BIOS recovery process for HP systems with AMI BIOS?

[andrew_cherry]

Hi,

I'm trying to fix an HP a6718uk model PC which has an M2N78-LA motherboard and (I think) and AMI BIOS.  A BIOS update that came through HP Update has failed, and the machine will not boot.

As it's out of warranty the HP Repair Centre want £200.00 to fix it, even though a simple BIOS recovery process should be sufficient - does anyone know the BIOS recovery process for these systems?   Everything I've read (not specific to these boards) says you should be able to put a BIOS update (called AMIBOOT.ROM) on either a floppy, CD, or USB memory stick, and boot holding down Ctrl-Home and it will perform the recovery, but I've not been able to get this to work successfully.  HP don't supply a standalone update so I've extracted the file from the BIOS update SP.exe on the HP support site.

Any help would be most appreciated!

Cheers,

Andrew

[DavidPK]

Hi Andrew,

Just to check, have you tried clearing the CMOS to see if this gets it to boot?

Best wishes,

DP-K

[andrew_cherry]

Yep - I tried both the CMOS jumper and also taking the battery out for 10 minutes.

I also realised that IDE looking header on the motherboard is actually a floppy header, so attached a floppy drive to it, and put the AMIBOOT.ROM on there.  It accessed the floppy, but still no joy in reading anything.

Cheers,
Andrew

[DavidPK]

Hi Andrew,

When you unpacked the HP bios installer package, what was the original name of the file before you renamed it to AMIBOOT.ROM?

Best wishes,

DP-K

[andrew_cherry]

Hi David,

The original name of the file was VLE5.22, from the drivers for that model -

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=pv-85555-1&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=uk&...

Cheers,
Andrew

[DavidPK · Accepted solution]

Hi Andrew,

I'm wondering whether HP modify the bios bootlock and it's not looking for AMIBOOT.ROM.  It may be worth trying AMIBOOT.BIN just in case.

On the link below is a link to a free Hex editor, open the bios file with this and you should be able to see the extension the bios will be looking for.

http://www.hhdsoftware.com/free-hex-editor

Best wishes,

David

[andrew_cherry]

Brilliant idea - I tried AMIBOOT.BIN and that didn't work, but then took the Hex Editor to the file - it's HPBIOS.ROM

Renamed the file to HPBIOS.ROM and all now works.

To recap for anyone reading the thread, this was from an HP machine with a corrupt AMI BIOS, to get it back, extract the ROM file from the SP.exe file from the HP website, rename it from VLE5.22 (or whatever the file is that ends in a numeric) to HPBIOS.ROM and copy onto a floppy diskette.   Put the floppy in the internal diskette drive (in my case a Sony OEM drive attached using a grey floppy ribbon cable) and boot the machine.  You may need to hold down Ctrl-Home, but not 100% sure.   After a long while the machine will give 4 or 5 beeps, and reset itself.  Once it's done that it will boot normally.

Thanks for your help David - much appreciated.

Cheers,
Andrew

[DavidPK]

Hi Andrew,

Glad you got it to work.

All the best,

DP-K

[AsheshKumar]

Hey 

I hav a very similar problem on my hpa1315in

wanted to kno if ur pc fan speed was normal during start up.

[imzjustplayin]

(Revised Instructions)

Instructions for those of you who have unsuccessfully done a bios flash on these HP computers, specifically those with the M2N78-LA motherboard. This may or may not work with other HP computers but since you've already done a misflash which is very bad, I'd say things can only get better, so proceed as follows:

1. Because of your misflashed bios, you will need a second computer with a floppy drive that is working. The reason for this is because the bios update HP has on it website requires the computer to be working properly and for you to be in Windows which you no longer can do due to the Bios misflash. So, you will need to download the correct bios update for the computer that is being updated/fixed. For the computer we're talking about today, the bios update file is sp46426.exe.

2. Now that you've downloaded the correct bios update onto your second computer, you're going to have to extract the Bios Rom from it. To extract the bios rom, you need a file archive utility called "Winrar" which can be downloaded from here: http://www.rarlab.com/

3. Assuming you have Winrar installed, in Windows, right click on the file and select "Open with Winrar". Or from within Winrar, select the file and open it. Inside of our sp46426.exe file there is a list of files, one of which is our Bios Rom. For this specific bios update (the name will vary depending on the computer and version of bios), our Bios Rom is called "VLE5.22".

4. Now extract (in this case) "VLE5.22" into a folder and then rename the file from VLE5.22 to HPBIOS.ROM and copy this file onto a blank floppy diskette. 

5. Unfortunately for these computers, you cannot use an external USB floppy or USB flash drive, or a CD to perform this bios recovery so you will need an internal floppy drive and ribbon. I know these computers do not come with them so you will either have to buy this or source this from a much older computer which DOES have an internal floppy drive and grey ribbon cable.

6. With an internal floppy drive properly connected, insert the floppy disk with the HPBIOS.ROM file and turn on the machine. You may need to hold down Ctrl-Home, but not 100% sure.   After a long while the machine will give 4 or 5 beeps, and reset itself.  Once it's done that it will boot normally.

BTW, if you connect your floppy drive and w/o a floppy disk in the drive find the Drive LED is stuck on and you hear no drive activity, it means your floppy drive cable is backwards and or your floppy drive is bad but it's far more likely the former than the latter.

I also want give many thanks to the person who started this thread and to all those who contributed as I too encountered an issue with a misflash on a friend's computer no less and had to quickly fix the problem lest I tell him the fate of his computer.