Is it safe to run a BIOS Rollback if it says the BIOS image not available.?

[mjlane]

My daughter downloaded Hamashi to set-up a network so she & her bff could play a video game. Shortly afterwards the computer crashed. She rebooted, then uninstalled Hamashi and the game in question. Everything seemed fine, but the whole system started to have issues, she told my mother about the problem and grandma started running Windows diagnostics, however, the auto-restart w Windows 10 kept interrupting our attempts to run diagnostics using windows. Then it stopped booting up at all. At this point they told me what was going on #facepalm

I am now in the HP Diagnostics UEFI - the computer hardware has passed all the tests, there isn't anything wrong with the physical components (despite Windows trying to tell me there was a HD error) I was considering a BIOS rollback as a last resort because the computer still won't reboot into Windows 10.  I have never done this before and am not sure if I should.

The message I see when I enter th BIOS Rollback page is "the selected BIOS image was not available..."

when I select a BIOS image to apply I get this as an option "SYSTEM -Sata(0x0,0xFFFF,0x0) Drive Partition 2"

i have no no idea what this means - Has our Drive been partitioned at some point? And if so will this Rollback only fix that Drive? Or will it Rollback everything and I can worry about the Drive Partitioning after I get the **bleep** thing running in Windows again?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

thank you

ds

[Big_Dave]

Hi,

It's generally not a good idea to roll back a BIOS update. In so doing, you run the risk of other firmware components that were updated by the BIOS update and the roll back BIOS update (previous version) may now have possible compatibilities issues with the firmware updated components.

BTW --- Your PC was not certified for Windows 10.

Download W10 from Microsoft and use the MS media creation tool to create a bootable USB flash drive and try to reinstall a fresh copy of W10.  The previous installation of W10 gave you a digital entitlement so you can skip entering a W10 license key.

There are other HP PC models with the same motherboard so once you get W10 install and need driver updates then we should be able to provide further assistance.

[mdklassen]

> there isn't anything wrong with the physical components (despite Windows trying to tell me there was a HD error)

The built-in HP Diagnostics are not "extensive" enough to "prove" that a disk-drive is physically OK.

They are good-enough to properly identify a disk-drive that is in "imminent failure" status.

Windows either reported a physical disk-drive problem, or a logical problem with the integrity of the file-system.

> I was considering a BIOS rollback as a last resort because the computer still won't reboot into Windows 10.  

If you have never installed a BIOS update on your computer, you have nothing to roll-back to.

> I have never done this before and am not sure if I should.

I recommend that you do NOT try to do anything with the BIOS.

> The message I see when I enter th BIOS Rollback page is "the selected BIOS image was not available..."

> when I select a BIOS image to apply I get this as an option "SYSTEM -Sata(0x0,0xFFFF,0x0) Drive Partition 2"

When a BIOS update was installed (if it was), then the previous BIOS was stored in the "System Recovery" partition -- in a partitioned area of your disk-drive that normally is "hidden" from you.

If you have never done a BIOS update, there is no "previous" BIOS stored in the "System Recovery" partition.

>  Has our Drive been partitioned at some point?

Yes. 

One partition for the Windows "Boot Manager".

One partition which becomes your 'C:' drive.

One partition to use if you select "Reset my PC" or "Refresh my PC" within Windows 10.

> And if so will this Rollback only fix that Drive?

I think that it will NOT fix anything.

So, your plan could be:

1. Remove your current disk-drive from your computer.

2. Buy a new disk-drive, and install it.

3. As the Other Person indicated, download and reinstall Windows 10.

Since your computer was running Windows 10, you have a "digital entitlement" to reinstall Windows, at any time, at no cost to you.

4. Run Windows Update.

5. Install your applications, e.g., Microsoft Office.

6. Run Windows Update again, to get updates to MS Office.

7. Attach the "previous" disk-drive as a "secondary" disk-drive.

Copy all your personal files & E-mail & bookmarks from "old" to "new" disk-drive.

---------------

Buying a new disk-drive probably replaces an "out-of-warranty" disk-drive by a newer, faster, higher-capacity disk-drive, and lets you use that current disk-drive in step #7, above, to "rescue" all your personal files.  It also avoids the possibility of accidentally "wiping" your disk-drive, if you try to re-install Windows onto it.

[Big_Dave]

@mjlane

Don't buy a new hard drive until you attempt to do a clean installation of W10 on the existing HD.  Do a custom install process and delete off all of the partitions and then let W10 create all of the required partitions.

[mdklassen]

>> Don't buy a new hard drive until you attempt to do a clean installation of W10 on the existing HD. 

>> Do a custom install process and delete off all of the partitions and then let W10 create all of the required partitions.

Deleting all the partitions, without first creating a "backup", will wipe out all the Personal Files.  Ouch!

Given that the current disk-drive has become "non-bootable", it has become much more difficult to make a "backup" to some other external disk-drive.  So, don't make a "separate" backup -- repurpose the current disk-drive as your backup.

To repeat, install onto a brand-new disk-drive, and use the current disk-drive as the "backup" of your Personal Files.

If you mess-up during the installation onto the new disk-drive, you can "start over", with no worries.  Call it "idiot-proof".

[Big_Dave]

@mdklassen

Nope.

Everyone should making HP external recovery disks.  It's part of the owning a PC.  There is no reason to second guess if the OP (you) has made the recovery media.  Even the HP Support Assistant will indicate the need to doing backups and creating the recovery media.

If the hard drive is not bootable and the recovery is not possible then saving the data is not going to work.  This is particulary true if the partitions tables are damaged. Hence another the reasons for having backups .

In the end, buying a new HD when the existing HD hasn't proven to be unusable (as assumed by your comments) is faulty logic?