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The official website has a new version of BIOS for my laptop. The download from the website is a zip archive, which contains an executable and a README.txt, which instructs to click the executable under Windows. I am running Debian "buster". Installing Windows seems like too much work to update BIOS. I opened the executable with fileroller and extracted all files from it onto an empty FAT32-formatted flash drive. Among all files there is a "abobios.bin", which seems promising. Unfortunately, the laptop does not pick up it from the USB flash drive on boot. There seems to be no option to update BIOS in BIOS itself. Is there a way to update BIOS other than installing Windows over my currently installed Debian?

$ echo `sudo dmidecode --string bios-vendor` `sudo dmidecode --string bios-version`
Insyde Corp. V1.03
$ echo `sudo dmidecode --string baseboard-manufacturer` `sudo dmidecode --string baseboard-product-name` `sudo dmidecode --string baseboard-version`
RO Kona_RN V1.03

Edit: The flashing tool which is included into the update is Insyde H20FFT (Flash Firmware Tool) version 2.00.11.00 from Insyde Software Corp.

Roman Riabenko
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1 Answers1

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As Tony suggested, I tried "live" Windows to update the BIOS firmware. Please be warned that this option does not seem to be safe and reliable.

Unfortunately, Windows to Go is no more officially supported by Microsoft, but I created one with Rufus with an official Windows 10 installation image, which is freely available to download from the Microsoft website. Had to choose Windows to Go option instead of the usual installer option in Rufus interface. Had to change the boot sequence in BIOS to boot from this media. It took hours to create the bootable USB and more hours for Windows first boot and setup. I tried to use an older USB 2.0 flash drive, but it did not boot to Windows setup in hours. A newer USB 3.0 flash drive succeeded to boot, but Windows was very slow. Probably, will try a faster device, like an external HDD, next time.

The Windows setup turned out to be buggy. It displayed some minor errors here and there. The touchpad worked weird and lagged. It did not recognize any other USB flash drives, where I placed the BIOS update, and did not recognize a USB Ethernet adapter, so I had to connect to Wi-Fi and download the update from the official Acer website.

Surprisingly, the flashing program is not signed, so you have to accept that the vendor is not recognized, so you pass the Smart Screen block. It rebooted and flashed the new BIOS version during boot successfully.

The screen of the "Flash Firmware Tool" with update completed.

It rebooted to Windows just fine. I shut it down and removed the Windows to Go media. At this point, it does not recognize the installed SSD as a bootable device. On boot it displays "No Bootable Device".

Updating the BIOS resets it to defaults. It seems that, as a side effect, it forgets what file to trust as a boot option on the existing installation. To direct it to the correct file to boot, you will need to choose "Select an UEFI file as trusted", navigate to EFI > debian > shimx64.efi, choose any name for it, and confirm. This option is greyed out until you set up password. You can clear the password after saving the option.

Roman Riabenko
  • 600