How to Update the Minisforum BIOS: Easy Step-by-Step Guide

When my new Minisforum MS-01 arrived, the first thing on my to-do list was to update the BIOS. Like any tech enthusiast, I turned to Google and scrolled through Reddit posts to prepare myself.

However, I quickly realized that updating the Minisforum BIOS wasn’t as straightforward as I had hoped. In this guide, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know to make the process seamless and stress-free.

My Minisforum MS-01 arrived with the BIOS version 1.22

Some instructions suggested creating a bootable USB stick and extracting the downloaded Minisforum BIOS on the USB thumb drive. Here is the location where you can download the latest BIOS. Further, it was mentioned to disable secure boot.

Troubleshooting Secure Boot Settings

As you can see in the image below, Secure Boot was enabled in the BIOS, but the option to disable it was greyed out. I couldn’t figure out why I could not change this setting, which puzzled me.

Some online suggestions pointed to setting both an administrator BIOS password and a user BIOS password, but even after trying that, I still couldn’t modify the Secure Boot setting.

Then it hit me: why not install Windows 11? Since Windows 11 requires Secure Boot, this might unlock the ability to manage the setting. My Minisforum MS-01 had arrived without an operating system, as I planned to use it for Proxmox. However, before diving into Proxmox, I wanted to upgrade the Minisforum BIOS.

After installing Windows 11, I revisited the BIOS—and to my relief, I could finally change the Secure Boot setting.

Creating a bootable USB drive for the BIOS

I followed the instructions from Brandon Lee on how to use Diskpart to prepare the USB disk drive.

diskpart
list disk
select disk X  # Replace X with the number of the disk you want to format
clean
create partition primary
format fs=fat32 quick

Unfortunately, using this method and extracting the downloaded BIOS file on the USB drive, I could not boot from the Minisform MS-01 using legacy bios or UEFI. I also needed shell.efi from here (credit to the post from Avamader in the STH community). I downloaded the ShellBinPkg.zip, extracted it and copied the shell.efi from this location D:BIOSShellBinPkgShellBinPkgUefiShellX64 to my USB drive.

Here is a screenshot of the USB drive prepared with Diskpart

Now, I was able to boot from the USB drive

Upgrading the Minisforum Bios

After figuring out how to boot from the USB drive, upgrading the Minisforum BIOS was straightforward.

First, you need to find the Bios Udisk

type FS0: (zero) or FS1 or FS2. 
In my case FSO: worked
show with ls the directory

Now you are ready to upgrade the Minisforum MS-01 BIOS, type

AfuEfiFlash.nsh

The update process starts now and takes a few minutes.

Success!! – Minisforum MS-01 Bios updated to version 1.26

I hope this article helps you upgrade the Minisforum BIOS faster than I did. It’s a little dream machine.

Please also check out my in-depth review of the Minisforum MS-01 and some polling results I gathered from my readers.

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I would love to get some feedback from you. Was this article helpful? Please share your opinion with me in the comment section below. Or, if you prefer a more personal touch, feel free to email me directly at info@edywerder.ch. Your thoughts and insights are always appreciated. Additionally, you can connect with me on Reddit at Navigatetech.