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I inherited my mom's old laptop and installed Ubuntu over top of Vista, so now it is purely Ubuntu.
Her old battery only lasted about 10 minutes, so it had to be plugged in all the time, which I didn't like. So I bought a battery, and inserted it in when it came. The laptop doesn't see it at at all- no battery icon whatsoever. I can pull it out and put the old battery in and it recognizes it.

The new battery comes with a program (a .exe) to update the bios to accommodate the new battery... But don't have Windows anymore and Wine gives me an error when I try to run it, so I am at a loss of ideas.

I thought of running a virtual machine of Windows to install it, or run a Windows To Go drive(a new feature of Windows 8), but I don't think those are good ideas as they may not work or permanently ruin something.

I am not an extremely experienced user of Ubuntu/Linux, so I don't where to go from here.

I'm running Ubuntu 12.10 on a Sony Vaio VGN-NR, if that helps. Also note that I just installed Ubuntu the other day and have nothing important on the pc yet, so I am not afraid to reinstall Ubuntu if it may help. Thanks!

Braiam
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Evan
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    Would it be possible for you to grab a Windows CD, boot it up, drop into a Windows recovery console (or something along those lines), and execute the file from there? – fouric Feb 22 '13 at 00:36
  • Would it be possible to make a USB drive? I'm at college in the next state over, and I don't think I have access to a disk. Even so, is it possible to run Windows (apart from the installer) on a CD/USB?

    I can access a Windows command prompt from a Windows 8 recovery USB. Could I access the .exe (saved on a different flash drive) and run it from the recovery drive's command prompt?

    I was kinda hoping there'd be a fix from the Linux terminal so I don't have to mess with the recovery CDs/USBs.

     – Evan Feb 22 '13 at 00:39
  • There are currently two possibilities regarding the battery: (1) You need the BIOS update for any OS to recognize it. (2) The battery uses a non-standard interface and therefore Ubuntu can not access it. Neither of those issues are really solvable from within Ubuntu, with the possible exception of developing your own driver for the battery. – fouric Feb 22 '13 at 02:33
  • I think it is possibility (1)... So that means I should install Windows, update the bios, and then reinstall Ubuntu? Fantastic... – Evan Feb 22 '13 at 02:46
  • you don't need to install Windows, all you have to do is use the recovery shell on a Windows install CD/DVD that you have borrowed from one of your friends. In fact, what you could try to do is swap out the hard disk of this laptop with that of another one running Windows, use that Windows installation to execute the BIOS update program, swap the hard disks out again, and then go on your way. – fouric Feb 22 '13 at 02:50
  • That sounds like fun... Not a fan of taking apart laptops, but that may be an option. I'll try the recovery shell and if that doesn't work, then I'll reinstall windows. If that doesn't work, I may disassemble. I don't want to take it apart. – Evan Feb 22 '13 at 02:54
  • You could (maybe) install a windows on an external usb hdd. Take a look at the following instructions: http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-install-windows-7-to-usb-external-hard-drive-must-read/ – jeroen Feb 22 '13 at 05:51
  • Just to be safe, read the instructions or readme documents for the BIOS updating tool. I remember someone bricked their laptop by using an installer written for Windows Vista on Windows 7. I'd avoid VMs too due to this. – oaskamay Mar 02 '13 at 05:28

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I recently ran across a possible solution in the article:

http://www.techdrivein.com/2013/06/30-things-to-do-after-installing-ubuntu1304-raring.html

There is a program that they suggest called TLP that is a power management applet for laptops and netbooks that prevents common overheating problems that might help

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp
sudo apt-get update
knockers
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