On Fri, Jan 08, 2010 at 09:06:52AM -0800, ron minnich wrote:
On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 8:32 AM, Adrian Glaubitz adrian.glaubitz@googlemail.com wrote:
IIRC the newer Dell OptiPlex series have a special way for flashing the BIOS. You use a Dell-provided utility to copy the new BIOS image into a special (non-volatile?) memory, then reboot the machine. Once it reboots, it will automatically start to flash.
wow, how ... special. So you have no visibility into the reflash process and no idea of its progress.
This is the default mode for many new BIOSes, I understand, since so many of them are EFI at the core. It's not an improvement for the customer, but it's what the vendors are going to provide. It's very disappointing.
I see one very good reason to try this (apart from several negative ones): Malware. If malware manages to program itself into the BIOS, then it will control what the OS sees - and has possibility to thwart any and all attempts at detecting/repairing such a program. If the BIOS only accepts signed BIOS updates for reflashing, then this could prevent that kind of malware.
Ciao Joerg