Almost no one is going to need to do this. Whatever BIOS your computer came with, you’ll be fine. For me though, I want to use a third-party battery. The company that is providing them says they’re not compatible with any BIOS newer than A04 – meaning A05 is out. Well, my Vostro is running A04 – I should be good, right? Wrong. For some reason Vostro BIOS numbers are one behind Mini 9’s even though they’re an identical computer (save for some cosmetic differences). So my A04 BIOS is the same as a Mini 9’s A05. So I need to downgrade. Turns out it’s super, super simple.
Somms – a big fish in the MyDellMini forums created a great little application that makes it so easy to downgrade or upgrade your BIOS. What you’ll need:
- USB Key (anything 15mb or bigger)
- This file
- A computer running Windows
Here’s what you do.
- Unzip the file you just downloaded.
- Insert the Flash key you’re going to use (make sure you got any files off of it you don’t want to lose.
- Double-click on the .exe file that you extracted and follow the instructions making sure to click “Install To USB Flash Drive” and then selecting the key you want to use.”
- When that’s done, eject your key and keep it handy.
- Power on your Vostro, while holding down the 0 (zero) key.
- In the boot menu, arrow key down to Enter Setup and hit enter.
- Arrow key over to the Advanced Tab and make sure USB BIOS Legacy Support is enabled. If not, arrow down to that item, hit enter and change the selection to enabled and hit enter again.
- Arrow over to the Exit tab, and choose Exit Saving Changes
- Shut down your Vostro.
- Insert the USB Key into your Vostro
- Power up the computer while holding down 0 again.
- Once in the Boot Menu, arrow down to USB Storage and hit enter.
- At this point, follow the instructions to Flash your BIOS (in my case I downgraded to Vostro A03). When it’s done, the computer will reboot into whatever OS you’re running.
And in theory the battery I’ve ordered will work… I’ll post back when I receive it.