[HP Omni 10 5601TW] Tablet won't boot after BIOS update

[swaaye]

I called HP. I'm out of warranty and was told I would have to pay for repair. I did inform the rep about this thread and he said he would leave feedback for the higher ups. Maybe something will come of that. And then I was hung up on but maybe it was an accident. 😉

I will try the USB Windows 8 experiment sometime.

[foroughi9300]

:manlol:

I don't think that was an accident. What can I say...? I paid a lot of money, it is expensive in my country. I'm so desprate my only hope is reprogramming the chip :mansad:

[swaaye]

Ok after about 3 more flushed hours of my time, I managed to get a USB Hard Drive to boot Windows 8 To Go (using a GPT partition scheme and WinToUSB).   I got all drivers installed.  No SSD/EMMC appearance at all.  It's as if the device simply isn't in there.

I tried flashing F.08 Rev.A 32-bit twice. No change.  It always reboots to a black screen with red text "Flash Failed - Please follow procedure. Try again. It might take a few tries".

I tried flashing F.08 Rev.A 64-bit. This took significantly longer.  Once it rebooted it was dead. No display. Bricked.

I have the feeling that these problems are caused by mixing up these 32-bit and 64-bit BIOS files.  I don't know why there are separate BIOS files.  We run 32-bit Windows.  What a mess.  

[oscar8u]

At least you were able to boot windows successfully to an extent that was usable. I think everyone should do this until a proper fix is available and if a fix is never released then I think this is the only way to use the omni 10 sadly.

[KlausFindus]

Hi swaaye, can you please explain in more detail how you have manged the boot into Windows. I have created a USB Stick with Windows 8 32bit with the tool WintoUSB. Unfortunately it won't boot into Windows.  Do i need the keyboard, specific button press, etc...

Thanks in advance

KlausFindus

[s1r14n]

No word from HP?

Today I recived a replacement, and now HP Support Assistant asking me to update the bios.

It is safe or not?

They have changed the problematic bios or it is the same?

All models HP omni 10 56XX afected, main is 5600es

[swaaye]

@KlausFindus

I did need a keyboard. To access the boot options menu.

[KlausFindus]

Ok so in case the disk was detected there will be an entry in the boot options - correct?

Have you formatted your drive with FAT 32?

Thanks

KlausFindus

[swaaye]

I'm not entirely sure of what the Omni 10 UEFI needs to see on a USB storage device to consider it bootable. It is a bit picky.   Obviously a FAT32 USB stick works for the Windows 8 ISO files, but I'm not sure that's best for Windows To Go.

I used a USB Hard Drive and used diskpart as described in a Microsoft EFI guide:

list disk
select disk # (use the number for your USB drive. be careful!)
clean
convert gpt
create partition efi size=100
format quick fs=fat32 label="System"
create partition primary
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows"

I'm sure there are other ways to do this but this worked perfectly with WinToUSB.     I used a hard drive because flash sticks are typically extremely slow for small file writes and the copy process takes several times longer.

[swaaye]

I want to add that from what HP said on the phone that if the EMMC disappears it's probably history and you won't get it working again.  He went immediately to wanting to repair/replace. There was no troubleshooting involved.