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BIOS dump for Dell Latitude CPI-A 300XT?

JamieDoesStuff

JamieDoesStuff

Experienced Member
Joined
Aug 9, 2021
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Novi Sad, Serbia
Edit: The model is CPi-A 300ST, not X. From what I gather the only difference is in the display size, so it probably doesn't matter.
(crossposted to VOGONS)

Since I was having some issues in suspending/resuming in Windows 98 and found a floppy drive for this machine, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to upgrade the BIOS to the newest version. The erasing process took forever and a half, but the system fully froze at 12% of writing. After leaving it for a couple hours, just to see it was still the same, I force-powered it off, and of course now it doesn't boot.

This shouldn't be that big of a deal, since flashers and the required adapter aren't too expensive and I figure I'd need one later on as well. The issue is that Dell doesn't release BIOS updates as .bin files, but as a DOS executable meant to be run on the target machine. The Retro Web yielded no results, unfortunately. So now I'm stuck with a bit of a paperweight, unless of course someone is willing to take a dump (heh) of the chip's contents.
 
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I attempted to see if perhaps 7zip could extract the binary like it can with my Lenovo machine's BIOS update EXE's, but alas I was unable to.

I used to have a CPi-A, (800x600 model) but I honestly have zero idea where it is, and if I even have it anymore. I will try to look for it, but I don't have hopes I even have it anymore. It's been 20 years since I've seen it.
 
There might not even be a need for this: turns out, the utility has a /writeromfile switch, which produces, you guessed it, a flashable ROM file!
Now only to get the programmer... I'll report back when/if I get it working like this.
 
I just got the adapter thingy and flashed the BIOS to the chip... it worked! For anyone wondering, I got the XGecu T48 programmer, it's a really great tool that seems like it'll be very useful to me in the future as well. (shame the software is windows-only though)
Now I'm wondering what could've went wrong with the flashing process on the machine itself. I guess we'll never figure out!

(also I replaced the eardrum-piercing speakers, and while they're still complete and utter crap, you can actually make out some sounds from them. I'm perfectly happy with how much I paid for them though.)
 
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