Updated BIOS and now nothing will boot.

[icdmize]

I updated the BIOS on this machine to the latest version (80.19 Rev.A) and ever since it won't boot off USB, CD, or installed hard drive.  I've tried booting so many things now.  UEFI USB Windows 8.1, UEFI Windows 10 , Legacy, Windows 8.1 DVD, Linux, Acronis Universal Recovery, different brand USB drives.  I've even taken the hard drive out, put it in another machine, installed Windows 8.1, put it back in and still no luck.  It always gets to the same point.  The blue Windows logo shows and the little dots never show up.  I've tried downgrading the BIOS with no luck as well.  It beeps 8 times and I get a black screen, then it beeps again, and never goes anywhere.  I've tried all of THIS page on recovering the bios with an older version of the BIOS.  I tried the built in hard drive and memory tests and they report no issues.  Please help!  I'm losing my mind!

[mdklassen]

From: https://support.hp.com/ca-en/document/c02222922 

it lists that "8 beeps" is a "Video memory" problem. That is in "normal" mode.

But, if you are in the middle of a "BIOS Recovery" , then "8 beeps" might mean something else.

[icdmize]

Hrm.  I hold down the Windows key + B to enter "BIOS Recovery" and it beeps 8 times.  Goes black and quiet for a few seconds.  Then it beeps another 8 times and then stays silent.

[mdklassen]

> 8 beeps

See: HP Notebook PCs - Recovering the BIOS

for full details on "8 beeps".

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[icdmize]

What I gather from that since I never see the "HP BIOS Update Screen" when I boot off the Recovery USB flash drive is what they say here:

"If the HP BIOS Update screen does not display after repeated attempts, your notebook might not support this function, or there might be a hardware problem preventing the tool from opening. Skip to the next step to Contact HP Customer Support."

I actually ended up here in the first place after reading that.  The computer's out of warranty and they recommended to come here for suggestions.

Is there any other way to restore the BIOS to an older version?  The computer was actually working before I updated the BIOS.  I should have left it alone.

[icdmize · Accepted solution]

Ok.  Since noone here really solved my problem and I just (sort of) figured it out.  Here's what I did to fix my problem.  I had updated the BIOS to version 80.19 Rev.A and it stopped booting anything ever since.  Hard drives, USB drives, CD-ROMs.  Anything.  It never gave the little spinning dots loading Windows.  So I thought maybe I could downgrade the BIOS to fix this.  Couldn't find any tutorials on how to do this so I have just been tinkering for a couple weeks now.  Anyways, to the meat of the fix.  I found a 4GB USB drive (on eBay.)  Downloaded sp66748.exe which contains an older version of my BIOS.  Extracted that with 7-zip.  Resulting with the BIOS BIN file, a batch file, a cva description file, and WGUI_8009.exe.  Running WGUI_8009.exe gives you the option to create a recovery USB flash drive.  I used this on the 4GB flash drive.  This resulted in a folder structure containing a Hewlett-Packard folder.  Inside this folder there is a BIOS folder and inside that are a Current and New folder.  Here's the tricky part that took me a bit to figure out.  I had to delete the BIN file that was in the current directory and replace it with the BIOS BIN I had updated to earlier (80.19 Rev.A.)  I left the BIN file in the New folder alone with the old version.  Then I ejected the drive, put it back into the 21-h013, and started the recovery process by pressing the power button and then holding down the windows key and B until it started beeping again.  This time however something new happened.  The HP BIOS Update utility popped up.  It actually attempted to update the BIOS but eventually gave a 500 error.  I don't know why but after this it booted off the hard drive and tried to run a Windows startup recovery.  Further than it had ever gotten.  So I stuck my recovery disk in and booted off that instead and now it's sitting in Windows again running beautifully.  So for some reason failing to update the BIOS fixed my issue.  How crazy is that?

[mdklassen]

> I had updated the BIOS to version 80.19 Rev.A

I wonder what the boot-settings were before the update? 

Legacy? UEFI?  List of bootable devices to try? Order in which to try them?

Perhaps, the update "trashed" those settings.

> It stopped booting anything ever since.  Hard drives, USB drives, CD-ROMs.  Anything.

Even would not boot from your "Recovery" media, too ???  Sigh.

[icdmize]

Oddly enough it looks like it kept the same boot settings.  Legacy is on, HP Keys, no Fast Boot.  I had even cleared the CMOS with the jumper before this and that didn't work either.  I am at a loss.  I'm just glad it's working again.  It's so crazy though.  I had made a BIOS recovery USB before and it never brought up the utility until I changed the Current BIOS file.  So something during that utility fixed it.