June 27, 2010

Unpacking the Gigabyte BIOS without Windows

Before moving on to installing the OS, let's take care of updating the BIOS.
Gigabyte publishes (quite often) updated BIOS with new features and fixes.
So let's download and unpack the new BIOS.

At the time of the download, the latest was version F9.

OK, so here I have my motherboard_bios_ga-p55m-ud4_f9.exe file...

But, how am I going to execute the .exe in my Mac or my Linux PC ?
Easy... I won't !

The BIOS file is a self-extracting 7zip compressed file.

So I can use keka, Stuffit Expander, or 7za on my Mac OS X (or p7zip on my Debian Linux PC) to unpack it.

Once open, I find the p55mud4.f9 there...

Time to move on to Updating the BIOS

18 comments:

  1. I usually use Wine for this operation. I'll give the OSX native apps a try next time. Good tip.

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  2. Worked great. Thank you. Updated my GA-P55-USB3 rev 1.0 to F6 with no problems. I loaded optimized defaults and changed the SATA mode back to ACHI.

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  3. @Anonymous: Glad it helped. Instead of "just" changing SATA to AHCI, check out my Optimal BIOS Configuration post to squeeze the most of your rig.

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  4. Added a link to the free/GPL keka, based on Anonymous feedback in Updating the Gigabyte BIOS

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  5. im downgrading the bios from F.11 to F.9 and can't get the .exe file to unpack. i've used all 3 apps listed but all they do is compress .exe file...

    any chance u could host that .f9 file somewhere?

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  6. @alex aestetics: To unpack with 7za you'd just do in a Terminal:
    $ 7za x motherboard_bios_ga-p55m-ud4_f9.exe

    You'll then find p55mud4.f9 in the same directory where you ran this.

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  7. i've installed p7zip via macport

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  8. Worked great. Thanks for the post

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  9. hello i'm trying to update my bios to FE. i downloaded the .rar file and dropped it in Keka, but all i get are .exe files. How do i get the .exe files to be recognized by mac.

    thanks for the help.

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  10. @link Description: Open the .exe file with keka again...

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  11. Make sure you have latest version of stuffit.

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  12. 7zX also works on the Mac

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  13. Hi, first hackintosh. Am I to unpack the updated bios in a different computer, save it on a flash drive as instructed in your other posting, and then use q-flash to update? Or do I do everything in the new system that will eventually be my new Hackintosh? If its the latter, I'm confused how to go about unpacking despite the file being self-extradicting if the new system is completely empty of any os to allow the unpacking?

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  14. I guess whenever I update a BIOS I'll have to re-install everything correct, start from scratch as the existing DSDT file, along with kernels and kexts files will only work with the previous BIOS version, so new files must be created to correspond with the new BIOS update? Or are there ways to prevent having to re-install?

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  15. @Anonymous: If you have another computer to unpack these, it'll be the easiest.
    Otherwise, you can install OSX and boot with iBoot, then unpack/upgrade your BIOS, and follow by customizing your setup.

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  16. @Anonymous: No need to reinstall at all...
    Just grab the edited-DSDT for your updated BIOS, and put it on /Extra.

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  17. Thanks very much for posting this! I was trying to figure it out for ages used Keka on Mac.

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  18. I suggest "the unarchiver" for extract the bios!

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