The BIOS/Firmware update saga; Hiren's BootCD to the rescue!

[oshunluvr]

I was suffering through one of those things we linux users often do - trying to update the firmware on my Blu-Ray drive. We suffer because manufacturers use Winblows instead of a good OS for their update utilities. Specifically, I was updating an LG Blu-Ray combo drive.

I tried wine, wine as root, and I tried Virtualbox but no option would even see the drive - all could use the drive, just not see it at the hardware level.

Did some searching and found an amazing solution: Hiren's Boot CD. I'm sure many of you already know about it, but in case you need to install or run something that just requires windows, this is an easy and free solution.

It's a free CD bootable version of windows XP (don't know how they did that without a license!) and it's chock full of all kinds of recovery utilities and other stuff. I was able to boot to it, download the firmware for my drive (it automatically configures a RAM drive at boot), and update my Blu-Ray drive successfully.

I did have to configure the network manually, but that was about it. I never got it to connect to my samba server, but I really didn't need to so I didn't try very hard.

[life0riley]

I'll be checking that out.

Thanks!

[vinnywright]

cool ,,,,,I have a copy (older) of that on the U3 systems virtual cd drive of a sandisk USB stick ,,,,,,,

VINNY

[GreyGeek]

I downloaded and burn it several months ago, when the 15.2 version came out. I see that they are still on that version.

[woodsmoke]

Oh yeaaaahhhhhh....... the Greg Man....... what...........a thousand years from now found that for me.........only then it was some kind of OLDUROPEEN thing........on the plasticine disque......... he would haul a case off the beltways and we would crack that thing open........ what a cr@& OS.......... so we installed one of our own personal assistants on it........I usually asked Kelli to try to fit into that.......miniscule space......sometimes she could sometimes no......then we would go to the plasticine disques that I had found down below....... small stuff , but serviceable........and even then........we could see the blue welcome screen with the gear......... today I have some students who even incorporate those old plasticines into organic crystals........runs........slow.......but they run.............oh yeah....

wood.............gotta get back onto the belts........smoke...