This discussion has been locked. The information referenced herein may be inaccurate due to age, software updates, or external references.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a similar question you can start a new discussion in this forum.

Repurpose old TriGeo LEM Dell R610, can't update BIOS?

Several years ago we transitioned from physical TriGeo LEM to SolarWinds virtual machine LEM.  We repurposed the R610 as-is to run VMware ESXi 5.0 and it's worked well since.

I'm having trouble updating the BIOS and I wondered if anyone here had repurposed their old R610-based LEM.

Today I wanted to update the BIOS in preparation for upgrading to ESXi 6.0.  I used the jumper to bypass the BIOS setup password. So far, so good.

The BIOS is at 3.0.0 now.  The latest on the Dell site is 6.4.0.  They provide a version ("R610-060400C.exe") that's they say should be copied to a "DOS-bootable USB flash drive", so I downloaded a FreeDOS LiveCD ISO, added the .EXE to it, booted, and tried to run the executable, but it gives an error that said something like "can't update a ' - ' ".

Is 3.0.0 to 6.4.0 too far a jump?  Was the old 3.0.0 proprietary to TriGeo?

  • FormerMember
    0 FormerMember

    To confirm - the old BIOS was NOT proprietary - everything was off the shelf Dell stuff, we just set a BIOS password and some configuration options if necessary.

    One possibility, knowing Dell's distribution of drivers and driver-like utilities, is that you need to run the .exe and let it extract contents and/or prompt you to insert a USB drive. Did you try running the .exe locally first?

  • Trying to run "R610-060400C.exe" under Windows 7 x64 gives the "unsupported 16-bit application" pop-up that would characterize it as an old-style DOS app.

    You're right, though.  I didn't do what Dell suggested.  They wanted it on a writable device.  I ran it from a CD.  I'll try again.

  • The better solution? I installed Dell Repository Manager on another PC, downloaded all the patches for the R610 (as if it were a Linux machine, which brings along all the low-level patches), created a bootable ISO that applies these patches, and ran it.  This updated everything possible (BIOS, hard drive firmwares, iDRAC, RAID firmware, etc.)