BIOS Update

[nopejo]

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@mdklassen wrote:

>  Then BIOS updates should be performed in sequence, i.e. don't skip to the latest but do each one until you have the latest.

This statement is incorrect.  Each BIOS-update is "cumulative" -- containing all the updates from previous releases.

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Hi mdklassen

Unable to find the HP link, may have read that elsewhere, however since there have been cases reported of BIOS updates being recalled because of errors it seems like a good practice to me to do them sequentially which would normally be how one would do them anyhow.

I have a question regarding the Recovery Partition. Mine says it is 847 MB and that it has 847MB free space. Does that mean it is empty or don't hidden files show that they use any space?

Cheers Nopejo

[mdklassen]

>  it seems like a good practice to me to do them sequentially which would normally be how one would do them anyhow.

I strongly disagree. 

If there is any "risk" in applying a BIOS update, it seems that there is a greater risk when unnecessarily applying multiple updates.

For those HP employees who code the updates, it makes sense to me for them to make updates based on the current BIOS-level of software, rather than trying to "retrofit" a new update into 2 or 3 older levels. They don't want to release a new BIOS-level that incorporates update "A" (from 2015) and update "C" (from 2017), but not update "B" (from 2016).

For your motherboard:

Software and driver results for: HP Pavilion Desktop - 500-406a

https://support.hp.com/au-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-pavilion-500-400-desktop-pc-series/7161732/model...

HP Consumer Desktop PC BIOS Update (ROM Family SSID 2B17)
80.15 Rev.A
5.9 MB
Oct 12, 2016

Full details:

https://support.hp.com/au-en/drivers/selfservice/swdetails/hp-pavilion-500-400-desktop-pc-series/716...

HP strongly recommends promptly transitioning to this updated BIOS version which supersedes all previous releases.

http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp70001-70500/sp70373.exe
http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp70001-70500/sp70373.html

> I have a question regarding the Recovery Partition. Mine says it is 847 MB and that it has 847MB free space.

> Does that mean it is empty or don't hidden files show that they use any space?

I would say that the former is correct.

Use "Disk Management (local)" to temporarily assign a drive-letter to that partition, and then enter:

     DIR  drive_letter:   /S  /A   /P

and press ENTER, to list all the files at that drive-letter.

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[nopejo]

HP Consumer Desktop PC BIOS Update (ROM Family SSID 2B17)
80.15 Rev.A
5.9 MB
Oct 12, 2016

The SSID as I have said before is incorrect. I can't use it.

Recovery partition I will assume is empty. I will recreate it with a fresh install.

[mdklassen]

See: https://support.hp.com/hk-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-pavilion-500-400-desktop-pc-series/7161732/model...

Expand the 'BIOS' section to see BIOS-updates for 3 different SSID values.

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Welcome to this forum.

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[nopejo]

Try reading the whole thread next time. You'll save yourself a lot of time and effort.