IBM ThinkPad 600 BIOS update without working battery

maverick2 · Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 6:04 am Post subject:

My OS is Windows XP Home, and yes it shows the little plug in the bottom when the power cord is plugged in.
I don´t want to try the 1byte Hack, because first it´s dangerous and second it´s "made" for flashing without battery and not without ac adapter.
I found one in the german thinkpad-forum, he has exactly the same problem, but that was December 2006, and the e-mail i wrote him came back unknown. So i´m not alone with this problem, but can´t reach this guy perhabs he solved the problem.
I´m buying now a ac adapter with 4.5A instead of 3,36A, perhabs this works.

But i´m still not shure if i even need this update from 1.10 to 1.22, the only interresting change that i found was (New) Support for Microsoft Windows XP, and 1.12 fixes a problem with the Battery charging parameters changed to optimize battery function.
Would be interestant, but do i really need it ? I don´t know.

I wrote a detailed e-mail to IBM perhabs they answer me.
best wishes Mav

maverick2 · Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 10:54 am Post subject:

I have the solution,
i got a call from Lenovo, and they told me the the bios is not calling for the ac adapter, it´s because of the not original battery. The bios recognizes that it´s not an original battery so it shows this error with the power. He knows this problem.

But he said to me it´s not easy, it´s allready nearly impossible to get a battery for the T600 with minimum 70% capacity left, so the bios will do the update. He said if you buy an original battery on ebay this thing is nearly 10 years old, it can´t have 70% capacity left it´s dead.

He also said if the system is running well with XP i don´t have to do the update, because the changes were so little.

The best thing is i sent the e-mail to IBM yesterday and they sent me an e-mail today that i have to mail at lenovo, so I did today and half an hour later i got the call back ! This is service THANK YOU Lenovo

johnheav

Moley, Thank you SO MUCH for the Flash2 file. I've been fighting w/ this TP600 for two days, and your workaround has me up and running. Moley for President!

************************

rioguia

I have an IBM 600E Thinkpad (type 2645-AAU). After the flash2.exe /u command, I get an error code "This system not supported". I have Googled this error message without success. Any thoughts?

Pat_Pending

My 600e has a pentium II 500mhz with Windows 2000Me loaded (this is computer A). It is painfully slow for web browsing, espeically if there is flash on the site. I want to install Xubuntu (or gOS or dreamlinux) on this little laptop so my 3 year old daugter can play linux games (tuxpaint). Unfortunately the old bios won't let me boot from CD and apparently won't support linux. So, a bios update is necessary; however, I have the same problem as others - no floppy and a dead battery.

This is the solution I am about to try - I have another computer (computer B) which has both a cd burner and a usb floppy.

Using computer B I downloaded the proper bios update file from lenovo's site. I have a 600e type 2645 model 4AU, so the proper file is spsdin36.exe (the file you download is actually a zip). I unzipped the download and using the instructions on their site I created a bootable floppy (basically, I just double clicked on the exe file after I unzipped it - I hate zip files). NOTE: I noticed that there are TWO seperate bios updates depending on the exact model of 600e you have (it sounds like some people may have been using the wrong bios update?).

Again using computer B I'm going to use Roxio Media Creator 9 (the Data CD feature) to create a bootable CD from the floppy I created. I know that Nero and other CD burning software can create a bootable CD directly from the floppy. I will try to update the bios from the bootable CD I create using the instructions posted by 4q2. I'll post the results of my efforts.

Pat_Pending

Well, my attempt met with limited success (i.e. no success at all). Created the boot cd from the boot floppy using the method described above and Roxio Media 9. Before proceeding I restarted holding down f1 to get to the bios setup and enabled bios flashing as per 4q2's instruction, poped in the CD and restarted - everything looked fine for a while (i.e. the IBM bios update program appears and runs). I follow the instructions except I get the error message that the battery is dead and I can't get any further. I don't get an a: prompt at all. I think the boot disk that 4q2 was using must have had DOS loaded on it and he loaded up to Dos, not the IBM bios update program.

Coincidentally, I discovered that I can boot from CD (it has to be set up in the bios via network - strange). Unfortunately, linux won't install due to old bios in the 600e. gerrrrr Obviously, I still need to do a bios update - but can't figure out how to get around this dead battery problem.

generalp

I'm trying to upgrade a Thinkpad 600 from a very old BIOS (1.03) on a machine that needs a new hard drive but otherwise works well. Battery is genuine IBM and holds a good charge. Also works fine just on AC, and green light comes on when AC is plugged in (but doesn't go out if it is unplugged). Hard drive had serious bad sectors and crashed on booting Win95; a reformat wouldn't complete. Unfortunately to install a new drive and see more than 8G (of 60), I need a new BIOS.

But both the diskette utility and Flash2 say there is no AC power and refuse to continue. I tried various keys (including SCROLL LOCK), but couldn't find an override.

Since none of the Function key combos (e.g. FN+F2 or FN+F11) do anything (when I've booted to DOS), I suspect the power management microcode is off somehow, but don't want to try upgrading that with an older BIOS.

Any ideas? Anyone able to read code well enough to disable the AC test in the flash2.exe program?

Has anyone tried using the UPDTFLSH.EXE or UPDTROM.EXE files directly with the $xxxxxx.fl1 or fl2 files as an argument? Any guesses as to which should go first?

Thanks for any help!

Pat_Pending · Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 1:30 pm Post subject: 600e Bios Update

Well, I managed to solve the problem in a rather simple way.

Firstly, I created the bios update floppy from the levono support site (see above comments). I then simply copied the files from the floppy onto a CD using Roxio (any CD software will do this). This is a regular data CD, not a bootable CD.

Then, I created a WinMe boot CD (you could use Win98SE or what ever) from the following site:

http://www.answersthatwork.com/Downright_pages/..._and_Boot_CDs.htm

Then I restart the 600e holding down F1, select config., then go to network and then select enable flash (see previous posts) - this permits the computer to flash its bios.

Then I place the boot CD in the 600e and restart - you get a dos prompt A:>. Then simply take out the boot CD and put in the CD with the bios update files on it (the CD drive is now designated as drive E so type in E: to access the CD).

Then simply type in flash2.exe /u and it works - goes through the update process quite quickly. You then have to re-initiate by restarting the computer holding down F1 and selecting Config. then go to re-initiate and select ok).

This updated the bios quite nicely. I managed to run gOS from CD - I got all the eye candy to work from gOS (it looks just like mac OSX). Apparently, gOS has some bugs so I installed Xubuntu instead. However; the hard drive on this comp. is so slow that it took over an hour to install Xubuntu! Everything seems to work in Xubuntu - wireless, etc (having some issues with sound). However, I think that even Xubuntu may be too much for this little machine (pentium II 366 with 192mb of ram and 6G drive). The installs and updates for Xubuntu are so slow (WinMe was very slow too). I think I'll try to install gOS and see how that works. If the performance is equally bad, then I might "downgrade" to Win98SE or try to find a faster hard drive and install that (I'm sure that will be fun - not). Any one have any thoughts?

marc.knuckle · Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 7:07 am Post subject:

HELP!!!

i have the thinkpad 600e that is on bios 35 but needs to be the latest which is 36 as i want to put xp onto it.
unfortunately the bios file on lenovo site is a floppy image and the laptop has cd drive.
i downloaded the Virtual floppy drive and set it to A. i then set it to run so it shows in my computer as an actual drive. when i double click the file it goes into a sort of dos screen and seems to go fine asking me to press enter to agree with certain bits then says that there is no floppy disk in the drive.

i am lost here. i simply need a VERY exact help as i am not very computer minded and have got this far with reading these posts.

if it helps, it currently runs win2000

marc.knuckle · Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 5:45 pm Post subject:

come on guys, i am pulling my hair out.

i have just ordered an external floppy drive from ebay but not sure if it will work and how to get the boot sequence to recognise it

marc.knuckle · Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 10:03 pm Post subject:

done it!!!

a good friend created an iso file for me with this method...

run the setup file to a virtual floppy drive and then save an image of the floppy as boot.ima
in Nero create a CD-Rom (boot) and use the boot.ima as the source data
then simply burn the CD (without adding anything else) and boot from it

if this makes sense to anyone i just extracted the file from .rar which he had created for me, and used nero to burn the file. put it in the drive and started and it took me through a few questions and about one min later job done.

i assume the flash enable thing in bios must have already been done

yshreberk · Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:36 pm Post subject:

hey guys
thanks for all the information
i'm running WinXP on IBM 600X laptop.
i bought a new battery recently and discovered that it has its issues (the notorios capacity drop-off....)

as part of trying to solve it, i was trying to update the BIOS.
unlike all other posts jere - my battery is FINE (i CAN completely charge it) and my floppy is working.
i made the diskette but while running it on startup, i'm getting the following message:

THE DISKETTE IN THE DEFAULT DRIVE
WILL NOT RUN ON THIS SYSTEM/
YOUR SYSTEM OS NOW LOCKED. TO RESTART
YOUR SYSTEM, PRESS CTRL+ALT+DEL.

what does that mean? can anyone help me?
thanks!

jbekesi · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 11:34 pm Post subject:

Hello guys,

I've just tried the 'one byte hacking" method wiht a tp 770E and it worked seamlessly -- although I've been more reckless (and maybe more desperate) than suggested.

What I've done was:

1. Made the bios-update disk with spsdid38 from lenovo/ibm
(http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/DSHY-3PGT93.html)

2. simply erased config.sys (following previous advices concerning the "two boot disks" method -- I don't think it's needed by the "one byte hacking method" IMHO!)

3. followed the instructions of the "one byte hacking" method directly on the floppy

4. rebooted the machine

5. and now installing xp happily. Smile

Thank you for your help!
(Anyway I didn't need to worry about a potential power failure as the AC adapter is plugged into an UPS... )

Joe