Update BIOS for z840 from USB

[1happy1]

Hi,

First time user of HP.

I need to update the BIOS, there is no OS so want to do it from USB.

Have found unofficial instructions in Reddit advising to add bin file from the BIOS software download to a FAT32 formatted USB stick in directory path: Hewlett-Packard \BIOS \New.

In the BIOS setting when updating from USB it is coded to look for this path and will proceed to upgrade.

Now I just want to double check as I have read the Z840 user guide and other official documentation and cannot verify the above. Can someone verify if the above steps work and point me to any official documentation if that exists, it would be much appreciated so I can also help myself and others in future.

Regards,

JW

[SDH]

Yes, that works. I've been doing it that way for years now. 

BIOS for workstations from HP got a huge upgrade with the transition from the ZX20 era to the ZX40 and beyond. BIOS can do a lot more than it used to now. There is even some rudimentary networking capability built in. With proper BIOS settings BIOS can be requested to contact a HP server over the internet and check for/download new BIOS, and install that from within BIOS.  I prefer the way you note, however.

I'll post an update here shortly that includes a PDF with more details on how I do that. Any time you get an operating system and other installed programs on a system the risk is that a BIOS update gets borked by some unanticipated issue and becomes corrupted. Can o' worms results.

[SDH]

The BIOS SoftPaq for the Z440/Z640/Z840 is the same. There was an issue with HP providing only 2.61 but 2.62 was available before. Many of us are still using 2.62 and that is what I'd use for a new install here too. More details, and source of 2.62 from HP ftp servers, HERE  .

My latest PDF on harvesting the ZX40 BIOs .bin file from the BIOS updater SoftPaq is attached below. There are other ways HP provides to do it but for us this is the safest way. A good number of forum members have bricked their workstations by updating BIOS from within the operating system over the years. HP has worked to squash the bugs that caused that but I avoid the issue altogether this way.

Note that if you were updating BIOS in a ZX20 workstation (or earlier) you'd use the same process but instead have its harvested BIOS .bin file at the top level of the thumb drive with nothing else on it.

[1happy1]

Thanks for that, it is good to know and yes I agree about leaving OS out of it!

I find it strange that HP doesn't provide all this information in the documentation online, where did you learn this from?

[SDH]

Happy to help. Been at this for quite a while. When W10 came out and people tried to use the BIOS updates under that OS (though they were written to be used under W7) there was a spate of motherboard bricking. I dug into the info included in the SoftPaqs and actually read the manual that is in there. Arcane stuff but it is in the unpacked SoftPaq and I figured out the .bin file could be harvested from several places inside the unpacked BIOS update. The .bin file then could be used from a thumb drive via this abbreviated "F10 method" in BIOS.

Later with the new BIOS type first present in the ZX40 workstations I noted the option in its BIOS still existed. Went back and read the manual again in the newer unpacked SoftPaq, again arcane but the same concepts as before. From that I figured out the new need for the 3 layers of nested folders and the right names to give them, tried it, and voila... that worked too. It did not help when the HP manual writers copy/pasted both ways and mixed-up conflated directions for the two methods (early vs late) initially.