I am running a HP 6000 Pro small form factor PC – no windows (excepted virtualized).  I recently updated my bios, trying to enable VT-x for virtualization.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/closure/hp-compaq-6000-pro-small-form-factor-pc/4024462

The BIOS softpack from HP downloaded as an file named sp73556.exe – I made sure to download the file for freedos, but epic #FAIL by HP.  You need Windows to unpack that exe before you can get at the freedos files.

Enter wine 🙂 . I launched

# wine sp73556.exe

This launches the installer which unpacks the files as follows under my .wine directory :

glaw@fedora ~/.wine/drive_c/swsetup/SP73556 $ ls -lart
total 2020
-rw-rw-r– 1 glaw glaw   14894 Jun 22  2012 logo.bmp
-rw-rw-r– 1 glaw glaw 1974206 Oct 22  2015 786G2.cab
-rw-rw-r– 1 glaw glaw   13487 Nov  5  2015 license.txt
-rw-rw-r– 1 glaw glaw    2122 Nov  6  2015 How to Use.txt
-rw-rw-r– 1 glaw glaw    6324 Nov  9  2015 History.txt
-rw-rw-r– 1 glaw glaw   21719 Nov 12  2015 Bios Flash.htm
-rw-rw-r– 1 glaw glaw    2321 Nov 12  2015 SP73556.cva
-rw-rw-r– 1 glaw glaw    2538 Nov 12  2015 SP73556.txt
drwxrwxr-x 2 glaw glaw    4096 Dec  7 12:28 DOS Flash
drwxrwxr-x 2 glaw glaw    4096 Dec  7 12:28 HPQFlash

From there, it was use a matter of following this other guide :

https://feeding.cloud.geek.nz/posts/creating-freedos-bootable-usb-stick-to/

and copying the files within  “DOS Flash” over to the fs-root directory.

Reboot the HP machine with the thumb drive and bam, you’re flashing