I appreciate this is a long shot and I think the answer is no, but…
Is there a utility that will allow you to change the bios settings from XPe,
I have around 600 terminals that will all be delivered to site with some bios
settings wrong. The only boot devices I have are LAN and hard disk. Basically
what I need is a utility that will allow me to change the settings as part of
the remote boot sequence.
Anybody?
Thanks for any help.
Rob

Dear Rob,

Unfortunately, you will not be able to do this. The BIOS post
initializes all hardware and checks for any problems. After that it passes
all control over to the OS. There is no way to access the bin files stored
on the BIOS chip from your OS. Even if you could there are too many
applications that run in the back ground that access memory which most
likely would corrupt the flashing of a new BIOS. Contact your hardware
manufacturer for a BIOS Flashing utility.
"Rob White" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:8BE708DF-C10B-49C7-ACE9-(E-Mail Removed)...
> I appreciate this is a long shot and I think the answer is no, but.
> Is there a utility that will allow you to change the bios settings from
XPe,
> I have around 600 terminals that will all be delivered to site with some
bios
> settings wrong. The only boot devices I have are LAN and hard disk.
Basically
> what I need is a utility that will allow me to change the settings as part
of
> the remote boot sequence.
> Anybody?
> Thanks for any help.
> Rob

Hi Rob,

If you know how to handle your CMOS and BIOS trough IO calls then you can esaily write small boot code that will be executed during
the remote boot and that code coul change BIOS settigs.
In XP(e) you must install a temporary driver to gain access to IO calls.

But main problem is how to handle different BIOS-es not how to access then from XPP or without OS.

Regards,
Slobodan

"Rob White" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:8BE708DF-C10B-49C7-ACE9-(E-Mail Removed)...
> I appreciate this is a long shot and I think the answer is no, but.
> Is there a utility that will allow you to change the bios settings from XPe,
> I have around 600 terminals that will all be delivered to site with some bios
> settings wrong. The only boot devices I have are LAN and hard disk. Basically
> what I need is a utility that will allow me to change the settings as part of
> the remote boot sequence.
> Anybody?
> Thanks for any help.
> Rob

If you have 600 devices, I'd talk to the manufacturer of your hardware.
I use Advantech and have a custom BIOS.
I have a small cheap 4mb CF card that I have configured to boot into PC dos
and run a command line that will run through a batch file that will use the
bios re-flash utility.
Its simple, I take out my normal CF card, install the bios flash CF card,
run it then turn it off, and put the old one's in. It loads the new flash
code, then loads the defaults (defaults which I paid $500 to advantech to
custom config for me).
For my bios, here is the command line I used:
echo Turn off Unit after a successfull reboot
Pause
AWD798.EXE 4472X01K.BIN /Py /Sn /CC /CP /CD /R /LD /SB

So what you would need is a custom flash bin file (mine above is called
"4472X01K.BIN") that is customized to your application. This should cost you
money up front, but will pay for itself in the fact that 1) Every unit will
be set up exactly the same (is all your hardware the same?)
2) You should be able to have the bios version appear at the top so you can
instantly verify what version is loaded.
Then you will need to load a bootable DOS drive up with an autoexec.bat
file.
Just turn off, swap drives, turn on, let it reflash, then turn off and put
original drive in.

Hope this helps




"Rob White" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:8BE708DF-C10B-49C7-ACE9-(E-Mail Removed)...
> I appreciate this is a long shot and I think the answer is no, but.
> Is there a utility that will allow you to change the bios settings from
XPe,
> I have around 600 terminals that will all be delivered to site with some
bios
> settings wrong. The only boot devices I have are LAN and hard disk.
Basically
> what I need is a utility that will allow me to change the settings as part
of
> the remote boot sequence.
> Anybody?
> Thanks for any help.
> Rob