Lenovo BIOS boot fix

[Allan Jude]

On 2015-07-13 14:08, Warren Block wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Jul 2015, Allan Jude wrote:
>
>> On 2015-07-13 11:19, Warren Block wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Needing the active flag set is indeed a different problem. I am working
>>>> on a patch for bsdinstall that will allow the user to request the
>>>> active
>>>> bit be set as well.
>>>
>>> For GPT, that should be the default, because it matches the standard.
>>>
>>> I would like to see an effort to get Lenovo to fix their broken
>>> UEFI/BIOS.  Adding non-standard PMBR configurations should be short-term
>>> hack.
>>
>> Lenovo has fixed the issue in newer models, x230, t530, t540 etc work
>> fine.
>>
>> Just the x220, t420, and t520 etc series do not.
>
> The latest BIOS update for the x220 was less than two months ago, so it
> is still supported.  That they've fixed the problem in other models
> shows they understand the issue.  So owners of those models should be
> bugging Lenovo, so to speak.
>
> Long-term, it seems like they as a company would be concerned that
> special bug fixes naming their specific models are needed.
>
> Short-term, we probably can't avoid this.  It would be nice to be able
> to remove a Lenovo-specific hack from gpart in the future with a commit
> that says "Fixed by Lenovo BIOS update #123, no longer needed".

I tried the latest bios update for the X220, from 2015-05-27

It does not resolve the issue.

Also, it required some hoop jumping, as they only provide a bootable cd 
(x220s do not have CD drives) and a windows program.

However, if others are interested, this handy perl script: 
http://userpages.uni-koblenz.de/~krienke/ftp/noarch/geteltorito/

can be used to extract the el torito image from that .iso to a file, 
that can then be dd'd to a USB stick and update the bios.

-- 
Allan Jude