January 9. 2008 06:01

Is it possible with further work you can change other settings like memory voltage? being limited to 1.8v is frustrating. New memory moduals require anywhere from 1.9 to 2.2 or more volts.

jeff

January 9. 2008 11:03

Sweet! that turns the Vostro 200 into something of a bargain given the new years price promotions Dell are currently running. I'm now very tempted!

James

January 9. 2008 16:07

Did you enable AHCI in the bios?? Would be nice.

John O

January 9. 2008 17:03

It would be super awesome if you could enable AHCI!

Btw, is there anything in this BIOS limiting the memory to 3.5GB? I've installed 4 2GB DIMMS. The BIOS sees 8GB of RAM, but Vista 64 and Linux still only see 3.5GB of RAM.

oh yes!

January 12. 2008 21:52

Congrats for the work you've done!

One thought, a bit unrelated. I think the Vostro 200 and 400 have the same hardware, the difference appears to be only in what the Vostro 400 can handle, CPU wise. So I wondered if it's possible to flash a Vostro 200 with the 400's bios to allow quad cores to work on the 200.

Does this seem likely do you think?

Dan

January 13. 2008 12:16

Nice work. Thx

Nicola

January 14. 2008 01:48

We assumed that we could use RAID 0 with Vostro 400 - but Dell tells us that this is not possible - so your work-around seems very agreeable as we need to save time when working with Vista, and this is just my problem!

How can I upgrade the BIOS when using VISTA? I have done it OK on 1 XP machine with no problem. But as you say - the BIOS update on VISTA does not work. I have tried to start the machine with DOS Start-up Disks for XP, ME, 96 and Dos6.1 with no success. It cannot find the files I have put on Z on the bootable CD.

Any hint would be much appreciated!

Anders

January 22. 2008 11:24

Really appreciate the work you put into this!

I have a question regarding loading the Matrix Storage Manager with P6 off an XP Pro Install disk. I plan on ordering an Inspiron with the 12-1 card reader rather than a floppy. The readme file for the Matrix prog says "* Note: For Windows Vista you can use a floppy, CD/DVD or USB.". Will a USB flash card not work with XP here, or how about a USB floppy drive?

Jason

January 25. 2008 07:27

Amazing, simply amazing. I now have RAID 0 when I was starting to give up hope! You truly deserve major kudos on this one TLB!

Now....being greedy here...why does this BIOS report 4G of memory, yet even 64 bit OS's report no more than 3.25? There has to be an advanced setting *somewhere* right?

*crosses fingers*

Anyway, excellent work! Off to get some shut-eye

Joel

January 28. 2008 20:07

AWESOME!!!! Works perfect under Vista Business in my inspiron 530, was able to set up a raid 0 with 2 hd in a breeze. Before this I was about to return the system since I was pissed at how dell cripples the bios. Now there are 2 things that I would die for if you can implement:

1) Option to raise the Fsb to 1333 mhz (so my quad core can run at 3.00 ghz.
2) Addressing of more than 4 gb in the bios, I hate dell for not allowing this when the chipset is perfectly able to!

For any of these 2 things you'll get my longlife admiration! Thanks!!

Inaki

Inaki

January 30. 2008 12:03

Tried to run the firmware updater from within windows on a new vostro 400. It says that the firmware versions are the same, and will not proceed. Any thoughts? I'm trying the dos version as we write this.

bob

January 31. 2008 06:43

Great work !

May i ask you if you can allow some overlocking option in a modded bios for VOSTRO 200 ?
My e4400 can do better than running @ 2ghz but dell bios are killing us.

The FOXCONN G33M original bios allow it, but will it work on G33M02 ? I don't know...

sebby

January 31. 2008 09:20

Bob,

Were you successful getting the bios update through DOS? I haven't set up a RAID on an Inpiron yet, but I did setup one without and went through all the updates on Dell's site including the newest BIOS and got a message like you did. All the machines built after late Dec have the 1.0.10 bios installed and I think that'll be a problem trying to get this modified bios with the same ver. number to load. Again, interested to hear if it worked loading through a DOS boot. Thanks.

Jason

February 4. 2008 13:22

Notify me when new comments are added

Jason

February 4. 2008 14:19

Tried this bios update on a brand new Vostro 400. After flashing and reinstalling win XP Pro cannot get the onboard network card to connect to anything. It will repair and get an ip but will not work otherwise, also when you install the chipset utility from Dells website none of the usb ports seem to work leaving your system useless a reinstall of windows is necessary. Do you know of any way to reflash the bios back to the original 1.0.10. I have tryed several different ways and it tells me that it cannot flash because bios is the same version, any help would be appreciated as this computer is now a paper weight.

Rich

February 4. 2008 15:19

Rich,

Did your Vostro come from dell with BIOS version 1.0.10 installed? If so, how did you get the modified version to load? You should be able to reflash the dell version back the same way unless Dell packages the files in a way that's different. I've got a new Inspiron on it's way to me FedEx now, but im hesitant to mess with this raid bios unless I can go back in case of problems.

Mike, do you know a way to remove your modified bios and replace if necessary as in Rich's case? Thanks

Jason

February 5. 2008 10:59

Bob and Rich, did either of you solve your flashing problems? If so please post how you got it to flash with same version numbers. I'd appreciate it, thanks.

Jason

February 5. 2008 22:04

TLB, can you also post a bios flash file of the original Dell 1.0.10 that will work to reset back to the orignal over yours. Currently the file dell supplies won't let you reflash if it detects the same version number. This would be great to have in case the machine goes wonky like in Rich's above. Much appreciated!

Jason

February 5. 2008 23:47

Joel,

Try loading the NIC drivers from Dells site:

ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R159293.EXE

Let us know if this works.

I'm not sure if a one can reflash Dell's bios back on under DOS as the application is different than TLB's.

btw: other than the NIC not working is everything else working with your RAID and Windows?

Regards

Jason

February 6. 2008 01:36

If you use the floppy and flash via dos, you should be able to overwrite the same version. This worked for me going from DELL 1.10.0 to TheLostBrain's version, so I would assume the reverse is also true.

I also cannot use the onboard NIC after flashing. TLB, how did you get this to work?

Joel

February 6. 2008 06:11

Thanks for the NIC fix Mike. The problem that many of us are having is that the bios flash won't work if our machines were already loaded with 1.0.10 from Dell (anything built since late Dec). Running the flash updater through windows just gives a message that the version is the same and will not flash. That's the reason people starting flashing in DOS. Is there a workaround to make your modified flash file work through windows in this circumstance? Thanks

Jason

February 6. 2008 06:54

Rich, could you give us an update on your USB problem? Did you resolve it?

Jason

February 6. 2008 18:43

Rich, thanks for the update!

Jason

February 6. 2008 19:27

Hi TheLostBrain

Can you check or do you know if flashing the inspiron 530 bios with the foxxconn g33m motherboard bios will enable 8gb memory support? The motherboard looks exactly the same as the one in the inspiron.

Enabling 8gb support on the inspiron would be amazing, as I already overclocked my quad core q6600 via the bsel mod (really easy!) now running at 3.0 ghz and got raid 0 thanks to you. All I need is more memory, 3gb is not enough!.

Huge thanks

Inaki

Inaki

February 6. 2008 20:23

The USB issue I was experiencing was a install problem, I did another clean install and everything is OK. No more problems with USB, so go ahead and flash away.

Rich

February 6. 2008 20:45

Well the good news is the Inspiron I ordered showed up today with 1.0.7 installed, so I won't have any issues doing a windows flash of the RAID bios. The question is do i want to . I really need to know if anyone is experiencing the USB failure after installing the Intel chipset from Dell's site after a clean XP Pro install with RAID bios. Rich hasn't posted back about his USB breakdown and there is no way to email him on here. If I get hung up with the thing I can't reflash to Dell's 1.0.10 to fix the USB because the application would allow reflash of same version. Rich's USB issue may not be at all related to this new bios, but his configuration is setup exactly like mine and it's got me worried. I feel like im at the poker table ready to go all-in and i'll either end up with cool RAID setup Inspiron or a $900 paper weight. Ghe.

Jason

February 7. 2008 17:00

No Soup For You!

Well I ran into a problem. The WinFlash won't flash the bios, it says "The BIOS Bin file was not for this system!" I did look again at the case, it is an Inspiron

img444.imageshack.us/img444/9862/biosas8.jpg

Anyone know what the problem might be? Thanks

Jason

February 8. 2008 06:16

Regarding the 2/1/2008 MAC address update, I hit this problem when flashing from DOS. However, it is possible to re-program the MAC address back to it's original setting using a linux utility called ethtool.

I used the Dell supplied bootable Ubuntu 7.10 DVD to boot into linux and used some 'ethtool -E' commands to update the NICs EEPROM. I don't have the exact commands to hand but I may be able to dig them out.

Si

February 8. 2008 14:08

Help!!

I had everything working perfect on my inspiron 530 until I decided to update the intel matrix software application to the latest version. After it finished it asked me to reboot, which I did, and then windows vista crashes upon loading. I also can't get to a freaking system restore because when I insert the vista installation dvd and go to the repair system option the idiot starts looking for an installed operating system and hangs in there looking for the operating system. I can't access the option to load the raid drivers for the hard drive because I have to wait until it finishes searching for the op. system. I left it searching for a long time to see if it would stop but no luck so far. Does anybody have a solution for this??

Thanks!!

Inaki

February 8. 2008 17:00

This is interesting. As I was searching around the Dell forums I came across posts suggesting that the Inspirons and Vostros at some point as late as last month (see link) came with at least RAID 1 support from Dell. I checked and no RAID options are in any of Dell's purchase configurators now, although some do option for 2nd HD. I'll be happy just to get a RAID 1 going on this since the modified file here won't work for me. I PM'ed some people on Dell's forums about their setup and if anyone here knows how Dell was running the RAID 1's please let me know. Thanks

www.dellcommunity.com/.../message

Jason

February 9. 2008 08:36

More Problems!!!

This has become a nightmare. I reinstalled vista 32 bit business on the Inspiron 530 after it wasn't booting, took the time to reinstall all the software + all the updates, after several reboots of everything going OK I rebooted one last time after installing the Zune software for my Zune player and I can't get into Windows by any means (no safe mode, etc). WORSE I CAN'T EVEN GET TO RUN THE RESCUE DISK FROM THE VISTA DVD BECAUSE it throws a BSOD with code 0x0000C1F5. CAN'T DO ANYTHING!!!

The only way to bypass this BSOD and be able to install something is by changing the option from sata to ide in the bios, but then I would have to wipe everything clean and I have data that I want from the hard drives!!!. Is there a way to reflash the bios and see if this will go away? Anybody have any ideas??

Thanks

Inaki

February 9. 2008 17:27

Bios 1.0.11 released. So update from 1.0.10 is possible.
Please update the package.

Frank

February 11. 2008 05:08

thanks for your work. is there anyway to unlock any overclocking features on this board?

simspot

February 11. 2008 19:04

Thank you for your work.
Can you share how you modified the bios file?
Did you just replace the Intel Raid module with a full version? Is there any other modifications for other modules?
Where did you get the full RAID module?

Roger

February 22. 2008 20:28

I had the same problem as Jason - "The BIOS Bin file was not for this system!"

Technosquid

February 23. 2008 19:10

Thanks for this BIOS. I received four Vostro 400 and really needed to use RAID 0 in two of them. Since they came with BIOS 1.0.10, the only way to update to All-RAID was to do it in DOS. In the first one I use the usual method and everything worked OK, included the expected MAC address change to FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF. I update the second one removing the /cc switch in awdflash, and even so MAC address was deleted. RAID and BIOS worked OK. So I guess /cc is not guilty, or at least doesn't carry all responsability. I wish to see All-RAID 1.0.11 very soon! Thanks again.

Darven

February 24. 2008 22:18

To everyone with the problem getting Vista to recognize over 3.26 GB: I updated my x64 Ultimate Vostro 400 to SP1 today and it now recognizes the full 8 GB that I'd installed.

Howard

February 24. 2008 22:46

Well after getting all excited about Vista reading the full 8 GB... It's only reporting it in system info, it's still only utilizing 3.26. Stupid Dell!

Howard

February 28. 2008 16:15

Unlocking overclocking options would bring this BIOS to new levels of coolness making the Vostro 400 one bad ass system at a great buy.

Joe

February 28. 2008 20:47

Anyone tried the DOS patch and also fixed the MAC address? Is it the permanent solution? Or that means, after it changes to FFFFFFFFFF, every time I install Windows, I'll need to configure the MAC manually?

Thanks

TM

February 29. 2008 13:38

Hi we have a Vostro400 which we have had quite a lot of problems with. We therefore updated the bios - and later had one of the disks replaced. Now that we have to do a "clean install" we would like to run Raid 0 - but we cant do it with the bios from Dell. We then found your post and thougt this is what we need. But unfortunately we the new bios will not accept your "raid-bios" since it finds that is is newer ie. version 1011 - and your version is 1010. Dell finds that this is entirely our own fault since we want to use the Raid on the machine??? Do you know of a way to force a bios-downgrade? Will it be possible for you to upgrade the new bios to support Raid 0. I have attached the new bios and changed the filetype from .exe to .ex_. Thanks in advance /Bo.

Bo Glode

March 1. 2008 14:54

OK guys, I have resolved the NIC Card reset (FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF) issue! You may want to change the command line in DOS_Update.bat to be the following:
@ECHO OFF
awdflash bios.bin /cc/cd/cp/py/wb/sn/E
I tried to open the DELL BIOS update package and found those parameters they use. It's a little different from TheLostBrain's. I tried this DOS update and it works well. My NIC still contains the default MAC Address. =)

Enjoy!!!

TM

March 3. 2008 01:45

No problem, TheLostBrain

After running your BIOS patch, I am enjoying RAID 0 and now going to buy another HDD to be my RAID 5. =) Thank you for that too.

And I guess for those people who run into the limitation of 3.26GB RAM, I think even though 32 bits Vista SP1 can report full 8GB, theoretically they may still be able to use 3.26GB (as you may see in Performance tab in Task manager saying 3.26GB still... So I am not sure it's really using PAE)... I don't know. Perhaps you guys want to try 64 bits Vista which shouldn't have this 32-bit memory address limitation?

See:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946003

As a result, I don't think any BIOS update will be able to help on this issue then, guys.

TM

March 3. 2008 20:46

i'm vostro 200 bios is 1.0.10
i want go to bios full raid 1.0.10 .
but no opertion
are you now bios full raid 1.0.11?
i very very thank you

cloud

March 4. 2008 07:56

o~~~~ no
new vostro 200 bios error
"bios binary file check sum error"
plese age

cloud

March 5. 2008 10:47

Hi,

I have a Vostro 400 with 1.0.10, I boot from a usb stick but get the following error when I run dosflash.bat:

"bios image file check sum error"

I have tried allraid-vostro-400-1011.zip and allraid-vostro-400-1010.zip but both give the same error.

Any ideas?

sk

March 5. 2008 20:06

Excellent work, TheLostBrain!!! my vostro 400 is in production... I can't wait

1. RE: "You can try (to install XP F6 driver loads using) a USB Floppy but I've not had much luck."

-- See this, "Using a F6 Driver with USB Floppy, This is the fix for using USB Floppy drives for F6 drivers in Textmode":

www.msfn.org/.../F6-Driver-USB-Floppy-t82711.html

2. RE: "DELL's only address 3.25GB of RAM in a 64bit OS"

-- See this, "Warning for potential Vostro 400 customers":

boardreader.com/.../...stro_400_custome_58479.html

3. As far as this thread comprises installation instructions, it's become hairy...
- what version do I want to flash?
- does it depend on the bios version that is installed?
- from where, dos or windows?
- what can go wrong, MAC, USB?
- how do I fix those things?
- how can I roll back the bios flash?
- does it depend on the bios version that is installed?

4. I want to upgrade the RAM when my Vostro arrives. DELL wants $70 to add a gig of PC2-6400 DDR2 800mhz.
- why does vostro come with 800mhz ram... is it really going to run noticeably faster than 667mhz?
- ram runs dual channel. read a user recommend to install 2x2gb to eave room for more ram in a future 64 bit OS after the addressable ram constraint is resolved.

Thanks again,

James

james

March 5. 2008 20:45

waiting new bios vostro 200 1.0.11

cloud

March 5. 2008 22:09

I would like to flash my bios to enable RAID0 but I don't understand the last tip with the F6 driver disk.
Indeed I would like to make a ghost of my current disk, then enable raid0 and at last put the ghost image. I don't know when I have to use the F6 driver.
Can you explain a little more this tip.
Thanks
Cyril

I'm using a vostro 200ST with vista at home and the same with xp at work

Cyril

March 6. 2008 05:04

Cyril,

I guess you mean this:

2) The Windows F6 driver disk:

Intel-Raid-F6-Driver-Disk.zip (200.34 kb)

I'm no expert, please, someone correct me if I am wrong, but, this is the driver for the disc controller that enables RAID. during your new windows install, you'll be prompted to press F6 to install any drivers that might be needed for the windows installation to continue; at which point you should press F6 and insert the floppy containing the unzipped "Intel-Raid-F6-Driver-Disk".

Regards,

James

james

March 6. 2008 09:49

I'm currently working with someone @ Dell Executive Escalations (emailing michael @ dell dot com will get you a call back) to figure out what the true reason the RAM is limited to 4GB (and only 3.25-3.5gb is actually usable.) My bet is that there's no memory remapping option in the BIOS. The Intel Bearlake chipset on the Vostro 400 supposedly supports 8GB of RAM according to SiSoftware Sandra.

I recommend anyone who has a gripe with this issue to email michael@dell.com

Giorgio G.

March 6. 2008 11:05

Giorgio G:

Yes, no memory remapping, as stated in, "Warning for potential Vostro 400 customers." I think they are afraid of what the public would do with all this low-cost computing power... remember, this is an election year!

James

james

March 6. 2008 11:34

Excellent work we succeeded downgrading the bios from Dells version 1.10.11 to your 1.10.10. All we had to do was to perform the downgrade from Dos. After that following your instructions RAID 0 is finally up and running. However this was before the tip from TM hence we have mac-address ff-ff-ff-ff...

Question: Will an upgrade using the new update from TM set the correct mac-address (it is only set from Windows now!) or is there another way to set the mac-address in cmos?

Question: Will updating the bios from 1.10.10 to 1.10.11 be possible without having to reinstall the machine?

Great work by the way

/Bo.

boglode

March 7. 2008 03:16

Ugh. I can't find anything that will allow me to mod the BIOS (1.0.11 image file.) All the BIOS tools out there seem old / outdated.

Giorgio G.

March 7. 2008 22:44

Excuse me for my ignorance, but what's the difference between this bios and the raid option already in the factory bios? (I haven't tried it yet). Thanks.

Derek

March 8. 2008 05:04

In the factory bios you only have access to raid 1 (mirroring). This bios allows you to use raid 0 and raid 5 if you have 2 or 3 disks
cyril

Cyril

March 10. 2008 07:22

Hey...

I have a Vostro 400 which suffered HDD mechanical failure last weekend. Dell support sent me a new factory imaged drive which I've finally got everything re-installed and configured. (All the software that we already owned but did not come pre-installed on the machine - QuickBooks, Office, etc.)

Thankfully, we had our critical files backed up to a network drive (which gets mirrored to an offsite location nightly).

Now, the question I have, is it possible to implement a RAID 1 without wiping the contents of the drive? I already have the drive Imaged (using Acronis). Can I use that Image restore after the RAID array is created? I have a feeling that won't work.

Any help/advice in this situation is greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time.

Kris

March 11. 2008 23:26

Kris
yesterday i made several attempts to implement RAID0 on my computers:
this is my conclusion:
if you're on windows XP the ICH9R driver should be the good one so you can just activate RAID0 or 1 and then put your image on the volume.
If you're using vista, the driver which is pre-installed on dell systems is not the good one so before making the image you have to update the driver. If you've already done the image, you need to restore it with the IDE conf, then update the driver, then make the image, then change to raid conf and at last put your image on the volume. More complicated with vista isn't it? (but it's only due the pre-installed driver's version)
hope it will help cause I didn't sleep much last night...
one last thing: if you want to use raid 1 you don't have to use lost brain's bios update because dell's bios already allows raid 1.

Cyril

March 12. 2008 11:57

Cyril

Thanks for that information! I am using XP Pro and only wanted to do plain vanilla raid 1 mirroring.

Thanks again!

Kris

March 13. 2008 23:09

Really appreciate all the work everyone has been doing to get this working. A shame Dell isn't.

All the comments added make it a bit confusing whether all the problems encountered are solved in the update at the top of the page dating 3/1/08 (and thus in the programs I can download above).

I read the MAC issue is solved, I am not sure about the USB issue (and to be honest, I don't understand if this is a problem with a USB disk drive or also with USB sticks and if this is a problem when using Windows after updating the bios or only at applying this bios update).

I read somewhere there is a problem with an host controller, maybe that's why dell disabled the raid0 option?
Perhaps that's why Kris said to have the correct driver?
How do I know if I have the correct ICH9R driver? I let my computer update, and I have in system management 2 different ICH9 Host controllers (2port controller2-2926 date 5-2-2007, driver8.3.0.1011 and 4 port controller1-2920). How do I update them (driver update update in this screen?) and do I have to back them up and install them after bios update?

Finally, I have just 1 dvd player/burner. Can I put a ghost image back (from DVD) instead of making a complete new install? If so, when can I insert the cd with the F6 cd (I am running Vista). Do I first put the ghost image back, get that dvd out, put the F6 cd in and then reboot?

Thanks in advance.

Wim

March 14. 2008 20:44

Thanks for updating the AllRaid packages, re-flashed the bios no problem.

One thing is you should post a link to the 64-bit F6 driver disc files, as the one linked above won't work for 64-bit Windows installs (well I tried Vista 64 and it didn't like it, finally found a 64 bit driver disc on the Intel site). Let me know if you need a zip of the 64-bit driver files.

sk

March 15. 2008 12:19

Vostro 200 Raid 0 128kb stripe, up and running well without a hitch.

Bios 1011 DOS Flashed
Vista Business

Sweeter than dutch apple pie.

You have made the crippled walk again, many thanks.

John O

March 17. 2008 19:38

From the notes of the 1012 BIOS release, it looks like they've fixed the problem for memory mapping for up to 4GB.

Baktash

March 17. 2008 21:08

There has been a new BIOS release for the 530

support.dell.com/.../download.aspx

Lee

March 17. 2008 21:31

Looks like the 1012 bios was just posted for the Inspiron 530. Any chance you can update your bios with this? http://ftp.us.dell.com/bios/530_1012.EXE

Baktash

March 18. 2008 18:37

If I updated my 530 with the 1012, will i lose raid0 function? I have the moded bios that runs raid0

kung pow