[ltp] Replacing the bios bootsplash?

[Thomas Breitner]

God bless you for being this brave.
What about screenshots (ok, it's the bootscreen, perhaps you own a
digital camera), stranger?

> Hi,
>=20
> I am back from the dead, and ready to share my experience. But first: it
> worked, without any Windows or floppies. :-)
>=20
> I got the bios upgrade diskette from the ibm site. It was an .exe... but
> no, no Windows executable, a OS/2-Executable (well, it's IBM after all).
> And OS/2-Executables don't run in wine. Also apt-get install dosemu
> dosemu-freedos (for non-debian-users: Get dosemu and freedos somewhere
> and make it work somehow).
>=20
> With dosemu, I could run this executable. But this program unfortunately
> needs a floppy drive to write to. So we dig into the linux toolbox and
> find: The loopback device. A dd if=3D/dev/zero of=3D/tmp/floppy.bin bs=3D=
1024
> count=3D1440 creates the floppy file, a losetup /dev/loop0 /tmp/floppy.bi=
n
> makes it look like a block device, and this block device is what we put
> in the dosemu configuration as the floppy disk device. Now we can run
> the extractor and it will happily make /tmp/floppy.bin a floppy image.
>=20
> This floppy image can be mounted (mount -o
> loop,umask=3D000 /tmp/floppy.bin /mnt/tmp), and now we can read the
> readme.txt. To replace the logo file, we create a 16bit 640x480 BMP
> file, save it as logo.bmp and run logo.bat. Just kidding, you can't run
> batch files in linux, but - after testing the bitmap, which we just
> don't do - that batchfile only runs "prepare.exe logo.scr". This program
> won't run in dosemu, but "wine prepare.exe logo.scr". Now there should
> be a logo.mod. If so, you are set, unmount /mnt/tmp and go on.
>=20
> Now we should put the image on a floppy and boot. Since we don't have a
> floppy (and no floppy driver after all), we use a CD-R (or CD-RW for the
> cheap ones, like me) and burn it like that:
> cd /tmp; mkisofs -b floppy.bin floppy.bin | cdrecord -dev=3D<irgendwas> -
>=20
> If this worked, you can reboot from the cdrom and the ibm tool should
> start. After confirming that you checked a few things, you get asked
> whether you want to replace the boot image. Yes, you do. It will then
> flash the bios, which will take about a minute. And since you know that
> any problem during this minute might break your thinkpad, if you have
> weak nerves, go and do something else instead of watching a
> non-changeing screen.
>=20
> Suddenly the laptop turns itself off. Hopefully, it was finished - in my
> case it was. When booting, I got my bootsplash picuture (with some ugly
> text "To abort booting, press Enter" or something in the lower left
> corner). Unfortunately, you don't see it really long, but it's better
> than some advertisement, so it was worth it.
>=20
> Good luck!
>=20
> Joachim
>=20
> Am Dienstag, den 02.11.2004, 19:05 +0100 schrieb Joachim Breitner:
> > Hi,
> >=20
> > Am Dienstag, den 02.11.2004, 18:32 +0100 schrieb Joachim Breitner:
> > > > Create a BIOS update diskette and read the readme.txt file included=
.  This
> > > > file describes all required steps to replace the logo.
> > >=20
> > > Would be interesting. I can't find it in the .txt accompanying the .e=
xe
> > > file I can download from ibm. Unfortunatelly, I have no way to conver=
t
> > > that .exe file into a floppy image. What can I do?
> >=20
> > Well, I got the bios floppies extracted (using some hacks with dosemu
> > and loopback devices).
> >=20
> > The image I used is the grub-theme from debbblue, converted to a 16 bit
> > BMP using imagemagick.
> >=20
> > Now, I will try to flash my bios using a rewriteable CD. Tell you more
> > later..
> >=20
> > Joachim
> > --=20
> > Joachim Breitner
> >   e-Mail: mail@joachim-breitner.de
> >   Homepage: http://www.joachim-breitner.de
> >   ICQ#: 74513189
> > Bitte senden Sie mir keine Word- oder PowerPoint-Anh=C3=A4nge.
> > Siehe http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.de.html
> --=20
> Joachim "nomeata" Breitner
>   mail: mail@joachim-breitner.de | ICQ# 74513189 | GPG-Key: 4743206C
>   JID: joachimbreitner@amessage.de | http://www.joachim-breitner.de/
>   Debian Developer: nomeata@debian.org
> Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
> See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
>=20
--=20
_____________________________________________
Thomas Breitner

mail@tombreit.de   |   http://www.tombreit.de