change UEFI/BIOS in ACER laptop from a Windows7 guest?

[bobptz]

Hi

I have an ACER v5-131 laptop. It seems the only way to upgrade the BIOS is to run their upgrade .exe file from windows 7 or 8. I do have a Winows 7 guest, with Ubuntu 16.04 host. Do you think this will work? Or will I mess the entire thing?

[socratis]

Do you think this will work? Or will I mess the entire thing?

It won't work, and it won't mess anything. The reason is simple; you do not have access to the real hardware, the BIOS/EFI.

But it's interesting that an update to the BIOS/EFI is done from within an OS. Typically theses kinds of updates are done when booting in the BIOS/EFI itself, which accesses usually a USB drive and loads the firmware. Are you sure it's nothing like that, and it's simply the "preparation software" (that needs to prepare the USB for such a firmware update), that needs to run in Windows?

[bobptz]

Thank you for your answer.

It is the ACER aspire V5-131. Take a look, it is specific to windows7 or windows8:
https://www.acer.com/ac/en/ID/content/s ... uct/4667;-;

[mpack]

This really has nothing to do with VirtualBox. You would put the flash tool on a bootable CD or USB stick and run it from there.

p.s. Most tools which say they require Win7 simply date from the Win7 era and in fact will run on later versions too. Have you tried it?

Edit:  Having just checked your link, I don't see anywhere which says that the BIOS needs to be installed from a Win7 or Win8 PC. All it says is that one BIOS is intended to support Win8 (I assume it must have extra features) while the other is intended to support Win7 (hence it probably lacks those features - but will still work for Win8). I must say that upgrading a BIOS flash is not something I would recommend that non-experts attempt. A mistake could lead to a bricked PC and unrecoverable data. At the very least back everything up first, and make sure you know how to recover files from the backup on another PC.

[bobptz]

You put the flash tool on a bootable CD or USB stick and run it from there.

Bootable to what OS? I am using Ubuntu 16.04. The flash file is an .EXE

[andyp73]

Bootable to what OS? I am using Ubuntu 16.04. The flash file is an .EXE

As I am feeling unusually generous this morning (and this is where I cut my teeth as a developer) I have downloaded the ZIP file for BIOS version 2.21. When you unzip it, then it contains a .exe file which is actually a self-extracting archive. Unpacking that with 7-zip rather than executing it leaves you with a directory containing a couple of BIOS files (.fd) extension and the Insyde Software Windows BIOS update utility.

You'll either have to find a way to temporarily boot Windows on your hardware or speak to Acer or Insyde about either the DOS version of the BIOS update utility or to see if they have a native Linux one.

-Andy.

[bobptz]

This is from their readme.txt:

How to update the BIOS:
Click "Q1VZC221.exe" under Winodows mode

[socratis]

I did download that program, run it in a Win7 VM, and it returned one of the most cryptic message since "All your base are belong to us":

IHISI: Get support mode error in SMI!
SMI return code: 0xEF

Maybe the program checks to see if the BIOS is an Acer one. Call them. See what they want. In any event:

• You can't update your BIOS from within VirtualBox.

[bobptz]

I had the exact same experience Socratis, when I run it from a WIN7 guest, as a test from a DELL laptop. It means "wrong bios" or something like this.

Thank you very much for the help.

[mpack]

Running a BIOS update tool inside a virtual machine means you are attempting to update the BIOS of the virtual machine - not that of the host. The VirtualBox BIOS can't be updated in that way.

[bobptz]

yes, this makes sense. Thank you.