How to use the HP BIOS update (uefi) utility

[Mumbodog]

Now we resort to name calling? How impressive

[MrMatthew]

Let's remember to keep the discussion respectful. :):)

[Netofox]

Hi! I have the same problem with my Pavilion TX2532la... 

I was having a CMOS error and tried to replace the board battery. It killed my laptop. Now there is no boot at all. 

I'm trying to get the proper files for the WIN+B startup. But my HP page just have a winflash installer.

Is there a chance that HP support directly give us the files we need to make a USB bios restoration???. 

I see its hard to try to extract them from the winflash installer, and properly rename them, and store them!.

I guess I'll have a brick untill HP give us the correct files for USB boot repair for each model.

Am I wrong?

[HPSAwizard]

That is a very old model.  Just replacing the CMOS battery would not cause a BIOS issue.  You may have a cable that is not plugged in correctly or you may have damaged a connector during the repair.   Another possibility is static discharge.  

[Madura]

Hi 

I have a similar issue with my HP Mini 210-1036VU

I changed the boot sequence and clicked save and exit from the BIOS setup

That was the last time netbook worked!!!

I followed various instructions from various forums/websites for weeks.

Lastly I tried what is give here

I used sp52509 HP Bios Update UEFI to create a USB recovery (512MB formated as FAT and named as HP_TOOLS

copied 3660F24.fd from SP52461 and put in the \Hewlett-Packard\BIOS\New\ folder

followed the instruction on how to start while holding windows+B

I could see activitiy in the USB key as something is read from it! but sadly it could not recover the BIOS, still I have the black screen.

Tried several variations of it according to various websites.

Can someone please tell me if I have used the wrong files or a wrong method for this to not to work?

Please help!

[paul1149]

What a mess. I had the blank screen at boot with only a blinking cursor. Yet WRE found nothing wrong with the system. So I resorted to an HP factory restore - which failed: "UAI failed to write three times!" - whatever that means. No explanation, no way to escape the Retry loop. I suspected the hard drive, though diagnostics gave it a clean bill of health.

So I called HP TS, and got a guy from India. After he verified the system was out of warranty, he offered to fix the problem for $60. Or I could buy recovery media for $30. I told him I would play around with it a bit more and consider those options - whereupon he began to get assertive. "What are you going to try?", he asked. I said I might try a new drive. He said that a new drive would not work. I asked why not. He said the machine (a G7 17") "takes a special hard drive". At that point I thanked him for his time and hung up on him.

I took out my trusty Win7 install disk, wiped the partitions and installed afresh. (Interesting that MS is easier to deal with on re-activation than many OEMs regarding recovery media). It went perfectly. It took a while to update all drivers, but it's done. Now I will take a system image (the machine is new to me; I bought it distressed) and this mess will hopefully be history.

Very bad show by HP TS. And this UEFI business really ought to be simpler (My attempts to create a USB updater failed - the software would not install). I think if I had to update the bios again in a distressed situation, I would fire up a WinPE disk and do it from there, assuming the utility allowed it.

[paul1149]

Madura:

Interesting - I also changed the boot order on my G7 - though admittedly, in my case the blank screen problem came first. I've got to say that for such a nice machine, the G7's Insyde bios is horrendous - the worst I've seen.

I would try a bios update from a WinPE environment on an optical boot disk (once I was up in windows it was such a pleasure to update the bios from there). I don't know if updating the bios resets it to its defaults though, but maybe that's not important. Also run a Windows repair environment past it a few times - though to be honest, it didn't pick up the problem for me. It seems that the bios wasn't handing off the boot to the windows bootloader.

When I finally did update the bios, it went from F.52 to F.65. Quite a jump for a scant two-year period. Perhaps that tells a tale.

[Madura]

Hi Paul1149,

I read the 2 posts you have put up and the what came to my mind was a typical situation where bootloader could not be loaded (when the cursor blinks in a black screen)

This could be easily rectified by installing any OS (windows if you prefer) via USB/Optical or even a SD card.....(just a matter of changing the boot order if you have a bootable installer for the OS you prefer)

My issue with Mini210 was totally different as it was not a cursor blinking in a black screen... the bios got bricked or the VGA chipset got affected (i assume the later) which made the LCD as well as VGA not work!

[Ih0r]

Can anyone prove me that HP_TOOLS partition can be filled by bios update utility files and system diagnostic files manually? I can extract installer by 7-zip and copy them to appropriate places without need .Net 2.0 for running installer.

[Ih0r]

Can somebody share what files are created on HP_TOOLS partition after bios update under windows for g62 models? Because installer includes xxxxx.fd encrypted bios. So it must be written to corresponding folder decrypted or without changes and decrypted by flashing utility under UEFI.