Unable to Start BIOS Setup (redirects to System Diagnostics)

[amazingstupendo]

Hello, I'm the process of trying to de-brick this EliteBook 8640p that was working just yesterday, but I decided it was time for a re-format.  I went into the BIOS settings and noticed an option called 'Safe Erase'... and I decided to perform it. After the process was complete, understandably there was no OS found. The next step (I thought) was to add bootable media (DVD-ROM or Flash Drive, I tried both) to install a new OS. After tweaking the 'Legacy Boot' settings by putting USB Flash Drive at the top, I rebooted -- and it didn't load from the removable media. I tried checking the BIOS settings again, but every time I press ESC, F9, etc. during the POST, it redirects me to 'system diagnostics', which has been extremely unhelpful since all it offers me is a few diagnostic scans (they all pass, by the way). I'm not ever able to get back to the BIOS settings.

This would be day 2 of my adventure, yesterday I tried updating/reinstalling the BIOS using a Flash Drive, but the utilities provided by HP all crashed when they were about to create the BIOS update drive. I tried moving basically every .bin file I could find (there isn't a single Phoneix Bios file that I could find) onto a freshly-formatted (FAT32, 4MB block size, 2 GB capacity) Flash Drive. Booting normally with the flash drive in keeps bringing me back to the 'system diagnostics' screen, over and over again.

Something quite odd happens when I try initiating the BIOS recovery routine with Win + B -- when I power on the notebook with these keys pressed, the screen remains black and there seems to be no activity whatsoever, but the CAPS LOCK key indicator flashes continuously. Then after about 10 seconds, the fan starts running quite fast, while the CAPS LOCK LED continues to flash without pattern or interruption. I left it like that for about 10 minutes, with no result.

The original OS was Windows 7, at some point it was upgraded to Windows 8, and then to Windows 10. Now there is technically no OS at all, I'm just trying to get the BIOS setup to appear again so I can install a new OS (I'm trying for Ubuntu). I'm debugging from and trying to run the crashy BIOS update and flash drive creation software from a much newer Windows 10 Desktop. I even tried running the same BIOS update software using an old Windows XP laptop, and it still crashed.

I'm pretty much out of leads here. Unless that 'safe erase' operation is somehow responsible, I don't know what the cause is. The hardware can't possibly have failed, it was running Windows 10 just yesterday (I thought it would be a cynch to do a clean format and Ubuntu install -- oops.)

Anyway... does anyone have any idea what can be done?

[erico]

The reason is that the BIOS was a UEFI type. A UEFI BIOS has a component that is on the hard disk. You wiped it with the "safe erase". That is why it won't invoke with the F10 keystroke.

Safe erase was meant to clear the notebook of all data after its service life was reached. That is usually four years. At that point it is meant replaced by a newer notebook from the IT department.

You need to install the BIOS softpaq in order for it to work as it used to. You can create a biootable flash drive that will allow you to update the BIOS

The file for Linux are available at the download section of the support portal for the HP 8460 notebook. See the following link.

http://support.hp.com/gb-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-elitebook-8460p-notebook-pc/5056942

[amazingstupendo]

Thank you for the clarification! It would seem that it was my fault entirely for 'bricking' this laptop.

In any case, I have already attempted those steps you mentioned, but there seems to be a problem with the software -- either that, or I'm not using the correct interface:

For Linux, the BIOS update package was sp52404.exe. I ran the executable, and without prompting me, it installed some files here: C:\SWSetup\sp52404

In this directory, I went into the '\hpqflash' subdirectory since it had two more executables (sp52404_E.exe and _F.exe). I presumed the correct front-end for this was hpqRun.exe, but using it from Windows, it ran immediately and produced a log file containing this:

03/04/2017 10:29:10.180  HPQRun Starts, Command Line:"C:\SWSetup\sp52404\hpqflash\hpqRun.exe"
03/04/2017 10:29:10.180  HPQRun: OS (version = 0 ) is not supported
03/04/2017 10:29:10.180  HPQRun Ends, Return Code: 1002

So instead, I used the sp52404_E.exe utility. I selected the option to create a bootable USB disk. It prompted me to a 'drive format' screen, I selected my drive, and started the process. Within a couple of seconds it said 'Failed to format drive' and that's all it gave me. Then my USB flash drive became inaccessible. I had to reformat it using Device Manager just to be able to use it again.

What do?

[Fengwhite]

No it's not your fault, I would say.

Most persons would assume that secure erase or secure wipe means wipe all the data on disk, and it should not affect firmware. This UEFI BIOS thing is weird. Having a BIOS on disk? So what do you do if you want to change your disk? What do you do if your disk suddently dies? Throw away the computer?

No, something is wrong here.

By the way, if your USB drive is behaving oddly, maybe it is corrupted, and should be replaced.