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  <title>Tumbleweed Rants</title>
  <subtitle>Stefano's World</subtitle>
  <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://tumbleweed.org.za/2007/10/04/bios-flashing-with-memdisk"/>
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  <updated>2008-09-19T07:57:53+00:00</updated>
  <entry>
    <title>BIOS Flashing with memdisk</title>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://tumbleweed.org.za/2007/10/04/bios-flashing-with-memdisk" />
    <id>http://tumbleweed.org.za/2007/10/04/bios-flashing-with-memdisk</id>
    <published>2007-10-04T15:03:18+00:00</published>
    <updated>2008-09-19T07:57:53+00:00</updated>
    <author>
      <name>tumbleweed</name>
    </author>
    <category term="bios" />
    <category term="debian" />
    <category term="flash" />
    <category term="grub" />
    <category term="pxe" />
    <category term="ubuntu" />
    <summary type="html"><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;ve just discovered <a href="http://syslinux.zytor.com/memdisk.php">memdisk</a>. It&#8217;s part of the <span class="geshifilter"><code class="geshifilter-text">syslinux</code></span> package on Debian/Ubuntu, and hides in <span class="geshifilter"><code class="geshifilter-text">/usr/lib/syslinux/memdisk</code></span>.</p>

<p>Memdisk lets you boot a floppy image, via grub or pxelinux. In this modern era of computers without floppy drives, it means you can do <span class="caps"><span class="caps">BIOS</span></span> updates without having to go through the whole procedure of turning a floppy image into a bootable&nbsp;<span class="caps"><span class="caps">CD</span></span>.</p>

<p>In <span class="caps"><span class="caps">PXELINUX</span></span>, the config file would look&nbsp;like&nbsp;this:</p>

<div class="geshifilter"><div class="text geshifilter-text" style="font-family:monospace;"><span class="caps"><span class="caps">DEFAULT</span></span> memdisk initrd=<span class="caps"><span class="caps">FILENAME</span></span>.img</div></div>

<p>In Grub,&nbsp;like&nbsp;this:</p>

<div class="geshifilter"><div class="text geshifilter-text" style="font-family:monospace;">title &nbsp; &nbsp; Bios Flash<br />
kernel &nbsp; &nbsp;/boot/memdisk<br />
initrd &nbsp; &nbsp;/boot/<span class="caps"><span class="caps">FILENAME</span></span>.img</div></div>

<p>Thanks <a href="http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/BIOS_Upgrade">ThinkWiki</a> for&nbsp;the&nbsp;idea.</p>

<p><em>Caveat emptor:</em> apparently some flash tools don&#8217;t like memdisk, so&nbsp;<span class="caps"><span class="caps">YMMV</span></span></p>
    ]]></summary>
    <content type="html"><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;ve just discovered <a href="http://syslinux.zytor.com/memdisk.php">memdisk</a>. It&#8217;s part of the <code>syslinux</code> package on Debian/Ubuntu, and hides in <code>/usr/lib/syslinux/memdisk</code>.</p>

<p>Memdisk lets you boot a floppy image, via grub or pxelinux. In this modern era of computers without floppy drives, it means you can do <span class="caps">BIOS</span> updates without having to go through the whole procedure of turning a floppy image into a bootable&nbsp;<span class="caps">CD</span>.</p>

<p>In <span class="caps">PXELINUX</span>, the config file would look like&nbsp;this:</p>

<div class="geshifilter"><div class="text geshifilter-text" style="font-family:monospace;"><span class="caps">DEFAULT</span> memdisk initrd=<span class="caps">FILENAME</span>.img</div></div>

<p>In Grub, like&nbsp;this:</p>

<div class="geshifilter"><div class="text geshifilter-text" style="font-family:monospace;">title &nbsp; &nbsp; Bios Flash<br />
kernel &nbsp; &nbsp;/boot/memdisk<br />
initrd &nbsp; &nbsp;/boot/<span class="caps">FILENAME</span>.img</div></div>

<p>Thanks <a href="http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/BIOS_Upgrade">ThinkWiki</a> for the&nbsp;idea.</p>

<p><em>Caveat emptor:</em> apparently some flash tools don&#8217;t like memdisk, so&nbsp;<span class="caps">YMMV</span></p>
    ]]></content>
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