Unable to Downgrade BIOS from F.49 to F.48 – Recovery USB Not Detected

[Rk8658]

I am using an HP 15-da0300tu laptop, and recently I updated its BIOS to version F.49 through Windows Update. After this BIOS upgrade, my system stopped detecting the M.2 SSD that was previously working fine. I verified the SSD’s health by testing it on another system, where it worked perfectly. This clearly suggests that the issue lies in the BIOS configuration or compatibility introduced in version F.49.

To resolve the problem, I attempted to roll back (downgrade) the BIOS to version F.48, which is still listed as the latest version available on the official HP support website for my laptop model. I downloaded the F.48 BIOS update (sp152727.exe) directly from HP’s official site — not from FTP or any third-party source.

Since the BIOS version on my system is newer (F.49), the HP BIOS update utility did not allow the downgrade. The "Update" button was greyed out when I tried to run the F.48 installer through Windows. This indicates that the utility has a version check or downgrade block in place to prevent flashing an older BIOS.

Following HP's instructions, I used the built-in BIOS update utility to create a recovery USB drive, hoping that a forced BIOS recovery from boot would bypass the downgrade restriction. I used a FAT32-formatted 4GB USB 2.0 drive, inserted it into a USB 2.0 port, and allowed the utility to prepare the recovery media.

Once the USB was ready, I shut down the laptop and used the recommended BIOS recovery method: pressing Windows + B (or Windows + V) while simultaneously pressing the power button. However, during every attempt, the laptop showed the error:

“BIOS recovery files not found.”

I tried using different USB ports, reformatted the drive, and recreated the recovery USB multiple times, but the same issue persisted. I did not perform any manual extraction of BIOS files, nor did I create the folder structure manually (Hewlett-Packard\BIOS\New). Everything was done using HP’s official BIOS utility tool.

I am seeking guidance on how to successfully downgrade the BIOS, or an alternative way to get the M.2 SSD detected again.

[resistencia]

Hi @Rk8658 

As indicated on your model's support page, it is not possible to revert to a previous version of the BIOS.

HP Notebook - 15-da0300tu Software and Driver Downloads | HP® Support

Fix and enhancements:

- Provides enhanced security. NOTE: Due to the security updates installed by this BIOS update, previous BIOS versions cannot be reinstalled after this BIOS update is run.

about not recognizing the disk, check if the error is that it does not find the operating system because you changed the boot mode in the BIOS.