BIOS Upgrade success failure

Lot's of people reported success/failure with BIOS_Upgrade#Booting_from_a_CD. If you managed, please, tell us about success, if failed, please, document the problems you've encountered, so people could avoid your same troubles.

Booting from CD

Here document your progress with BIOS_Upgrade#Booting_from_a_CD method.

Successful tests

Model	Tested by, and comments
600E 2645-4AU	George Tellalov <gtellalov_dontspamme@bigfoot.com>. BIOS 1.16 from spsdin36.exe worked perfectly with the method bootable cd from floppy image. I highly recommend this upgrade because it made my ibm-acpi module load (it wouldn't load before) and fixed some suspend to ram problems. Here's the cd image I used. Use at your own risk. You can send me a chocolate if it works for you ;)
600E 2645-5bU	Mike Vincent<matchstc-putobvioushere.com>. Bios 1.16 from spsdin36.exe and then to the boot cd worked great for me. Thought I had bricked it three separate times using a "real" floppy! Each from different diskettes .The updater would start, give me the "going to take30 seconds" speech...and then access the HD for 10 minutes. Each time it would reboot fine. Did the cd as described above...worked great first time. Perhaps 10 year old seldom used floppy disc drives have some challenges?
600X 2645	Jonathan Byrne <jonathan@RemoveThisToMailMe.yamame.org>. BIOS 1.11 from spsuit55.exe worked perfectly using cabextract/CD method.
600X 2645	Andy Barnes <andy@RemoveThisToMailMe.itchypaws.co.uk>. As per Jonathan above, extracted BIOS 1.11 from spsuit55.exe using cabextract, created a CD boot image and burnt to CD. Worked flawlessly - thanks to everyone who contributed to this article!
A20p 2629-6VU	Chris Pickett http://www.sable.mcgill.ca/~cpicke/. BIOS 1.11 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method.
A21e 2628-JXU	Amit Gurdasani <gurdasani at yahoo dot com>. BIOS 1.13 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method. Alarmingly, after the BIOS update, the laptop beeped but did not shut down as was indicated onscreen -- that was frozen on the "do not shut down the laptop" screen. On power down and up again, the BIOS setup showed the newer BIOS image running, and Linux booted up fine. Linux ACPI didn't complain about the BIOS being too old either.
A31p 2653	Matthias Meinke largeeddy@gmx.at, BIOS 1.09 1NET15WW flashed fine with cabextract/CD method.
A31 2652	Aaron Denney, BIOS 1.13 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method. The cabextract/CD method also worked for BIOS 1.10.
R30	Jarrod, 30 August 2007, Thinkpad R30 Type 2656-E0M. BIOS updated to 1.40 (1CETF0WW) using floppy disk/mkisofs/cdrecord. Worked fine, no problems.
R31	Mathias Dalheimer Sebastian Sauer (with cabextract/CD method)
R40	Matthew Lambie, http://lambie.org Antti S. Lankila, update to 1.27 via direct use of phlash16.exe against a BIOS image. Normal method did not work because the battery is dead.
R50 1836-3SU	jlbartos <jlbartos at hotmail dot com>
R50e 1834-PTG	item <item at freemail dot hu> : successfully finished with cabextract/CD method for "1wuj25us.exe" (BIOS version 1WET90WW (2.10), Release Date: 2006/12/22) Christos Nouskas <nouskas at gmail dot com>: upgraded to BIOS version 1WET90WW (2.10) and EC version 1VHT28WW (1.04) using GRUB (BIOS first / EC second)
R51 1829	Robert Uhl <rob dot uhl at gmx dot de>, Jellby <jellby at yahoo dot com>
R51 1830-RM7	Will Parker <stardotstar at sourcepoint dot com dot au> successfully flashed 3.20 using existing 3.04 ECP and retained custom boot splash.
R51 2887	Ingo van Lil <inguin at gmx dot de>
R52 1858	Stuart McCord <stuart dot mccord at gmail dot com> flashed both BIOS and ECP using cabextract, BIOS flashed first as on IBM website
T20	Franz Hassels <fhassel at suse dot com>
T22	Daniel Maier <nusse teamidiot de> Mathias Behrle (with cabextract/CD method, Version 1.07 => 1.12) --Mathiasb 11:58, 14 December 2006 (CET) Bob Skaroff (cabextract/CD), 1.06 => 1.12 Leo Butler (cabextract/CD), 1.11 => 1.12
T23	Bart Snapp <snapp at uiuc dot edu> Note: I followed IBM's instructions to flash the BIOS first and the Embedded Controller second. Moy Easwaran: BIOS 1.18 / EC 1.06a via cabextract and CD-boot. The BIOS-update exe generated errors in Windows 2000. Joe Renes: BIOS 1.18 / EC 1.06a on 2006-03-20 via cabextract and CD-boot. Piece of cake. Raphael Errani: BIOS 1.20 / EC 1.06a on 2006-11-06 via cabextract and CD-boot (using mkisofs). Worked without errors. 1st Bios, 2nd EC Myron Getman: BIOS 1.20 / EC 1.06a on 9/10/08 via cabextract --> k3b --> CD-boot. Worked like a charm. First BIOS update with Linux! Leo Butler: BIOS 1.13 / EC 1.04 to 1.20/1.06a via cabextract and syslinux/memdisk boot through grub. Worked like a charm and no wasted CD.
T30	Martin Gühring <guehring at gmail.com> BIOS 2.10 via cabextract the Non-Diskette BIOS -> mkisofs in the directory the exe was extracted to generate the iso -> burn the iso -> boot the CD
T40	Sean Dague, http://dague.net Justin Mason, http://jmason.org Ivanhoe (Bios 3.19) Alessandro Raulino (roger_2) EC 3.04 & BIOS 3.23 flashed with cabextract/CD method Nick Jenkins, using BIOS 3.23 with the Non-diskette updater + cabextract method, then created a bootable CD from the cabextracted .IMG file, then boot that ISO, and it worked great! xyz: BIOS 3.23 & EC 3.04 flashed with cabextract/CD method. No problem.
T40p	Lukas Krähenbühl, ismo at pop dot agri dot ch Thomas Achtemichuk, tom at tomchuk dot com. BIOS 3.15 flashed fine with cabextract/CD method paper, BIOS 3.23 (1RETDRWW) flashed fine with cabextract/genisoimage method.
T41	Lev Givon (Bios 3.15 / EC 3.04) <lev at columbia dot edu> Ernesto Hernández-Novich (Bios 3.19 / CP 3.04) < emhn at usb dot ve > James Ballantine (Bios 3.21 / CP 3.04) using nondisk/cabextract/CDRW Vladimir Pycha (to Bios 3.23 / EC 3.04, from Bios 3.20 / EC 3.04) using nondisk/cabextract/CDRW. Booted with external USB optical drive (I have internal drive broken) - at the beginning of the boot sequence press PAUSE, then wait several seconds, then ENTER, then F12 and select the drive. Without pressing PAUSE I am not able to boot from USB optical/hard drive as the drive does not show in the F12 boot list menu.
T41p	Nils Newman, work great. (Version: Bios 3.14 / Embedded Controller 3.04)
T42 2373-JXG	magarzo <mdr.magarzo at gmail.com> (BIOS v.3.23 / Embedded Controller v.3.04 / both with cabextract to non-diskette v. plus Bootable CD)
T42	Dan (BIOS 3.20 / EC 3.04, cabextract/CD method) <tronic171 at evilphb.org> Hirosh Dabui <hirosh@dabui.de>
T42p	Robert Schiele <rschiele@uni-mannheim.de>, Joern Heissler <joern@heissler.de>, Hirosh Dabui <hirosh@dabui.de>
T43 1871-W34	Florian Boucault <florian at boucault dot ath dot cx> (Version: Bios 1.23 / Embedded Controller 1.03)
T43 1871-4AG	Martin McDowell 28-Feb-2010 BIOS 70ET62WW (1.22) to 70ET69WW (1.29), ECP 70HT26WW (1.03) to 70HT28WW (1.05) Both successfully upgraded from CD Image made from the instructions on this website.
T43 2687-D4U	Charles (BIOS 1.05 to 1.29, Embedded Controller 1.03 to 1.06)
T43 2886	Till Heikamp <t dot heikamp at geniusbytes dot com> (Bios 1.22 to 1.29, Embedded Controller 1.03 to 1.06)
T43	Conrad Rentsch <Conrad dot Rentsch at t-online dot de> (Version: Bios 1.29 / Embedded Controller 1.06) Tom Heady <tom-thinkwiki.org@punch.net>
T60	1951 Roman Komkov <roman at komkov dot org dot ru> (Bios 1.07 to 2.13) Successfully upgraded from CD Image 8744-HCG Konstantin Khorenko <horenko at mail dot ru> (Bios 1.06 to 1.18) Successfully upgraded from CD Image 1951 Juan Miguel Jiménez <bodypheo (at) gmail dot com> (Bios 1.07 to 2.14) Copy CD content into Dos usb bootable and run lcreflsh.bat. After updating I got error of PXE corrupted: here
T61	Kai Weber <kai.weber at glorybox dot org> (Bios 1.06 to 1.26) Successfully upgraded from CD Image
T410	Pablo Zometa (BIOS 1.35)
W530	Frank Bicknell <fbicknel at nc dot rr dot com> Used geteltorito (wget http://www.uni-koblenz.de/~krienke/ftp/noarch/geteltorito/geteltorito) to extract the image from the .iso file downloaded from the Thinkpad website: geteltorito -o bios.img Downloads/g5uj18us.iso Next just copy the image to the flash drive: sudo dd if=bios.img of=/dev/sdb boot and enjoy.
X20	Neil Caunt <retardis at gmail dot com>
X21	Patrick Leickner <ranma at web dot de>, (BIOS 2.21->2.25 / EC 1.31->1.36) via non-disk/cabextract/mkisofs/cdrecord
X22	David Emery <dave at skiddlydee dot com>, (EC 1.30, BIOS 1.32 using non-disk/cabextract/CD method)
X23	Nils Faerber <nils dot faerber at kernelconcepts dot de> (Embedded Controller 1.30, BIOS 1.32 with cabextract/CD method)
X30	Hella Breitkopf, www (Embedded Controller 1.04, BIOS 1.07 with cabextract/CD method) William Roe <willroe at gmail dot com> (Embedded Controller 1.06, BIOS 1.09 - cabextract/mkisofs/wodim)
X31	Grzegorz Kuśnierz <koniu at sheket dot org> (Embedded Controller 1.08, BIOS 3.01 with cabextract/CD method)
X31	Paul Litwack <paullitwack at gmail dot com> (Embedded Controller 1.08, BIOS 3.02 with cabextract/unetbootin method) cabextract & unetbootin are staight foward(toggle floppy image instead of iso image in unetbootin dialog) No problems with update software. x31 has to be cajoled into booting from usb. Boot hangs when pendrive is present. Hit the key to bring up the boot menu. Unplug the pendrive. Let the boot menu come up. Plug in the pendrive. Select the pendrive in the boot menu and it boots.
X40	Robbie Stone <robbie@serendipity.cx> Andy Shevchenko <andy.shevchenko@gmail.com> (Fine by cabextract/CD method)
Z60m	Morle 01:09, 17 Nov 2007 (CEST), (Embedded Controller 1.18 and Bios 1.24 with cabextract/CD method)

Unsuccessful tests

Model	Tested by, and comments

GRUB2: Booting floppy Image

Successful tests

Model	BIOS	ECP	Tested by	Notes
T510 4349-5KG	6muj27uc.iso: BIOS 6MET88WW (1.48 )	EC 6MHT46WW-1.21	Marc Burkhardt	Gentoo: sys-boot/grub-1.99-r2, sys-boot/syslinux-4.05
R30 2656-64G	v.1.40		Yuri Spirin
R40 2723	1OHJ11WW.IMG	1PUJ25US.IMG	Qunying	memdisk from syslinux 3.70 (slackware 12.1)
R50e 1834NV1	1WUJ25US.IMG		Jidanni	memdisk from syslinux-common 2:3.84+dfsg-1 (Debian), grub2 (1.96+20080724-16)
R51 2888
T23 2647	1AUJ20US.IMG	1AHJ06US.IMG	cthon	memdisk from syslinux 4.02-1 (arch linux)
T40 2373	1RUJ37US.IMG	1RHJ10U2.IMG	Euphoria	memdisk from syslinux 1:3.31-4 (Debian package version)
T40 2373	1RHJ10U2.IMG (3.04, 2004-11-15)	1RUJ37US.IMG (3.23, 2007-07-03)	Morphics	cabextract and memdisk from syslinux 3:1.36-4ubuntu5
T41 2373	1RUJ37US.IMG (3.23, 2007-07-03)		Tonko	Fedora 12
T41p 2373	1RUJ37US.IMG (3.23, 2007-07-03)		Deggel	cabextract and memdisk from syslinux 3.71 on gentoo
T41p 2373			James Lee
T42 2373	1RUJ37US.IMG		Simon Csaba Endre	Ubuntu 10.04 Pre-update versions: BIOS v3.21 / ECP v3.04 After-update versions: BIOS v3.23 / ECP v3.04
T42p 2374	1RUJ37US.IMG	1RHJ10U2.IMG	Achim Derigs	Debian GNU/Linux sid, works with `linux16 ...' and `initrd16 ...' only
X31 2673-CBU			Jan Topinski
X31 2672-CXU			TheAnarcat
X31 2672-JBU	3.02 1QUJ19US.IMG	1.08 1QUJ08US.IMG	twbxf4	worked flawlessly
X31 2673-58G			FaUl
X31 2672-PG9			Starox	a big moment between starting update and the updating window
X31 2672-PG9	v3.02 1QUJ19US.IMG	v1.08 1QHJ08US.IMG	TeeLittle	Apr 10, 2010: Using Debian 5.0 "Lenny" + package syslinux-common (Version: 2:3.71+dfsg-5). Pre-update versions: BIOS v2.11 / ECP v1.03
X40 2371	2.07 1uuj21us.exe	1.62 1uhj10us.exe	Jakob Truelsen	Worked on two X40-2371
X40 2386	2.08 1uuj22us.exe	1.62 1uhj10us.exe	Galen Seitz	memdisk from syslinux 3.61

(More successful grub tests are scattered in the previous table too.)

Unsuccessful tests

Model	BIOS	ECP	Tested by	Notes
R32 2658-NWU	2.16 1MUD23US.IMG	n/a	Mike Millman	Boots into the BIOS flashing program just fine, but when it comes time to start the update process, the system hangs completely. Luckily, it hangs before it actually modifies anything... A hard reboot got me back into a working system. I would not recommend this route!
Template:R52e 1846-CGL	1.29 76UJ28UD.IMG	1.01	Laszlo Takacs	Boots into BIOS flashing program but it hangs up before the upgrade process. I used memdisk from syslinux-4.01.
T43 2668-F7G	1.29 1YUJ18US.IMG		Maus3273	I got into the bios program, but the machine never restarts after initiating the upgrade.
X41 2525-FAG	2.09 74UJ15US		Uwe Kleine-König	booted fine (Debian syslinux 2:3.71+dfsg-5), but didn't succeed to write, just hang at "Don't restart or remove diskette etc. pp" (not bricked). Worked fine via CD method.
X41 2525-F8G	2.06 74UJ12US.IMG 2.07 74UJ13US.IMG 2.09 74UJ15US.IMG		Lauri Koponen	hangs while initializing the actual BIOS flashing process ECP: 1.02 74HJ03US.IMG works

GRUB2: Booting CD Image

Here document you progress with

Successful tests

Model	BIOS	ECP	Tested by	Notes
X100e 2876-55G	6xuj05uc.iso		User:nikel
Template:Edge	1.17 6yuj04uc.iso		User:theBro	Current memdisk from syslinux worked (5/2010), the one provided by Ubuntu 9.10 did not.
X200s	1.13 6duj40uc.iso		User:theBro	Current memdisk from syslinux worked (5/2010), the one provided by Ubuntu 9.10 did not.
X200s	3.14 6duj41uc.iso	1.06	Dag Wieers	Using memdisk from syslinux 4.01
X201 3626-A14	1.15 6quj05uc.iso	1.09 6quj05uc.iso	Alexander List	memdisk from syslinux 3.86
Edge 13" 0197-6GG	1.18 6yuj05uc.iso		User:fethio	Current memdisk from syslinux worked (5/2010), the one provided by Ubuntu 9.10 did not.
Edge 13" 0197-34Q	1.21 6yuj08uc.iso		User:Kapil	Current memdisk from syslinux debian version 2:4.02+dfsg-7
Edge 13" 0197-34Q	1.18 6yuj05uc.iso		User:Kapil	Current memdisk from syslinux debian version 2:4.01+dfsg-1
X200s	3.15 6duj42uc.iso		User:lawnjam	Memdisk 4.02 worked, the one provided by Ubuntu 10.04 did not.
X201	1.22 6quj08uc.iso	1.11	Dag Wieers	Using memdisk from syslinux 4.03
T410s	1.41 6uuj12uc.iso	1.12	regatus	Gentoo + memdisk (syslinux 4.0.3)
X201	1.40 6quj19us.iso	1.15	User:TomGoBravo	Sep 14 2013; ubuntu 13.10 saucy daily release with included memdisk

Unuccessful tests

Model	BIOS	ECP	Tested by	Notes
T61 6466-55G	2.27 7luj26uc.iso	1.08	User:mgedmin	Grub2 + memdisk (2:4.01+dfsg-3ubuntu1) booted the DOS image on the CD, which then tried to load a DOS CD-ROM driver, which then could not find the CD, and ended up with the infamous Abort, Retry, Fail.
X220 4291-35G	1.39	1.24	User:helge	Boots successfully but freezes when I select Upgrade system program (Arch Linux, grub=1:2.02.beta2-4, syslinux=6.03pre12-3, grub-imageboot=0.6-2) - Booting from USB flash drive using the geteltorito.pl method worked for me.