I have a bios issue

unless your realy big on ACPI (power saving settings) or its stopping you from booting i dont see why you would realy need an update to the bios.

for the hard drive, open gparted, and post back the current config of your hard drive
to open gparted:
System---> Administration--->Partition editor, and enter your password(it will show it in dots/blobs)

hope this helps
Brian

You do not *have* to use ACPI. If you are sure that your system supports ACPI then you can enable it by adding the text "acpi=force" to the kernel boot parameter in the grub config file (/boot/grub/grub.conf). Take note that even if you do this, the warning message will still display even if ACPI is loaded (this is because ACPI is loaded AFTER the warning message).

If you are not sure if your system supports ACPI then it may support APM (the previous standard). Use https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SuspendHowto for reference.

System---> Administration--->Partition editor

I did this and I don't have any such program under these headings

you might want to check to see if the package "gparted" is installed on your system
this package gives a visual aid as to how your hard disk is set up and allows you to
change the partitions (create new, delete, move, resize ect...)

you can check if it is installed by going to the terminal and typing (this will ask for your password, it will not show it onscreen):
sudo apt-get install gparted

if it is already installed then it will tell you so, if it is just type (in terminal):
sudo gparted

once there you can check out your hard drive configuration and make changes,

NOTE: it is recommended to back up your data prior to making changes to your hard-drive
in case something goes wrong, i myself see no need for this, as im fairly experienced and my computer likes me, but...
be sure to double check everything your doing before you hit apply! read twice, think twice, do once.
once you delete a partition it is usually not recoverable and even then its hell to get it back.