noise is a bios flash

DOS rules hehehe

[heedtroosersnoo]

Thank you!