FreeBSD equivalent of Rufus

[balanga]

I need to install a 32 bit version of Windows to be able to apply a BIOS upgrade to a laptop.

I have ISOs in WinXP and Win7 but it seems that I can only install them via Rufus which is a Windows program.

Is there a FreeBSD equivalent of Rufus?

 

[nxjoseph@]

I'm afraid we're only destroying disks here

Spoiler

(reference to dd(1) being called disk-destroyer)

 

[bgavin]

The Hiram boot cd will do this

 

[Grzegorz Wiktorowski]

I need to install a 32 bit version of Windows to be able to apply a BIOS upgrade to a laptop.

I have ISOs in WinXP and Win7 but it seems that I can only install them via Rufus which is a Windows program.

Is there a FreeBSD equivalent of Rufus?

Some BIOS has the function to upgrade directly from BIOS. I have ASUS laptop with Fedora and I upgrade BIOS without booting from USB. So no need to prepare XP on USB.

 

[wolffnx]

The painfull way is install win10 and then download some tool and make a bootable iso
(I never can create a winxp and win7 bootable iso in FreeBSD)

A windows 10 usb bootable image can be done in fbsd
Here

Creating a Windows 10 bootable USB-stick using FreeBSD

 

[Alain De Vos]

Or First install Windows then Linux&Grub then FreeBSD.. Grub will boot all..

 

[CeXP1917]

You can try -danger!- way: ERD Commander iso + bios file on flash with Ventoy.

 

[loveydovey]

It's easy to download and compile this: https://github.com/pbatard/ms-sys
I compiled it, it's supposed to work. I tried it but didn't have time to figure it out. I wonder if anyone had luck using that.

 

[Espionage724]

To make a MBR/Legacy/CSM boot media, I'd use WoeUSB from a Linux LiveUSB; it's likely possible to do the boot flag and hookups from FreeBSD, but I wasn't a fan of figuring that out years ago on Windows and just used Rufus

---

UEFI boot is easy: You can copy the contents of an iso directly to a FAT32 or NTFS drive (fresh formatted da0 from FreeBSD; afaik doesn't matter MBR/GPT/no partition table) and then select the bootx64.efi from BIOS/firmware.

install.wim needs to be below 4GB for FAT32 (haven't seen UEFI firmware not boot from NTFS but afaik FAT32 is supposed to be always-supported); Win10 21H2's is like 3GB but iirc 11 24H2's is 5GB (Rufus has some UEFI-NTFS thing if UEFI firmware doesn't have NTFS support and/or can split the install.wim for 4GB FAT limits)

On FreeBSD I do FAT32 to a USB drive and 7-zip to extract an iso directly to the drive and have notes here (doesn't do MBR/Legacy 32-bit support)

---

Depending on the BIOS image and firmware locks, I'd sooner try flashrom from a Linux LiveUSB

 

[balanga]

Or First install Windows then Linux&Grub then FreeBSD.. Grub will boot all..

Erm.... Installing Windows is the problem!

 

[balanga]

The Hiram boot cd will do this

How exactly do I do this?

I can boot Hiren's BootCD.ison15.2 which I boot from Ventoy without problem but no idea what to do when starting Mini Wndows Xp.

 

[Alain De Vos]

I think i wrote with some freebsd commands to iso to a usb connected external DVD drive.
It was i think not dd but grow-iso-fs or something

 

[bgavin]

Update bios directly from CMOS setup and thumb drive

Or from command prompt of Hiram boot cd then run the update EXE file

 

[CeXP1917]

I need to install a 32 bit version of Windows to be able to apply a BIOS upgrade to a laptop.

Ehh... Actually, first question here must be: "What laptop? Manufacturer, model, letters..."

 

[Espionage724]

WoeUSB likely can be adapted for FreeBSD if it doesn't just-work (I've used it for years Linux; notes): https://github.com/WoeUSB/WoeUSB/releases/download/v5.2.4/woeusb-5.2.4.bash

I only skimmed through it, but saw a grub command and imagine grub commands can be used with similar syntax (there's a man page)

 

[balanga]

Ehh... Actually, first question here must be: "What laptop? Manufacturer, model, letters..."

Lenovo ThinkPad X61 using

Middleton's BIOS - ThinkWiki

www.thinkwiki.org

 

[MG]

dd doesn't work? Don't know what Windows accepts as install medium...

 

[CeXP1917]

I can boot Hiren's BootCD.ison15.2 which I boot from Ventoy without problem

If you can boot some system from Ventoy, what bios you want install? Bios mod and official bios available as bootable ISO images with DOS, so you dont need Windows.

 

[Espionage724]

Lenovo ThinkPad X61 using

Middleton's BIOS - ThinkWiki

www.thinkwiki.org

What about this? (sounds like they have a pre-built iso somewhere)

If you use a 64-bit version or another operating system you have to burn the included ISO-file on a CD or DVD and boot from it.

 

[Alain De Vos]

on linux there is ventoy or woeusb-ng to create bootable windows installer usb sticks

 

[balanga]

If you can boot some system from Ventoy, what bios you want install? Bios mod and official bios available as bootable ISO images with DOS, so you dont need Windows.

It is not available as bootable ISO image. It is an unofficial BIOS.

Installation​

The flasher is an EXE-file which updates the BIOS directly. Note that the BIOS flasher only works on 32-bit versions of Windows.

It is available here

 

[CeXP1917]

It is not available as bootable ISO image. It is an unofficial BIOS.

Here if you talking about middleton. I just downloaded rar archive, yep, it contains bootable dos iso images.

 

[balanga]

What about this? (sounds like they have a pre-built iso somewhere)

I must check that out.....

Just now I noticed


Middleton_BIOS.rar

• 7luj27uc.iso

so I'll have to extract the RAR file. Haven't use one of those for a decade. I'm guessing there is a FreeBSD version of unrar...

 

[bgavin]

The Hiram boot cd is 64 bit.
It runs Win11 PE which has the wow6432 subsystem which runs 32 bit binaries.

Otherwise how would anybody update their bios since all new machines are 64 bit?

Try first before giving up

 

[Alain De Vos]

archivers/unrar