The current latest bios for the mini 9 is A05. The current latest bios for the Vostro A90 is A04. They are equal in terms of updates, etc.

Use this guide to upgrade your Dell Mini 9 Or Vostro A90 running Mac OS X to the latest Bios from Dell.

1) If you have a mini 9 download this image: http://mydellmini.googlecode.com/files/ ... lasher.zip

If You have a Vostro A90, download this image: http://mydellmini.googlecode.com/fil...%20Flasher.zip

The image contains FreeDOS and the latest bios from Dell.

2) Unzip it by double clicking on it. You should have a ~31MB image called flasher.img
3) Plug a USB flash drive that you don't mind erasing into your mini/vostro
4) Open disk utility and click on your flash drive. Type Cmd-I for get info. Note the Disk Identifier (disk1, disk2, etc)
5) Unmount your flashdrive. You must unmount and NOT eject; you can do this in Disk utility by selecting your mounted flash drive partition and clicking unmount. Leave the drive plugged in.
6) Open the Terminal. Type, without quotes: "sudo dd if=" and then drag the image (flasher.img) you unzipped to the terminal window. It'll add the file path. Then type "of=/dev/diskN", where diskN is the identifier you noted from step 4

Your command should look something like this now: "sudo dd if=/path/to/flasher.img of=/dev/disk1"... Press return, enter your admin password when prompted and wait for it to write the image to your flash drive (Note! This will completely erase your data on the drive!)

7) If it isn't already, plug your mini into AC power. Make sure legacy USB support is enabled in the bios; press 2 when booting to enter bios settings and enable it if its off.
8) Press 0 at boot to get boot options. Choose USB to boot to your flash drive
9) If FreeDos prompts you for a date/time, press enter twice. Type "y" without quotes. This will bring up the bios flasher. Let it finish and wait for your machine to reboot (Your screen may go black at the end of the process, be patient!)
10) When the machine reboots and you see the dell bios logo, remove your usb flash drive.
11) Boot back into OS X and run the current version of Dell EFI. Click the custom tab and click "Remove custom dsdt.aml file". Click install and reboot when prompted.
12) This reboot may take a while, be patient. On boot, run Dell EFI again. Click custom and then check "Generate custom dsdt.aml file". Click install and reboot again.
13) (Optional) Go back into bios settings and disable legacy USB support. I personally haven't had any problems leaving it on, but others have (wake from sleep issues, etc).

Thats it, you're done!

[gQstatus05]

I followed the instructions, got to the part where it wants me to enter my admin password. I have no password so I just pressed return/enter. It goes back to a new line so it looks like it did it but if I go into disk utility it didn't write anything to the thumb drive and the file size of the thumb drive is maxed at 1.72GB. It's a 2GB thumb drive. Does it matter that I don't have an admin password?

I'll also note that the thumbdrive is formatted Mac OS Journaled & GUID partition table.

[appleguru]

Originally Posted by gQstatus05

I followed the instructions, got to the part where it wants me to enter my admin password. I have no password so I just pressed return/enter. It goes back to a new line so it looks like it did it but if I go into disk utility it didn't write anything to the thumb drive and the file size of the thumb drive is maxed at 1.72GB. It's a 2GB thumb drive. Does it matter that I don't have an admin password?

I'll also note that the thumbdrive is formatted Mac OS Journaled & GUID partition table.

Looks like sudo, as a security feature, requires a password to work. See this apple Knowledge Base article here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA25121

[gQstatus05]

Hey thanks for the fast response. I ejected thumd drive, set password, plugged back in followed steps and I get:

"dd: dev/disk2: No such file or directory" tried a second time and got:

d: /dev/disk2: Resource busy

I did verify using Command + I that it is disk2

I did unzip the file and I have the .dmg on my desktop.

[71CH]

How do you do this if you have the Type11 install? Thanks.

[appleguru]

Originally Posted by gQstatus05

Hey thanks for the fast response. I ejected thumd drive, set password, plugged back in followed steps and I get:

"dd: dev/disk2: No such file or directory" tried a second time and got:

d: /dev/disk2: Resource busy

I did verify using Command + I that it is disk2

I did unzip the file and I have the .dmg on my desktop.

The first attempt was missing the leading slash in /dev...

And I forgot to mention you need to unmount your drive before you run dd; that's why you got the second error.. Updating the guide

[appleguru]

Originally Posted by 71CH

How do you do this if you have the Type11 install? Thanks.

Type11 installs are basically the same thing, you just don't have the dellefi app.. so follow the steps as they're written, but ignore the last two steps

[gQstatus05]

Thanks Guru that worked like a charm. The unmounting did the trick. I appreciate the help.

[appleguru]

Originally Posted by gQstatus05

Thanks Guru that worked like a charm. The unmounting did the trick. I appreciate the help.

No problem; glad you got it working!

[MemphisHills]

I get the message:

dd: /dev/disk1: Operation not supported

help?