Posted by Wicher 
Topic: Samsung does not provide a way to flash the BIOS of NC10 netbooks from within Linux. That does not come as a complete surprise for this type of consumer hardware. What is worse is that you won’t even find DOS utilities (for flashing from a bootdisk) on the NC10 page at samsung.com, for that; you have to somehow guess that you need to go to samsungpc.com (!?!!?). Anyway, with FreeDOS and a bootable thumbdrive I am able to flash my BIOS. I then dump the BIOS from Linux with the Flashrom utility.
These are the dumps so far:
NC10-04CA.romsig
MD5: 91ea9ac405953cc43bd1422cb261d805NC10-07A.romsig
MD5: 73acd98b4e73fb08d59e9dbdc6a71daeNC10-11CA.romsig
MD5: cf9efb63223ba051b821048f66440828
You can use flashrom to flash your BIOS with these images, all without leaving Linux. I’ve signed them with GPG (keyID 08B6A4AE), and I also provide an MD5 hash which you should check before flashing. You might even want to verify your current BIOS against a provided dump of the same version; this way you can reassure that you have the exact same hardware:
root >>>flashrom -v NC10-07A.rom Calibrating delay loop... OK. No coreboot table found. Found chipset "Intel ICH7M", enabling flash write... OK. Found chip "Macronix MX25L1605" (2048 KB) at physical address 0xffe00000. Flash image seems to be a legacy BIOS. Disabling checks. Verifying flash... VERIFIED.
It’s probably wise to use flashrom to make a backup dump of the original BIOS of your NC10.
I have an NP-NC10-KA03UK. KA03 is the revision code, printed on the white sticker on the netbooks’ bottom. The roms have been proven to work on other revisions, too — check the comments, or just try it on yours. Please post your revision code if you successfully flashed a revision that hasn’t been posted yet.
One further note: The purchase time in the BIOS will be set to ‘2009/01′ which is when I got mine. But, should the need arise, you may be able to hex-edit the dump and reflash to reflect your true date of purchase (or any date really – you can may as well edit it to announce you bought it in August, 1982 if you feel like it). In the 11CA release you’ll find the date at offset 18031E. If that doesn’t work, just flash it with the backup dump you made. You did dump your original BIOS, didn’t you?
Needless to say, these BIOS images are unofficial. But then again, even flashing your bios with the utilities provided by on samsungpc.com void your warranty. You and you alone are responsible for any damages arising from the use or inability to use the images I provide. They are provided ‘as-is’.
Tags: bios, en_GB, samsung nc10 —
June 19th, 2009 at 13:17
Hi,
which version of “flashrom” did you use for flashing the BIOS? Also, when I try to boot with FreeDOS I always get “invalid opcode” during the bootup, did you use a special DOS version?
Kind regards, Joerg.
June 19th, 2009 at 13:51
I used Flashrom v0.9.0 .
As for the FreeDOS bootdisk, I used makebootfat 1.4 and FreeDOS “almost 1.1″ and this howto. Good luck! And btw, I have good trust in Flashrom.
June 19th, 2009 at 14:31
Man, this is so bad… I tried makebootfat with FreeDOS, but when the Netbook boots off the stick I only get a black screen with the cursor sitting in the top left corner.
Concerning flashrom, I have version r3844, the syntax seems to be completely different from your “0.9.0″ – so I am bit “nervous” using it to be honest ;-) !
Regards, mistersixt
June 22nd, 2009 at 15:52
Me again, I just wanted to let you know that I compiled the latest version of flashrom and successfully wrote the 07A version to the flash ;-) !
kind regards, mistersixt.
July 9th, 2009 at 19:03
Thanks for reporting back! Your success will encourage less brave users.
October 31st, 2009 at 00:09
Hey
I tried to upgrade my bios with your 11CA rom, but flashrom halt on this message:
Verifying flash… VERIFY FAILED at 0×00000b12! Expected=0×63, Read=0×62, failed byte count from 0×00000000-0×001fffff: 0×68aa6
Does this mean that the hardware on my machine is different from yours? I absolutely need to update my bios to get the brightness controls to work. What do I d now?
October 31st, 2009 at 01:46
Do you have the KA03 revision? Check the white barcode sticker on the netbook’s bottomside. What does it say?
October 31st, 2009 at 11:47
It doesn’t seem like it. Says KA01. I bought it almost right when it came in store.
October 31st, 2009 at 12:12
And are you talking about verifying (flashrom -v) or writing? Verification will only succeed if you have the exact same version of both the dump and the bios. So if you’re comparing 11CA against your bios (which is not 11CA, otherwise, why flash it) it’s perfectly natural for the verification to fail.
October 31st, 2009 at 14:20
Haha, that just goes to show what a n00b I am in this area. I want to write to bios, but I’m having a hard time understanding how I could do it without a windows partition.
Ok, so if I understand this correctly, I should verify your roms against my own bios and it should be ok if it’s the same version(hopefully). So if I want to WRITE the new bios after that I’m not sure how to do it. That’s my problem.
October 31st, 2009 at 14:34
Yes, you got it right this time ;-)
You write the image to your flash mem with ‘flashrom -w NC10-11CA.rom’.
October 31st, 2009 at 14:50
Hmm…verification failed this time too :(. Guess your NC10 and mine don’t really match. Thanks for your help anyway. *off to find another solution*
October 31st, 2009 at 14:59
Try a FreeDOS bootable USB thumbdrive with the DOS flash util from samsungpc.com. That’s how I do it.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:20
Thanks for this blog post. I’ve installed flashrom from ubuntu karmic and it worked fine. Using the latest 11CA firmware, the LCD brightness keys are working again.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:46
Thanks for reporting back, Stefan. Would you happen to know the exact model of your NC10? The white sticker on the bottom should tell you.
November 13th, 2009 at 15:37
Thanks for sharing this rom. I’ve successfully installed it and it worked fine as well.
But it brings a new problem that my purchase time in BIOS is changed to 2009/01, but I bought it on Aug. 2009.
I just found that you are interested in our exact model, mine is NP-NC10-KAB1US.
November 13th, 2009 at 16:27
Tanks a bunch for reporting, upsuper. 2009/01 is when I bought mine. I had a hex-look at the ROM and (in the 11CA release) you can probably use a hex editor to alter the date at offset
18031E. You can set it to ‘1492/06′ or maybe ‘UpSuper’ (=same length) if you’d feel so inclined ;-)November 14th, 2009 at 02:06
As I’ve tried, it is no use to modifiy the string at offset 18031E. The purchase time just disappears if I use my modified version of your rom file. I found another offset which contains the date string, but even if I change them both, it makes no difference either.
November 14th, 2009 at 02:42
[...] NC10 的 BIOS：Smörgåsbord » Flash your Samsung NC10’s BIOS from Linux [...]
November 14th, 2009 at 17:58
How odd. Apparently, those bytes get a special treatment of some sorts. Have you tried blanking (zeroing) the dates?
Anyway, should you need a bios with your own date of purchase, you can always flash it with the dump you (hopefully) made of your original BIOS.
November 15th, 2009 at 18:34
I updated the BIOS using the DOS-version of the firmware update from samsung.
I prepared FreeDOS booting on a USB-stick I got stuck when booting it though, it said “Invalid opcode”. If you get this replace “memdisk” with the version which is in the syslinux 3.83-package. After doing that it booted as it should.
December 27th, 2009 at 21:28
I have a KA01 and it worked like a charm, thank you. :)
January 4th, 2010 at 16:40
Just wanted to say thanks KA03 here so no problems at all :)
February 7th, 2010 at 14:17
Thank you! For providing these flash imagos and instructions how to get Samsung NC10 brightness adjustment working again.
flashrom is brilliant sw replacing DOS, usb and disket boot messup.
Best Regards from China / Hangzhou: Erska