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HP Recommended

Shame on the system integrators, test engineers, managers and R&D engineers at HP!! You guys not only can't design a product that works properly after a BIOS update but also can't provide a working solution to the problem!

 

If one or two computers are bricked after the BIOS update due to power failure, etc., I can understand but now there are thousands if not tens of thousands of people's computers bricked after a BIOS update! Come on guys, there must be a conspiracy or outright incompetent here.

 

HP support website doesn't say clearly on which models its BIOS recovery procedures work, so you have to try this first "Win+B/V+power button" trick mentioned here https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_3932413-2337994-16. If it doesn't work, please keep reading.

 

If you have read up to here or my post is still online, that means you are not alone buddy. Don't worry, if your computer was working properly right before the stupid BIOS update, my experience below should help you get out of this disaster.

 

My HP Pavilion 11 x360 PC was bricked after a BIOS update. Basically I download and ran the BIOS update program sp88949.exe. The only way to bring it back was to open the back cover, plug out the CMOS and laptop batteries, wait a couple of minutes (I know it's not scientific), then plug them back in, hit the power button "once". Don't hold any key combination. You will hear the hard drive spins, fan spins, a brief moment of display on the screen saying something like "Block update in progress in some %" followed by "Block update finished". Then it will shut down without being able to restart "a couple of times more", according to the official HP online guide, to finish the update. Basically, you are back to square one! Any subsequent power on attempts will not yield anything. At that point, you have to plug out the CMOS and laptop batteries again!! Repeat the whole cycle. I know it's mind boggling, that's why I'm writing this post to share my experience.

 

At this point, use a working computer to prepare a USB HP BIOS recovery disk. So you wonder oh I don't know how to make a USB stick bootable, etc., it just adds an extra headache! Please don't worry, you don't need to go down that path as the BIOS you downloaded from the HP website merely extracts the contents into the USB stick, thank GOD!

 

Then you plug it into a USB port, press the Win+B/V+power button trick. Now, I'm not saying this trick will work every time. For me, I don't know it was because of this trick (because I didn't hear any beep) or the mere pressing of the power button that somehow luckily the laptop went into the "HP BIOS Update" mode that you see in the above link. Only after this "BIOS update via USB stick" method, the laptop was able to restart on its own and Wallah I saw the HP logo saying "Please Wait". After a while, the login screen appeared and the rest is history!

† The opinions expressed above are the personal opinions of the authors, not of HP. By using this site, you accept the <a href="https://www8.hp.com/us/en/terms-of-use.html" class="udrlinesmall">Terms of Use</a> and <a href="/t5/custom/page/page-id/hp.rulespage" class="udrlinesmall"> Rules of Participation</a>.