Updating the BIOS On The Thinkpad T430

Ok, a follow up on the BIOS update on my beloved T430... Yes, the one that wanted a battery no matter what...
Or going from this:

krull > sudo dmidecode -t bios
[sudo] password for hictio:
# dmidecode 2.12
SMBIOS 2.7 present.

Handle 0x000E, DMI type 0, 24 bytes
BIOS Information
    Vendor: LENOVO
    Version: G1ET45WW (1.20 )
    Release Date: 08/07/2012
    Address: 0xE0000
    Runtime Size: 128 kB
    ROM Size: 12288 kB
    Characteristics:
        PCI is supported
        PNP is supported
        BIOS is upgradeable
        BIOS shadowing is allowed
        Boot from CD is supported
        Selectable boot is supported
        EDD is supported
        3.5"/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
        Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
        8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
        Serial services are supported (int 14h)
        Printer services are supported (int 17h)
        CGA/mono video services are supported (int 10h)
        ACPI is supported
        USB legacy is supported
        BIOS boot specification is supported
        Targeted content distribution is supported
        UEFI is supported
    BIOS Revision: 1.20
    Firmware Revision: 1.7

Handle 0x002D, DMI type 13, 22 bytes
BIOS Language Information
    Language Description Format: Abbreviated
    Installable Languages: 1
        en-US
    Currently Installed Language: en-US
To this:

SMBIOS 2.7 present.

Handle 0x000C, DMI type 0, 24 bytes
BIOS Information
    Vendor: LENOVO
    Version: G1ETB0WW (2.70 )
    Release Date: 01/21/2016
    Address: 0xE0000
    Runtime Size: 128 kB
    ROM Size: 12288 kB
    Characteristics:
        PCI is supported
        PNP is supported
        BIOS is upgradeable
        BIOS shadowing is allowed
        Boot from CD is supported
        Selectable boot is supported
        EDD is supported
        3.5"/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
        Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
        8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
        Serial services are supported (int 14h)
        Printer services are supported (int 17h)
        CGA/mono video services are supported (int 10h)
        ACPI is supported
        USB legacy is supported
        BIOS boot specification is supported
        Targeted content distribution is supported
        UEFI is supported
    BIOS Revision: 2.70
    Firmware Revision: 1.13

Handle 0x002B, DMI type 13, 22 bytes
BIOS Language Information
    Language Description Format: Abbreviated
    Installable Languages: 1
        en-US
    Currently Installed Language: en-US

Got the newest BIOS here.

As of today, the current on is the one released on 2/22/2016.
The file named is "g1uj38us.iso" with a size of 37.4 MB.

Instructions on how to install a BIOS on a box without Windows are pretty straight forward:

• Lenovo Thinkpad BIOS Update with Linux and USB

• Updating the BIOS on Lenovo laptops from Linux using a USB flash stick

Here are the steps I did:

cd /tmp/
wget http://userpages.uni-koblenz.de/~krienke/ftp/noarch/geteltorito/geteltorito
chmod +x geteltorito

./geteltorito -o bios.img g1uj38us.iso
Booting catalog starts at sector: 20
Manufacturer of CD: NERO BURNING ROM
Image architecture: x86
Boot media type is: harddisk
El Torito image starts at sector 27 and has 75776 sector(s) of 512 Bytes

Image has been written to file "bios.img".
Then create the booting USB drive:

sudo dd if=bios.img of=/dev/sdb bs=1M

Reboot the T430, booting from the USB drive (doh!), and follow the instructions, it takes less than 20 minutes.

One cool thing about this whole thing is that you can use one of those old 1 GB USB pen drives that you have around, since the BIOS image is really small.