BIOS failure

[matheu_chambers]

I have an old 6560b Notebook, that I wanted to totally clean up... I decided to install Ubunutu, and everything went Ok with the install until I needed to restart to notebook. 

I now get a Media test failure message

fyi: when I run the hard disk test from the diagnostic screen it passes...

I now ONLY get the System Diagnostics, no BIOS options at all. I've been looking around and have tried to update the BIOS, (using SP85528 from HP website) but:

1. I cannot create a BIOS boot stick (I just don't see this option when I run the update on another computer)

2. After manually creating a boot stick, the boot process does not see it

Is there ANYTHING I can do now...?

[WAWood]

@matheu_chambers 

This is an indirect method for creating a BIOS update boot USB stick -- which comes in useful if you can not boot your PC into Windows and you need to do a BIOS update.

Macrium Reflect (MR) is a free tool that can be used to image and restore PCs, but it also has an option to create Rescue Media (is disk or USB form) that can then be used to Repair your PC.

It is available from here: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR)
2) Use the option to create a boot USB stick
3) Open File Explorer to point to the USB stick
4) Create a folder on the USB stick named Apps
5) Download the HP BIOS Update file (this is a self-extracting archive file)
6) Copy the HP BIOS Update file to the Apps folder on the USB stick

NOW, you have a bootable USB stick that also contains the HP BIOS update file

Boot your original PC from the USB stick. It will take a few minutes, so you have to be patient. Could be 3 MINUTES or longer -- it's slow.

The USB stick is designed to repair Windows problems, but you don't want to do that. So, when you get to the app, down at the bottom-left of the screen are three icons. The right-most is a file manager -- click that to open it. Then, find the HP BIOS Update file and double-click that. That will start the BIOS update process.

When it is done, remove the USB stick and reboot your original PC.

[matheu_chambers]

Thanks WAWood,

I've tried this, and was able to boot to the Macrium screen, unfortunately when I then try to run the BIOS update exe, I get a message saying "The image file c:/Apps/sp85528.exe is valid but is for a machine type other than the current machine".

I've had to run this from a DOS commandline, as double clicking from the file explorer gives "Cannot open file, no associated program found"

Do you have anything else I can try..?

Thanks again

[WAWood]

@matheu_chambers

If the BIOS update will not run, then I have no other suggestions, sorry.