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

[swaaye]

@shoubhik The UEFI thing it wants may be the HP UEFI Support Environment that is available for some notebooks but there is no download for our tablet. It can be installed to USB.   This was actually brought up a few pages back and there is a download but I'm not sure it works with our tablet.  We did not know about the F12 key bring up recovery though so maybe it will work.

[foroughi9300]

It is definitly such a SHAME for HP company and its employees since they keep repeating "hold windows key + B" for a tablet!!!

there are these possibilities:

1- They dont know what a tablet is. (A tablet has no buttons except power and volume buttons)

2-They are unable to read english that what we are saying.

3-We are talking to some automatic artificial support with the prerecorded "hold windows key + B" solution

4-They are ignorant and think that customers are worthless.

This was my last HP product and I will discourage anyone who tries to buy HP garbage products which have no support at all.

Anyway...after one month of using this tablet this is my review with no ill intention:

cons.

1-Extremely slow MicroSd card reader

2-Extremely weak Wifi signal reception

3-Poor lcd quality in comparison to other IPS panels (Mine had many bright pixels and one burnt pixel it was like many dust particles on a glass)

4-Poor speaker quality with very low volume (Mine had unbalanced speakers too).

5-Weak noisy microphone

6-Touch screen frequently stops working (I am sure many have seen this issue and you have to push the back cover hard to get it working again)

7-Nothing in the box except a charger and the tablet itself with a lot of free space in the box !!

8-Annoying screen flickering issue

pros.

1-Almost low cost for windows tablet

2-Despite that touchscreen issue it is very responsive (the touchscreen is made by LG)

3-Good CPU performance comparing to other tablets

4-Good back camera with natural colors and pretty good autofocus (Sony IMX sensor) and good front camera

5-Almost fast EMMC storage (made by Samsung)

6-Slim, good looking, low weight

7-good battery life about 7 to 12 hours (for me on windows 8.1 less in windows 10)

[swaaye]

@foroughi9300

I tried the HP 3-in-1 diagnostics USB key you linked a few pages back. I can boot into it and it has some diagnostics options, but there is nothing about firmware management. I also tried the documentation's key combos for BIOS recovery (Win+B or all arrow keys) but these did nothing.

[foroughi9300]

@swaaye

So your tablet screen is not blank so you have "no boot drive" error...when you see the diagnostic screen it means that it is booting from your flash so it means that you can boot with other bootable flashesh containing any OS like windows...

My problem is way too worse I wish my tablet had this problem 😄

*********************Do it on your risk************************

Just make a Windows bootable flash then extract and copy a proper BIOS version to that Windows bootabled flash, then boot from flash, in windows setup menu press F10 or Shift + F10 to open command prompt then CD to the BIOS directory you previusly copied, run the Insydeflasher.exe. If it did not open open platform.ini search for an option that says how to open the flash program (currently it is set to wizard mode) set it to option 1 save it and run Insydeflasher.exe again.

If it did not open eaither...undo your changes to platform.ini file for safty then run FWUpdLcl.exe

****************************************************

I wish it may help you recover your tablet.

Also I have seen that attaching another hard disk to tablet using a usb hub and installing windows on that hard drive makes the tablet to detect EMMC then you can install windows on the EMMC and boot up...

[foroughi9300]

@swaaye

Sorry I forgot to mention that the combination key "windows key + b" is meaningless for tablet since you have no physical keyboard and even you attach a physical keyboard using a usb hub, I doubt a corrupted bios can detect the keyboard then read your flash. 

Use the "volume up + volume down" combination mentioned in previous pages by that lucky guy (i Dont remember his name). I holded this two buttons and the usb was attached to the tablet, then I attached the AC power, then pressed power button to turn on the tablet. I am sure it read my usb flash since its LED flashed several times but I had no luck to recover it.

I had recovered several Notebooks with different bioses such as AMI, Phoenix and Award with this recovery method (which differs by bios company) sometimes the damage is so that it is unrecoverable so you have to solder a new BIOS chip or reprogram BIOS using JTAG SPI programmer.

[swaaye]

I have flashed within a USB booted Windows 8 setup. It doesn't fix the EMMC. This is why I was talking about trying to downgrade the BIOS.

[foroughi9300]

In that case... I dont think you can downgrade even  by changing platform.ini options (but worths to try)

If I were you I would replaced old bios and renamed it to the new one's name to see if that works

Did you try the F09 version provided in German forum ?

It is such a silly decision they made to prevent from downgrading

[oscar8u]

@swaaye
You have to boot into a fully working windows, not just the repair or install screen! You keep saying you booted with windows 8 usb, I did the same thing but thats not what I meant, you need to install windows on a usb and then boot fully from it so it works like a normal pc /tablet, then your problem is solved or hopefully solved. The EMMC should be recogised. I linked an article before which teaches how to install a full windows on a usb and use it on any computer successfully. Thats what has to be done. I was actually in the process of doing that but hp agreed to replace my tablet, currently I have a brand spanking new tablet in amazing condition, its literally brand new. The best part is my warranty expired couple of months ago. UK support were amazing.

[swaaye]

@foroughi9300

I did a text compare on the platform.ini from a few versions of the BIOS. I disabled several version and platform checks and also set it to force flash all segments just like F.08 is configured. But when trying to flash it said the platform is not supported.

My only other idea is to try swapping the BIOS file after the flash utility has passed the various checks. 

The linked F.09 BIOS has 2013 dates so I don't think it's even for this tablet.

[foroughi9300]

@swaaye

I think you are wrong its post date is 04.08.2015 and its thread is still active.

Do what Oscar said install windows on a flash then use it to boot the tablet then install another windows through it on EMMC...