I’ve been having some problems with my 16GB drive recently and after much messing about I’ve reached the conclusion that I need a new one.

So I’ve had to reinstall Mint 7 (following my own guide for the 701) entirely on the 4GB drive which leaves me with 1.3GB free.

Now, one of the solutions I tried was to update the BIOS.  I’ve never done this before and I understand that if you make a mistake whilst doing it, you can be left with a very pretty Asus EeePC 900 doorstop.

Please, unless you really are confident of your ability to follow instructions to the letter or you are having problems which you know a BIOS update will solve, leave the BIOS alone.

This is how it’s done.

You will need a USB stick.  I used a generic 1GB drive, I wouldn’t recommend using anything over 4GB.  Plug it into the machine on the right hand side in the USB slot closest to you.  Make sure no other drives are attached.

Go to System > Administration > Partition Editor

Enter your password.

Once it’s finished scanning your drives, go to the drop down list at the top right and click on /dev/sdd.

Then right click the partition box > Unmount.

Right click it again > Format to FAT32

Click Apply.

When it’s done, right click again > Manage Flags and tick the Boot box.

When it’s done, you can close the partition editor and move on.

Let’s get the BIOS file!

Download the BIOS file from here (click on the little plus sign next to BIOS and then Download From Global) or from my SkyDrive.

Save it to a convenient place.  Right click the zip file and then ‘Extract Here’.  A file called 900-ASUS-1006.ROM will appear.

Rename it to 900.ROM  You MUST do this.  It will not work unless you do.

That is your BIOS file and you need to copy it to your USB stick.  It should be the only file on the stick.

Now, you’re sure you’ve got all of that?  Good.

This is the fun part.

Shutdown the Eee.

Make sure your Eee is attached to the mains AC power.

Make sure you have nothing attached to it (USB sticks, drives, SD cards) and hit the power button.

Now start up and hit F2 at the Asus screen to go into the BIOS.  Once in, go to (using the arrow keys) Boot > Boot Device Priority and make sure it looks like this:

1st boot device     Removable Dev.

2nd boot device   HDD:SM-ASUS-PHISON

3rd boot device    ATAPI CD Rom

Then hit ESC.

Now go to Boot Settings Configuration.  You need to make it look like this:

Quick Boot    Disabled

Quiet Boot     Disabled

To do this, use the arrow keys and the enter key.

When you’re done, hit ESC and then F10 and Enter.

Now shutdown.

Put your stick with the BIOS file into the left hand USB slot and start up the Eee.

At the Asus screen, hold down ALT and hit F2.

Some text will appear.  You won’t have anything to do now.  Just let it get on with what it needs to do.  It takes a few minutes.

DO NOT INTERRUPT IT!!

Only when you are prompted to do so, shutdown using the power button.