What does A06 do?

http://downloads.dell.com/bios/E6510A06.EXE

http://downloads.dell.com/bios/E6510A07.EXE

http://downloads.dell.com/bios/E6510A09.EXE

http://downloads.dell.com/bios/E6510A10.exe

http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER00179686M/1/E6510A11.exe

http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER00499728M/1/E6510A12.EXE

http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER00729771M/1/E6510A13.exe

http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER01440565M/1/E6510A14.exe

http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER01600089M/1/E6510A15.exe

http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER01891553M/1/E6510A16.exe

Define what you mean by didn't go. Was there an error message?

I know going from A05 to A16 needs to be done stepwise. I tried these three updates: A09, A10, or A11 only to get the error message: This software is not compatible with the windows systems. I take it that A09, A10, and A11 are not compatible with win7/64. When my latitude E6510 (BIOS A05) is scanned by the Dell support site, A16 BIOS is listed as one of the driver to download. Does it mean that A16 should work with win7/64? If so, how can I bring A05 to A16? If I run A16 update directly, the laptop would restart but the BIOS remains A05. Hope this is clear. thanks.

Thanks for posting these BIOS updates. I tried them all. But only to get the same error message: The version of this file is not compatible with the version of windows you are running....

Its possible the old versions require 32 Bit Windows, do you have Windows XP/Vista/7 32 Bit Installation Media?

Yes. I do. Do you suggest that the reinstall win7/32bit on my Latitude E6510 in order to update BIOS A05 to A16? That seems very convoluted. I hope Dell would have a better solution. Thanks.

Yes it seems convoluted but I've no other ideas for you just now. If you have a spare HDD however just swap it out and put 7 32 Bit on it. You don't need to bother with updates, other drivers etc. as you're just doing it to upgrade the BIOS.

Popped a hard drive into my E6510 and installed win7/32 bit/ultimate. Guess what. The BIOS still does not update from A05 to any higher version. I could not even see an error message because a black command window just flashes and that was it. Now what to do? thanks.

All the BIOS updates do this? Right click the BIOS update and select run as administrator.

If you power down your system and then press F2 can you access the BIOS setup? What does it say on the Main Window?

tried right clicking and ran as admin. The same thing happened - a black window flashes up for only a nano second. I went into BIOS setup. The BIOS version stays at A05, not updated.  What next? thanks