Bricked Machine After BIOS Update

[HaggisCat]

Here is a method that worked to rescue a HDX18 laptop running an Insyde BIOS.

 Download the latest BIOS for this model. 

 ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp51501-52000/sp51618.exe

 Save it to the desk top and use 7-Zip to "Extract Files, when you open it you will find a file by the name of 3610F34.fd

 Rename that file to 3610.BIN (I used capitols)

 Grab a USB flash drive 2 GB or smaller and it should automatically be formatted with FAT32, when it's done copy and paste your newly named BIOS file on to the flash drive, safely eject the drive from your computer. (do not just pull it out from the USB port)

 On my Bricked HDX18.

   Remove the battery and adapter and hold down the power button for 30 seconds to do a hard reset.

  Plug in the flash drive in one of the left USB ports, hold down the "Windows"+"B" key and while your holding it down plug in the adapter.

   Boot up and the laptop should start to beep and read the flash drive, release the keys and when finished the laptop will shut down. Leave it sit for 3 minutes and boot to Windows.

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 This method did not work on my dv8, nor did it work here for mrtranmsb :

 http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-systems-and/Please-help-recovery-Bios-HP-DV4-1326TX/...

 On my dv8 I had two choices to replace the system board or replace the BIOS chip with a pre-programmed one.

 In my case I was certain that it was a bad BIOS update because the machine was perfectly healthy before the flash.

 I decided to replace the chip, and "My Tech" was the most helpful in Identifying the BIOS chip along with Note Book Review. I purchased the chip from "My Tech"

  http://www.bios-service-center.com/product_info.php?cPath=385_411_517_849&products_id=18827

 http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-pavilion-notebooks/426674-hp-dv8-owners-lounge-568.html#post74959...

 Here is my thread as to where the BIOS chip is located on the dv8 (they are all the same)

 http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware/dv8-1000cto-BIOS-chip-location/m-p/678195#M46432

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 So what does all this mean, it means that if your laptop is out of warrantee ,there are not many options to fix things.

 Most people do not have the skill it takes to resolder a BIOS chip on their mother board and in that case a replacement mother board is the only alternative.

 OR

If you have all your hard drive partitions in tact (the key one is the HP Tools partition) you may be able to rescue the BIOS from that partition by holding the "Windows" + "B" key down at start up. This will only work with the original factory OS install, you have not modified or added partitions and if your machine is newer then 2010.

 Before attempting any of the above, make sure that it is in fact a corrupted BIOS problem.

 Also note that this thread is only dealing with an Insyde BIOS, not Phoenix or any other.

[HaggisCat]

So I received my pre-programmed BIOS chip and my dv8 is now booting again _ sort of.

 The BIOS is missing all the ID numbers, eg serial number, UUID number etc. and each time I boot up it tells me this and I have to push enter to continue the boot sequence, it's very annoying. I have contacted the vender who sent me the chip and I am waiting on his answer if he can program the needed information into another chip, but even so, I am still missing the UUID number _ and how to retrieve that _ I have been Googling for hours, and nothing.

 What further complicates things is that because I live in Canada and the dv8 is a US model, I may have to send it to some US service depot, which really sucks (I will find out tomorrow when I go to a Canadian HP service centre).

 At this point I am at the mercy of HP and it looks like a may have to buy another mother board.

 

 

 

[Daniel_Potyrala]

Hi,

Is your problem solved?

[HaggisCat]

No, far from it.  I took it to a so called authorized HP service centre first thing before work and when I checked in at the end of the day, the technician had done nothing, I had to tell him that he had to contact HP and use this DMI Utility tool to tattoo the board again, I even had all the information in the screen shot carefully printed out for him.

 What incompetence _ I asked for my laptop back and he told me if he has anything that he will call me _ I have heard nothing. There is nothing more irritating when someone is hired to do a job and I have to tell him what to do _ I can be very patient, but I have no patience for that.

 I then called another HP service centre and the guy told me that HP had taken their ability away to tattoo a motherboard and that I would have to ship to Toronto, a city that's 3000 miles away !  At this point this is unacceptable, they call them authorized HP service centres _  it sound like their not authorized to do anything.

 I have the original information in the BIOS in a screen shot I took with my camera, I was helping someone out where to find their version of BIOS and used my dv8 as an example. I don't know how HP goes about tattooing a MoBo and if that information is in the files or hidden on the system board some where, but I do have it if they need it.

 At present it's at a local computer repair shop where it's run by this young guy fresh out of school, and I am keeping my fingers crossed _ he told me he had some things to try and to check back in a couple of days.

 

 So Dan, why do you ask, do you have some sort of magic spell to fix things ? 

 (the serial number is blanked out of course , but that's on the bottom of the laptop)

[Daniel_Potyrala · Accepted solution]

Hi again,

Send me your email via PM.

[jinishans]

Hi

My HP dv9500t was running fine for the last 4 yrs. As the OS was really slow, I formatted the HD to re-install Vista (was default OS came with this laptop). After installing Vista, I was installing the Driver updates from HP website for this model.

One was BIOS update in that driver page for this model.

I downloaded the same, installed it. It took backup of old BIOS (not sure where it too as the restore partition provided by HP was removed by me a year back), installed the BIOS update with some 12 or 14 steps for around 10min. Then it asked for restart, when i did, no display coming in the screen now. The Media, Power, SD card, CD drive, USB lights are on, some humming sound as well, fan sound, but no display. I tried to restore old BIOS using "Win key + B" as per HP website, still nothing happens. This happens a month back, but I found out this forum thread and below thread/url's.

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Recovery/DV9500-Bios-Issue-NEED-HELP-URGENT/td-p/844277

http://www.theeldergeek.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=21209

I had installed Win 8, Win 2008, Win 7, Mac in this, everything worked fine. Pls let me know whether I can restore the BIOS. The laptop was working fine perfectly without any issues till the previous day of this BIOS update.

BTW, Do I only need a USB Floppy drive/ I can create the crisis recovery disk and revover my BIOS with a USB drive.

Thanks & Regards

jinishans

[Daniel_Potyrala]

@jinishans

Hi,

Check this topic.

Note:

All Bios versions for your specific model you will find here.

Statement:

You are using my advice at your own risk. I don't take any responsibility for any problems.

[Davei7Gen1]

I have a DV8-1100CTO

Here is what saved me. I'm not saying it will work for anyone else, but after I started flashing my BIOS in Windows, the flashing was interrupted and I thought the MoBo was dead because it would not start after that. But the following procedure brought my computer back to life!! I don't know which files the process actually used. But I made sure I had copies of all possible files it might have needed based of different things a bunch of different people mentioned on different web sites.

My DV8 uses an Insyde BIOS. The BIOS version is F25 and BIOS update program which is available from HP's website is SP49106.exe (When you run the bios updater, SP49106 it creates a directory called:

C:\Program Files (x86)\SP49106. In that folder is:

 * A file called 7001F25.exe

 * A folder called Crisis_BIOS (containing 7001.bin)

 + I formatted my USB drive - Fat32

 + I copied everything from that directory to the USB drive's root directory.

 + I also coped 7001.bin to the root directory.

 + I also copied a renamed version of 7001.bin to the USB drive's root directory.

 + I also copied the original SP49106 program to the USB's root directory.

 So here is what ended up in the root directory of my flash drive. If you follow along, you will realize that I have the 7001.bin file in 3 places under 2 names.

 * SP49106

 * Crisis_Bios (folder containing 7001.bin)

 * 7001.bin (copied out from the Crisis bios folder into the root directory)

 * 7001F25.exe

 * BIOS.WPH (was 7001.bin before it was renamed)

 + I removed the battery

 + I unplugged the power

 + held down the power button for 30 seconds (I guess this drains any remaining charge?)

 + Plugged in the power

 + Held down Fn+"B" (might have been Windows+"B" but I don't really remember)

 + turned on computer *while holding down* the key combination for some seconds

 = heard Several beeps spaced about 20 seconds apart

 = The computer shut down itself

+ when I hit the power button, it turned on for a second, turned off itself and then came back on by itself again, then booted normally  :o))

Side Note: Tried all of this using my CD-rom drive but it did not work. It worked using the USB drive because the USB is writable? Who knows.

[java1764]

That's great that you posted to find the BIOS. However with me, my black screen of death occured under unusal circumstances. I was getting imment failure for the hard drive, I ran sea tools for dos, found 2 clusters. It fixed the clusters. I rebooted, yay, no problem I took back the HD I bought. I came home rebooted, and boo. I have the black screen, the lights flash twice shuts down boots again (found the sequence of lights flash indicate bios). But, no noise, except fan. I tried hooking up to external moniotor, black screen there as well. So, how can I fix the BIOS if I can't see anything? Also, mine is a CTO, not out of the box Pavillion. Thanks for the post. I hope it helped others, but I'm in "the dark"..literally.

[java1764]

Were you able to see your screen when you did all this? Did you have the black screen of death? I also am unable to see when hooking up to external monitor in case you wondered...