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hacksenwerk

Member

From: Europe

Registered: 2022-02-10

Posts: 24  

[HowTo] Asus Eee PC - Flashing the BIOS

PLEASE report any issues you run into using this HowTo and also report if you know other methods, or how to improve this HowTo. Thank you very much!

The following is just a summary of the imo easiest way to flash the BIOS of an Eee PC.

I tested it on following Models for now:

* 700 (also known as 2G surf)

* 900A

* 1201N

What you need:

* An USB stick or a SD card.

* An image file of FreeDOS (.img not .iso !): https://freedos.org/download/ Use the LITE version, it does not take much space.

* A BIOS ROM file. Best to get from Asus: https://www.asus.com/

Note 1: The search function of asus.com is not good, I searched for 1201N and checked all of the results but it wasn't in there. But using a searchengine with a search term like "eee pc 1201n bios" gave me the link to the asus page.

So here's the summary for everyone who wants to flash the BIOS of an Eee PC:

Important Note: Use an AC adapter to be sure the Eee PC does not power off while the flashing process runs, cause this can causing your Eee PC to brick!

- Use an usb stick or a SD card.

- Write a FreeDOSLITE.img (__not__ ISO!) on it with dd.

- Mount that FreeDOS partition.

- Copy the BIOS ROM file on it.

- Rename the BIOS ROM file to Modelname_of_the_Eee_PC.ROM (so 900.ROM for example).

- Plug the usb stick in an usb port of the Eee PC, or the sdcard in the sdcard slot (do __not__ use a card reader! EZ flash wont be able to find the ROM file).

- Power on the Eee PC and as soon as the splash screen of the vendor appears press and hold Alt and then press and hold F2. The screen should go black and after some time EZ flash should get started and runs the whole flashing process automatically. You do not have do anything else.

Note 2: That button pressing to start EZ flash does sometimes not work. Just power off the Eee PC and try it again.

The whole process should look similiar to this:

Boot Block Compatible Version Ver.Some_foobar_versionumber_here
Please do NOT insert any disc into CD-ROM or Floppy drive 
if you want to recovery with an USB device. 
EZ-Flash starting BIOS update..... 
DO KEEP the power supply on and NOT touch the system while performing BIOS 
update. 
Checking for USB Device... 
USB Device found. 
Reading file "Modelnumber_of_Eee_PC_here.ROM".  Completed. 
Start Erasing...\ 
Start Programming...\                                                                               
Start Erasing Boot Block...\
Start Programming Boot Block...\

The BIOS update is finished.
Please press power button to shut down the system.

Note 3: On the 1201N it does not show

Start Erasing...\ 

And after

Start Programming...\

is done it shows:

BIOS update succesfully completed.

Flashed successfully. Rebooting...

but only for a half second (catched that only because I made a video of the process).

In the second post here in this topic, you will find additional information about other methods that will work on some models while they do not work on others (trust me I tested them all, messed arround with that topic a lot).

PLEASE report any issues you run into using this HowTo and also report if you know other methods, or how to improve this HowTo. And also report if you got this to work on Eee PC models that are not listed here. Thank you very much!

Last edited by hacksenwerk (2025-03-15 09:25:09)

hacksenwerk

Member

From: Europe

Registered: 2022-02-10

Posts: 24  

Re: [HowTo] Asus Eee PC - Flashing the BIOS

Method 2: Using an external CDROM drive connected via USB (my favorite)

Works with the following Eee PC models:
* 700 (2G surf)
* 900A

Works __not__ with the following Eee PC models:
* 1201N

- Download the BIOS ROM file, rename it to Modelname_here.ROM and burn it to a data CD (__not__ DVD!)
- I used for burning xfburn.
- Connect the external CDROM drive via USB and insert the disc.
- After Splashscreen appears press and hold Alt and then press and then hold F2.
- EZ Flash will do the flash automatically.

Method 3: Messing arround with partitioning an USB stick or an SD card with small partitions, like 32mb and such, using FAT16 for it and cylinders instead of sectors to allocate the partitioning size.

Read this to mess arround with it if you like to (it's where I started from weeks ago):
https://www.reddit.com/r/EeePC/comments … us_eee_pc/

I am pretty sure, that the HowTo I described in the first post is exactly this, only that dd write the FreeDOS image with all formating that is needed just in the correct way.
I tested the reddit suggesstions, with cfdisk, gnome-disks, gparted...
I really made several attempts with different combinations of the suggessted techniques using different USB flash drives and SD cards with different storage capacity.

I got some combinations to work on the 900A.
One example:
- 4 GB SD-Card with to partitions:
1. Partition: 32 MB FAT16.
2. Partition: remaining storage as Ext4 (I did that to have EZ Flash ignore it, because I thought it can not reconize it and would threat it as non-existent, what is probably the case. Leaving the reamining space unformatted did not work).
- Copy the Modelname_here.ROM to the 32 MB FAT16 partition and run EZ Flash.

But for me the easiest way was to burn the ROM to a data CD and run EZ Flash and if that not works copying it to a FreeDOSLite partition and run EZ Flash.

Method 4: Using AFUDOS (good for backup your BIOS!)
- Copy an AFUDOS.exe to a FreeDOSLite partition.
- Start FreeDOSLITE.
- Set language.
- Then break up the installation (it will ask you after choosing language, choose "No...foobar").
- You will get a FreeDOS shell
- Run AFUDOS by typing:

AFUDOS /Some_commandSome_file

It knows two commands:

1. For backup up the actual BIOS (highly recommended!)

AFUDOS.EXE /oBACKUP-BIOS-Eee-PC-Modelname.ROM

(You can choose whatever filename you want, but better be precise).

2. For flashing a new BIOS ROM:

AFUDOS.EXE /iModelname_here.ROM

That's it.

Method 5: Using Bupdater
!!! Use Bupdater at your own risk !!!!
Only tried it once and it failed for me.
On the 1201N I couldn't get any of the methods this HowTo listed to work (except the FreeDOS + EZ Flash method described in the first post of this thread, but I only found that out after I messed arround with all other methods, described in the second post here).

The Bupdater tool can be found here for example:
https://www.asus.com/supportonly/eee%20 … desk_bios/
under Tab: Driver & Tools -> Section: Driver & Tools -> Tab: Driver & Tools
(What idiot came up with that structure and more important: is someone paying that idiot for this?)
It is downloadable from the vendor page of a specific Eee PC model, in this case the Eee PC 1201N, but maybe it could work for other Eee PCs too (I saw some videos on youtube where people flashing different Eee PC models with that tool).

You also have to run it from FreeDOSLite and it has the same syntax as AFUDOS (its probably the successor of AFUDOS).
It gives you some curses interface and everything runs automatically, but for me it errors after the write started.
I waited for half an hour and after that I couldn't turn the Eee PC off.
So I pulled out the AC connector and the battery.
I was ready for a bricked device but it just started normal.
But it did not flash the new BIOS.
!!! Use Bupdater at your own risk !!!!

Last edited by hacksenwerk (2025-03-13 14:41:18)

Dutch_Master

Member

Registered: 2018-05-31

Posts: 297  

Re: [HowTo] Asus Eee PC - Flashing the BIOS

Yes

Interesting. I happen to have bought into the hype back then and so I still have a 4G 700 model. I may resurrect it. No idea for what, but 32 bit has it's perks

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,564  

Re: [HowTo] Asus Eee PC - Flashing the BIOS

(You red it, don't you?)

Nope. Just a quick scan for now. When it's done, it belongs in the Documentation section.

Thanks for the write-up.

hacksenwerk

Member

From: Europe

Registered: 2022-02-10

Posts: 24  

Re: [HowTo] Asus Eee PC - Flashing the BIOS

Why documentation section? It is not Devuan specific.

hacksenwerk

Member

From: Europe

Registered: 2022-02-10

Posts: 24  

Re: [HowTo] Asus Eee PC - Flashing the BIOS

Ok done.

Happy flashing!

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,564  

Re: [HowTo] Asus Eee PC - Flashing the BIOS

It does qualify for off-topic but it also is not disqualified for Documentation "How-tos and Tips & Tricks contributed by Devuan users". Either way is fine.

mac605

Member

Registered: 2025-03-18

Posts: 1  

Re: [HowTo] Asus Eee PC - Flashing the BIOS

How I flashed my Eeepc 901 in 2025? After a few attempts the following one was succesful:

I used a 4BG pendrive.

I downloaded rufus https://rufus.ie/en/ and formated pendrive with Freedos LiteUSB https://freedos.org/download/ - that created a bootable USB stick

AFUDOS Utility from https://www.asus.com/me-en/supportonly/ … _download/ (at the bottom of the list
- that's flashing tool old enough for my 901 BIOS

BIOS file from https://www.asus.com/me-en/supportonly/ … desk_bios/ that's most recent version.

I copied AFUDOS and BIOS to freeDOS pendrive, for simplicity renamed bios to 900.rom

Booted 901 from USB (TAB after powering then ESC for bootdevice selection then anykey to boot FreeDOS.

Optional - as a precaution/check I decided to dump current bios using command

afudos /oeeedump.rom

- it dumped bios as expected, a surprise lack of space after /o switch proves that file is rather ancient.

Finally I flashed BIOS using

afudos /i900.rom

YMMV. Good Luck