How to update BIOS on Linux

[aadityabagga]

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@erico wrote:

If that is your desire, then I highly recommend that you contact HP directly.

You may have quite a long wait otherwise,

This is the HP Consumer peer to peer support forum.  

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Thx, I think I will do as you suggest.

Seeing that the sticky for this board is Notebook-Operating-Systems-and-Software/HP-Notebook-PCs-Basic-Input-Output-System-BIOS-Updates-EDK2, I thought maybe someone could answer.

I went into the BIOS to check, and it seems I can update without using Windows, by just placing the correct files in the correct location and running it through the BIOS, if someone would only provide them.

[erico]

Download one of the BIOS softpaqs from one of the Windows driver sections.

Extract it to a directory.

Find the HPBiosUpdate.efi file and .sig file.

Put them at the root of a USB flashdrive (formatted with FAT32). Connect the flashdrive to a usb port  and boot the notebok to BIOS and follow the instructions that you just presented to me in the image.

[aadityabagga]

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@erico wrote:

Download one of the BIOS softpaqs from one of the Windows driver sections.

Extract it to a directory.

Find the HPBiosUpdate.efi file and .sig file.

Put them at the root of a USB flashdrive (formatted with FAT32). Connect the flashdrive to a usb port  and boot the notebok to BIOS and follow the instructions that you just presented to me in the image.

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Ah, it is not so easy...

The exe provided for Windows does not get extracted on Linux, so I used a Windows install to extract it.

However when I compare it to the contents of the older update available for Linux, the contents seem to be different, like there is no BIOS folder which contains the update.

I attach a screenshot, the extracted Windows exe is on top, and Linux archive is on bottom.

[erico]

Check inside the BIOSUpdate folder

If both files are there, then you have what you need to update the BIOS.

I extracted one of the BIOS softpaq files and inside the BIOSUpdate folder both files that you need are there. See the following image. So if you do it on a Linux or Windows PC this is doable. You should be able to update the BIOS. The image shows BIOS version F.50. that is one of the newest updates for your notebook.

[aadityabagga]

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@erico wrote:

Check inside the BIOSUpdate folder

If both files are there, then you have what you need to update the BIOS.

I extracted one of the BIOS softpaq files and inside the BIOSUpdate folder both files that you need are there. See the following image. So if you do it on a Linux or Windows PC this is doable. You should be able to update the BIOS. The image shows BIOS version F.50. that is one of the newest updates for your notebook.

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Nah, I dont think it represents the complete picture.

Quoting from my pic of the BIOS:

"Place the system BIOS and the signature file on a fat32 partition......... under the Hewlett-Packard\BIOS\New"

"Add or verify the HP BIOS update utility (HpBiosUpdate.efi) and signature file......... under Hewlett-Packard\BIOSUpdate"

So I reckon HpBiosUpdate.efi is the software which will do the update, and the actual BIOS image that has to be flashed is missing from the Windows archive (the older Linux archive has both folders).

I suspected that Rom.CAB in the Windows archive contained the BIOS image, and extracting it using p7zip seems to verify that assumption:

$ 7z e Rom.CAB 

7-Zip [64] 9.20  Copyright (c) 1999-2010 Igor Pavlov  2010-11-18
p7zip Version 9.20 (locale=en_US.utf8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,4 CPUs)

Processing archive: Rom.CAB

Extracting  Rom.bin
Extracting  Rom.sig
Extracting  ver.txt
Extracting  ver.sig
Extracting  efibios.sig

Everything is Ok

Files: 5
Size:       5243359
Compressed: 2650243

 Maybe I have the complete picture now and if I place these files in the location(s) specified by the BIOS update message, it could work, though I am not sure whether I want to take that risk on my own.

Note that in the older Linux archive, the BIOS image was named differently, and I dont know if that matters or not (pic attached)..

Thx for your help so far erico, it has been instructive working with you.

[erico]

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@aadityabagga wrote:

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@erico wrote:

Check inside the BIOSUpdate folder

If both files are there, then you have what you need to update the BIOS.

I extracted one of the BIOS softpaq files and inside the BIOSUpdate folder both files that you need are there. See the following image. So if you do it on a Linux or Windows PC this is doable. You should be able to update the BIOS. The image shows BIOS version F.50. that is one of the newest updates for your notebook.

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Nah, I dont think it represents the complete picture.

Quoting from my pic of the BIOS:

"Place the system BIOS and the signature file on a fat32 partition......... under the Hewlett-Packard\BIOS\New"

"Add or verify the HP BIOS update utility (HpBiosUpdate.efi) and signature file......... under Hewlett-Packard\BIOSUpdate"

So I reckon HpBiosUpdate.efi is the software which will do the update, and the actual BIOS image that has to be flashed is missing from the Windows archive (the older Linux archive has both folders).

I suspected that Rom.CAB in the Windows archive contained the BIOS image, and extracting it using p7zip seems to verify that assumption:

$ 7z e Rom.CAB 

7-Zip [64] 9.20  Copyright (c) 1999-2010 Igor Pavlov  2010-11-18
p7zip Version 9.20 (locale=en_US.utf8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,4 CPUs)

Processing archive: Rom.CAB

Extracting  Rom.bin
Extracting  Rom.sig
Extracting  ver.txt
Extracting  ver.sig
Extracting  efibios.sig

Everything is Ok

Files: 5
Size:       5243359
Compressed: 2650243

 Maybe I have the complete picture now and if I place these files in the location(s) specified by the BIOS update message, it could work, though I am not sure whether I want to take that risk on my own.

Note that in the older Linux archive, the BIOS image was named differently, and I dont know if that matters or not (pic attached)..

Thx for your help so far erico, it has been instructive working with you.

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The files you should put on the usb flash drive are marked in the following image. I don't mind sharing knowlege at all. 🙂

[Ales1 · Accepted solution]

I have done this recently on my HP ProBook 450 G2 running Kubuntu Linux 15.10.

A new version of BIOS (01.16 Rev.A 1 Dec 2015) was available but for Windows only.

What I had to do to install BIOS on Linux:

* download the exe file (for instance: sp74048.exe): it's an archive

* unpack it with 7zip

* go to my laptop setup: restart, hit [ESC] >

 F10 BIOS Setup > MAIN > Update System BIOS > Update BIOS using local media

* read the instructions:

     “Place the System BIOS BIN file on a FAT32 partition either

       on the system hard drive or on removable USB Key

       under the "Hewlett-Packard\BIOS\New" folder.

      Next, add or verify the HP Bios update utility (HpBiosUpdate.efi)

      and signature file (HpBiosUpdate.s12) are located

      on the same FAT32 partition under

      the following folder path: "Hewlett-Packard\BIOSUpdate".”

* grab a flashdrive, create the folder "Hewlett-Packard\BIOS\"

* copy the whole folder “BIOSUpdate” from the original installation file to it

* create the folder “New” and copy the bin file to it (in my case “M74_0116.bin”)

* so at the end the flashdrive looks like this:

\---Hewlett-Packard

    +---BIOS

    | \---New

    |      Mxx_xxxx.bin

    |

    \---BIOSUpdate

          all files here

* place the flashdrive into the laptop and in “Update BIOS Using Local Media” hit the [Accept] button below “The System BIOS will be updated immediately.”.

Then HP BIOS Update will appear saying: The System BIOS is being updated. > Writing new BIOS Image. > Veryfying new BIOS Image. > restart.

Done.

It's really beyond me why HP doesn't provide a simple archive with the proper directory structure and a readme file so that everyone could update their BIOS regardless their operating system.

Disclaimer: I'm just an average Linux user. This procedure worked for me but before using it you must consider the risks for yourself. You MUST know what you are doing.

[boukeas]

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@Ales1 wrote:

I have done this recently on my HP ProBook 450 G2 running Kubuntu Linux 15.10.

[...]

Then HP BIOS Update will appear saying: The System BIOS is being updated. > Writing new BIOS Image. > Veryfying new BIOS Image. > restart.

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I have a HP ProBook 430 G2, running Ubuntu Linux 14.04. I have tried the procedure you describe but, unfortunately, the last part I have quoted above (i.e. the actual update) does not appear. I have absolutely no idea why.

I have also tried backing up the current BIOS, just to make sure that there is nothing wrong with my USB stick or the directory structure. The M74_0104.bin backup file appears in the Hewlett-Packard\BIOS\Current directory, just as it should.

Can you think of any reason why this does not work for me?

Oh, here's the tree structure of my USB drive: http://pastebin.com/raw/REduBzbH

[boukeas]

Based on the tree structure described above, I have successfully followed an alternative route, using information I have gathered from the HP EFI Guidelines.

• In the BIOS Setup, switch from Legacy to UEFI (Hybrid) Boot Mode. This enables booting HP-signed EFI Applications.
• In the Boot Devices Options, a "Boot from EFI file" option is now available. Select this and navigate to the HPBiosUpdate.efi file. This starts the BIOS Update application, which then uses the Μ74_0116.bin file in Hewlett-Packard/BIOS/New to update the BIOS.

Note that the USB partition used for this must be labeled HP_TOOLS.

[Stane1983]

I updated same laptop (well, almost same, my bios is M73...) using this procedure. I extracted files by running installer under wine which extracted files to ~/.wine/drive_c/SWSetup/SP..... as it would do on Windows.

USB doesn't have to be labeled (mine is not) and it worked...

To find out which bios I need (M73 or M74) I used dmidecode.