[arch-general] Help with making a bootable usbkey from arch for ssd drive firmware update - RESOLVED

Mike Cloaked mike.cloaked at gmail.com
Sun Jan 27 16:55:16 EST 2013


On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 9:57 PM, Mike Cloaked <mike.cloaked at gmail.com>wrote:

> If anyone can help or suggest links to solve the following problem I would
> appreciate it.
>
> I have a new system built with an Intel DQ77KB motherboard with a Crucial
> mSATA M4 SSD, and a Crucial SATA M4 SSD drive. I want to install arch on
> this system and indeed preparing a usbkey with the archiso install media
> using dd to write the usbkey boots just fine.
>
> Also the latest PartedMagic iso written to a usbkey also boots fine so
> that I can format the SSD drives (both of them). Looking at the system
> profile I can see all the peripherals, including all the RAM and both SSD
> drives.
>
> However before starting the arch install I want to update the firmware on
> the SSD drives. This is available from the Crucial website either as a
> Windows 7/8 .exe (which I can't use) or a "manual" firmware update file
> which is an iso (containing memdisk from syslinux, and a floppy image file
> boot2880.img)
>
> Running the "file" command on the boot2880.img file after loop mounting it
> gives:
>
> # file /mnt/iso/boot/isolinux/boot2880.img
> /mnt/iso/boot/isolinux/boot2880.img: x86 boot sector, FREE-DOS Beta 0.9
> Bootloader KERNEL.SYS, code offset 0x3c, OEM-ID "FreeDOS ", sectors/cluster
> 2, root entries 240, sectors 5760 (volumes <=32 MB) , sectors/FAT 9, serial
> number 0x2b6112fe, label: "BOOTABLE   ", FAT (12 bit)
>
> Writing the iso to a usbkey won't boot - the screen goes blank and nothing
> happens when I write the iso to a usbkey with a FAT32 key with the boot
> flag.  I have tried isolinux and that does not seem to work. I have tried a
> bootable grub2 usbkey and that does not work - all are prepared from a
> working arch linux laptop.
>
> I have following numerous "recipes" for making the usbkey from various
> sources on the web and none seem to work at all!
>
> The odd thing is that for syslinux I can't even get a menu item on the
> screen when booting the key - nor for grub 2.
>
> I have used two different makes of usbkey - both 4GB....same result - and
> both keys will boot fine with the archiso or PartedMagic.
>
> I don't know if I am doing something fundamentally stupid but this is
> driving me nuts! I have used gparted, as well as fdisk, as well as trying
> parted to reformat the usbkeys. Nothing I do seems to work!
>
> There must be a good step-by-step guide somewhere on how to get a usbkey
> with sysylinux to boot the firmware updater - which seems to have a floppy
> image file (boot2880.img) and uses memdisk to boot it - though the version
> on the iso file is about two year old whereas arch current memdisk in
> syslinux is up to date.
>
> If anyone can help advise on how to make a bootable usbkey to execute
> this, I would really appreciate it.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
>
I raised this issue above about two weeks ago - and finally tonight
resolved the problem.

I checked on the Intel site for BIOS updates for my motherboard (DQ77KB) -
and it turned out that Intel has in the interim released a new BIOS version
048 which has a bunch of fixes including " Updated VBIOS to fix issue where
there is no display in DOS."

After installing the new BIOS I was able to update the SSD drive firmware
without any problem at all - so it seems that whatever method I tried to
boot the firmware update which is DOS based would have failed until the
BIOS was updated!

So I am a happy bunny again with current Crucial SSD drive firmware!

-- 
mike c


More information about the arch-general mailing list