you can flash most of Dell's exe's in dos. it may accept the -forceit command... Have you tried just rinning the executable, many models of Dell's downgrade bios version without much complaint...
My laptop is vostro 1520. I intended for BIOS update.(A04 to A08) While updating my laptop is freezing. After 1hour I pushed power button long time to shut down. It cannot boot. I want to recover my BIOS. plz help me.. thanks in advance
hi, anybody know HDR name for DELL Inspiron 1420? i try many way but still no luck.. just maybe the HDR name i think actually already try winhex with bin file and got - LANA????BIN LANA????HDR LANA????HDC 1420????BIN 1420????HDR already try all name above but still just blinking read USB for few second then battery led blinking (purple -> red -> blue) about 30 - 40 second.. then poweroff then just power led.. still not booting
I have the Dell Latitude D410. Before I try the upgrade to SLIC 2.1 BIOS, I thought I would be wise to try the emergency bootblock BIOS recovery process. In my case I have the latest Dell A05 BIOS, so I am trying the Dell USB floppy with the HDR file from the A04. If it works, I will know because I'll have the A04 BIOS. So, please see if you can discern what I am doing wrong here, because it is not working. I format a floppy with DOS and remove everything except command.com, io.sys, and msdos.sys - it is a DOS formatted floppy without autoexec.bat or config.sys or anything extraneous. I extracted the .HDR file and started by naming it VEN1234.bin. I removed the hard drive, battery, and power cable and attached the USB floppy ready to boot. I held down the <END> key and plugged in the power cable. The battery indicator lamp glows YELLOW for 2 seconds (not GREEN, so presumably it is saying it can't find the battery to charge) and then goes out; it never does glow RED. If I release the <END> key after the yellow lamp has gone out, nothing happens. If I release the <END> key during that 2 seconds of YELLOW, all the telltale lamps above the top of the keyboard fire up for 4 seconds and go out, and nothing else happens. The laptop never seeks the floppy even for a second. Any ideas? Is is exactly what happens with the D610 or D810, since that is the same series? Thanks, guys!
AFAIR, D410 recovery works only from [USB] floppy - you need HDR file only. I did it 10 times at least, but never without battery It doesn't work from USB flash drive...
I recently updated the BIOS of a co-workers old Inspiron 4150 (circa 2003) to the appropriate latitude BIOS so that it would work with the C-port dock (according to the instructions at Bay-Wolf's site and page titled "Modifying your Inspiron to work in a Latitude C/Port or C/Dock" (this is my first post so no links). Everything worked fine, except that several keyboard keys stopped working (5,6,F1,F2,delete,backspace,etc.) in all environments (dos, bios flashing tools, windows 7, etc.). I flashed back to the Insprion based firmware hoping to correct this, but the problem persists. I even flashed back too far to a BIOS that didn't support the cpu, which is how I found this thread and was able to recover to an appropriate BIOS. I understand that the BIOS files contain a separate keyboard controller. Is there a way to force flash the keyboard controller or just flash the keyboard controller? Do I first need to extract this from a .hdr or .rom file or is there a command-line switch to do this? When searching for the appropriate prefix for my .hdr file with a hex editor (which by the way is AZE???? for the Inspiron 4150), I noticed what I thought to be references to a .kah file - is this the keyboard controller rom? and if so, how do I extract it and then flash it? Thanks for any help or advice anyone can offer. If there is a more appropriate thread or forum, please point me in the right direction.
Thanks for the quick reply. I'll try some these out tonight. Do you happen to have explanations (or a link to them) of what each command-line argument does? Some are self explanatory, but others seem more obscure. I'll check out the other thread more in depth, but from first glance at the thread, it looks like I could really quickly screw things up by modding the bios. Thanks.
Same here. I meant, Google in general, not in this site only. I do remember how to decrypt those keys from exe file, but I never saw detailed description what each of them does exactly Yep, you got the most important part right Again, I really don't think Dell uses different keyboard controller chip for their notebooks - I would open keyboard and check it thoroughly.
I tried out the -writekromfile switch on both the Inspiron 4150 and Latitude C640 BIOS with no luck - it seems those versions do not support that switch. I tried some other switches, but with no luck. I took out the keyboard and pressed the connector into its socket to make sure it was well seated (which it was), but no changes. I ran Dell's Diagnostics on the keyboard and the passed, except for the interactive ones which require me to press the keys. I tried switching to different keyboard mappings, but all with same results. This did help me specifically identify which keys are NOT working (Ins, Home, F1, F2, F8, F9, Del, -, =, 6, 5, and `). I double checked on Dell's website to make sure the keyboard layout of the Latitude C640 (BIOS flashed for C-port dock compatibility) and the Inspiron 4150 (actual laptop) match, and they do, including the special Dell Access key. The latest Inspiron 4150 bios date corresponded with second to last Latitude C640 BIOS. I originally flashed the newest C640 BIOS (about 1 year later release) and later flashed back to the C640 BIOS that corresponded the latest Inspiron 4150 BIOS, but no luck. So my question is do you think it is a BIOS issue or a hardware / connector issue? Thanks for the help and sorry to partially get off thread topic.
-writekromfile only extract krom file from BIOS update exe. Try to get BIOS update exe for DOS (it might be same version for Win and DOS) Boot DOS from USB drive or whatever. Run the BIOS update – it’ll go into interactive mode and shows what it updates exactly. Well, if you open keyboard – those keys (Ins, Home, F1, F2, F8, F9, Del, -, =, 6, 5, and `) “sit” on one line, most likely. You should be able to trace it. And that line is broken (shorted?) somewhere (with a water droplet?). The ways to prove – get oscilloscope or plug in another keyboard instead of this one. I guess none these options works for you… I think almost any other Dell notebook keyboard can be used to prove where the problem source is.
Correct, this is the way I have been attempting this. Always using the dos exec - trying to extract the krom in Windows (only 32-bit works), always flashing via an MS DOS startup diskette with the DOS BIOS exec on it. I did forget to mention that update utility show a percentage progress when erasing, flashing, and verifying the main bios, but it does not show the percentage number when doing the same for the keyboard controller - is this normal? We have an older Latitude CPx here at work which has the same keyboard layout, but it appears to have different screw mount locations, otherwise I would have swapped out the keyboards. Maybe I could just hook it up and see if the keys work to help identify where the issue is at. Thanks.
Don’t really know - I guess, only Dell tech can tell… Exactly, if (hopefully!) connector fits - try both ways!
My laptop is a D630. Have tried most filename combinations with USB drive and no luck. Has anyone had any success with this model? Appreciate any help with this.
Dell d820 bricked I have been unable to determine the correct filename to get my bricked D820 to accept flash from boot block recovery. Attempts to search .bin file dont produce any hints. Any help would be appreciated. I flashed update from minimal dos boot cd. Flash failed at 87 percent. It is searching usb stick for file, just cant seem to identify correct filename.
This is the section describing the proper filenames, it is compressed but I think we can determine some possibilities from it easily, Code: Offset 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 000F1BE0 40 42 52 45 57 @BREW 000F1BF0 3F E0 02 20 42 49 4E 08 0B 20 48 44 52 0A 0B 50 ?à. BIN.. HDR..P 000F1C00 43 00 44 38 32 30 07 23 C.D820.# I would try the model number ie, D820????.HDR and apparently BREW????.HDR where ? is wild (any alphanumeric value) Yes, uncompressed confirms filenames Code: Offset 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 00002C90 42 52 45 57 3F 3F 3F 3F 42 49 BREW????BI 00002CA0 4E 00 42 52 45 57 3F 3F 3F 3F 48 44 52 00 42 52 N.BREW????HDR.BR 00002CB0 45 57 3F 3F 3F 3F 48 44 43 00 44 38 32 30 3F 3F EW????HDC.D820?? 00002CC0 3F 3F 42 49 4E 00 44 38 32 30 3F 3F 3F 3F 48 44 ??BIN.D820????HD 00002CD0 52 R
D820 file names Thanks for the reply. After further review of thread I determined correct filenames exactly as you have described. BREW????.HDR worked correctly only after buying smaller usb drive.(2 gig) Would not work from 8 gig stick I normally carry. Regrettably system was crashing prior to original flash failure. Even after repeated boot block recovery flashes completing successfully, still no signs of life. I am almost sure mainboard failure may have been the cause of original flash failure.