HP Z420 workstation bios is corrupted

[mikeinbremerton]

After upgrading the video card the bit locker was enabled. Tried everything to fix the issue but now the computer has a black screen and does not post. I need to get the bios .bin file to try and unbrick this computer. Need to know where to get it.

[DGroves]

installing a video card WILL NOT ENABLE BITLOCKER, that's a impossibility

i suspect you tried many random things and documented none of it, so you now have no way to describe to us just what you actually did and in what order

your best course if the system still posts to a bios screen or tries to load windows (but fails) is to

reset the bios back to factory defaults and then reinstall windows

do not try to flash a bios on a system that's having issues, that's a great way to completely brick a system due to corruption the bios

[Brian1965]

What GPU card are you installing (manufacturer & model)? What power rating is the PSU on your Z420, e.g. 400W or 600W?

[mikeinbremerton]

Not to be disrespectful but it is exactly as I said and as I said in my post it does not display anything on the screen but I do get a solid blue post light.  I am not ever sure it posts. I reset the cmos and no difference. There may have been an underling issue that actually caused the bit locker but that is how it happened. I read a post from 2016 with the exact problem after installing a new video card in a similar model so it can happen. Now I want to do a crisis recovery and  I and I have done it before so I  know how to do it but I need know location of the .bin file for the cmos is to try and fix the issue. If I can't  do this then it means a replacement motherboard. And by the way I have been a computer tech sine the 80's so I think I know what I am talking about.  If anyone can help direct me to the location of the correct bin file I would appreciate it. If not then I will go from there.

[mikeinbremerton]

I do not have it in front of me right now but after the second bit locker came up I put the original graphics card back in then the third bit locker and then ran for a few minutes, the cpu fan spun up real  fast but still no display and no error codes.

[SDH · Accepted solution]

Mike... back to your original question about where to get the .bin file...

The latest .bin file is what I use, and it turns out that the .bin file for the Z420 and the Z620 v1 and v2 workstations is identical.  You can get that as an isolated file if you know where to look.  Download the latest BIOS installer for your Z420, and you can run that on any PC, not just HP, to do this.   Find that via a Google search for "Z420 drivers" and choose to use the top HP site.  Go to the BIOS section at the top.  You'll see the current one is 3.96.  Click there on Download and you'll get SP100699.exe.... I save that to my desktop, and run it as an admin.

After you run that to the first layer of interaction with the software, simply cancel out of that.  Now go into your root level of the C drive, and you will see that the HP installer created a new folder there called SWSetup.  Inside that will be a folder called SP100699, and in that will be a folder called DOS Flash.  In that will be a file called J61_0396.bin.  You won't be able to see the ".bin" extension if you have that turned off in your File Explorer Options control panel app.

Once you have that 16MB file you can put that on a FAT32 formatted small thumb drive, put it in a USB2 port, and select to update BIOS from within BIOS from the thumb drive after a cold boot.  BIOS will know where to look for the .bin file if you do this right.  You, however, are not getting even into BIOS I believe so that is your issue to work on.  I'm not a big fan of setting these up too fancy, such as bit locker etc.  My days with the NSA and the CIA are over.... actually, never began.

Important:  it is tempting to just run the within-OS BIOS updater built into that updater download, which was made to work from within XP and W7.  You risk quite a lot by trying to run that from within W10, however.  By updating BIOS from within BIOS you are choosing the most primitive OS (BIOS) to do that critical task from, and the safest method.  Do not do it from within W10 is my recommendation.

p.s.  There is a big long thread in the forum here about recovering these workstations when they have had BIOS corrupted.  It is an art, and not a science.  I'd start first with getting in a basic video card, and a basic boot drive in place, and remove all else, and discharge CMOS, and set BIOS to factory defaults if I could get that far, and make a small prayer to the computer gods before I started with that.

[mikeinbremerton]

Thank you very much. I had read the same thing but not as well put as yours on one of the threads and it did not sink in. I will try this and let you know how it worked.

[mikeinbremerton]

MSI geforce GTX1050 Ti gaming x4g and a 600w ps.

[RockingDonkey]

Hi there !

Well ! I finally knew what I have to upgrade my BIOS .....Win XP or Win 7 to flash my BIOS to new version .Few days ago .... my BIOS version downgrade to ......V00.31 I dun't really know how this happen .

Computer Name: DESKTOP-XXXXXXX
Model: HP Z420 Workstation
Computer Type: Desktop
Manufactured by: Hewlett-Packard
Baseboard ID: XXXX
Serial Number: XXXX
BIOS version: J61 v00.31 (Current Setting Group: VGA setting)
Processor: Genuine Intel(R) Xeon E5 2687W @ 3.10GHz
Enabled Processor Count: 16
Total Memory: 64 GB

I may try to install Windows XP to step up and up my BIOS version ......