I tired to flash my friend's bios while booting form a freedos cd; freedos threw an invalid opcode while flashing (killing the update process...). I can get to the post screen but I get a blanking cursor after (no way to enter the setup, the flash utility, etc). After reading all the messages in this post, I understood that the bios (or what is left working of it) doesn't call the crashfree feature because it thinks it is okay. So I tried to short circuit the pins on the bios chip, but it didn't work... Anyone have an idea of what pins I need to touch with on a ASUS P5N-EM HDMI ? Do I have other options apart from buying a new bios chip on ebay/changing the motherboard ? thanks
Thanks for the reply, but as I said, the bios thinks it is okay so it doesn't load the crashfree feature. I was looking for a way to force the system to use crashfree.
A very dead Thinpad X61 - anyone had success with Lenovo's? Hi all! I did not even try a modded bios - just the one Lenovo offers for download. I did run the tool and no errors, just hit yes when it said if I want to reboot. That was the last time I interacted with my fast friend The logs show, that there was indeed no error Winphlash noticed. Anyway, I guess you guys have some experience with this and could help me along. The situation is this: - no screen, no beeps, even nothing happens with the led's; complete darkness. - when I turn the notebook on, no fans, but harddrive speeds up and chips get hot after a while I created a crisis disk on a usb drive and tried all the mentioned FN-Key combinations I could get hold of. The activity light of the usb tell me that I did not have any success - it also stays dark. This would definitly be the first hurdle I would need to get over. Any ideas? I find ausdim's post everywhere and he said it worked for his x200 - but he forgot to mention the key's he used. Could a Phoenix based board be so 'bricked' that even the recovery wont work? Maybe Lenovo removed the support for CDR at all? And if I get it to recover from the usb - will the TPM block me from being successful at the end? Or can I ignore that one? After reading a lot in the forum I will need a modded bios anyway, if at all I can recover my notebook. Learned about minipci whitetables and the wan card I am thinking of buying in the near future will definitly not be from Lenovo ;-) Thanks for any hints you can provide. Cheers, Hein
Hello i dont use any combination key's to work just put the recovery usb in the usb slot and power up the machine. When it was bricked some lights come up but no screen and nothing also the machine gives me 3 beeps1 long and 2 short. Make sure the usb flash u use is ok. Also i prefer to download the HDHacker.exe to chek it. Do you have any read blink light in the usb flash when you power on the machine?? Thanks..
Gateway MT6457 I was trying to help out a friend by troubleshooting his laptop that was booting up improperly from the appeared to be a corrupted BIOS. Long story short, I tried to update the BIOS from the Toshiba website and it no longer works. My attempts to recover have been the following: 1. Created Crisis USB Pen drive and tried to boot from it. Problem is I'm not sure what the correct keys are to start the boot block. I have tried Winkey+B, Winkey+R, Winkey+Esc, Fn+B, Fn+Esc, Fn+break and nothing seemed to get it started. 2. Created Crisis USB Floppy drive and tried to boot from it. Same issue as above. Can't seem to get it to start the boot from the floppy. Has anyone worked with this laptop and got the BIOS restored from BootBlock and how? What are the keys necessary for this to take place? Does this system need to use the DVD drive to find a new bin file? I noticed that the BIOS is spinning the drive when there is a disc in it. I have removed the disc but wondered if it might be searching the disc for a bin file. Any help is appreciated!
Ahh, that's cool! That makes you the happy guy, man! No life on the USB - read light stays dark. I connected a mini USB harddisk too, just to see if it spins up. But nothing happens. Seems, that the board not even activates the USB ports. Its brick as a brick Thanks for your answer. Cheers, Hein
I dont know any other way.... But search and search and trying everything.. Swap files try other usb ports or flash drives play and try anything... That i was did to recovery my thinkpad x200 tablet... All the people to know about bios and lenovo say me negative thinks but after a weak i came to the solution... Lenovo whant to change my motherboard (800 euro).. Thanks
Hi, Jepp, they did the same to me, but even higher - 1100 + VAT. Crazy guys. Someone told me that a friend of his working at IBM told him to buy the extended warranty, wait for a few months and then send the machine in to have it fixed. Dunno if that would work, but it a question of reading the terms I guess. So, next steps. Does anyone know about how the bios is flashed? Can I unsolder the chip, burn a bios from the forum to it and have at least some life back into the machine? Has anyone ever tried this - with a Lenovo? From the pflash.log I saw that there where two 2 mb files written: $01B2000.FL1 and $01B2000.FL2 Where they both going into the same chip? Nothing went into the TPM thingy, the Atmel chip? (funny enough, the flashprog did a backup - into one backup file. Backs up the first part into the bak file and overwrides it then with the second part - very, very, very helpful! ) What are all the .HSH and .PAT files for, that are in the same folder with the FL files? Are they used during the update? Can I see from the logs how they where used? BTW, I bought a replacement motherboard at ebay for 60 Euros, works great, but its only 32bit and has some features missing. It would be nice if I get the original MB working again, but I am prepared to find out that it never will. So I might be the perfect guinea pig for the very advanced things you ever wanted to try but never did, caus MB's for notebooks are so so so expensive ... K, if I plan to unsolder the chip, maybe place a socket before fixing the new one - any hints from the forum, which bios to take or what to think of first? I found a WPH file for the X61 - can that be used? Or do I need to find someone with the same machine and get a backup of his? Thanks for any comments! I know these are quite a lot of questions ... Cheers, Hein
how to clear bios password great! I have found that BIOS/CMOS Password Recovery Tool is the most effective.:
Hi, I'm trying to recover an AMI BIOS from an old notebook (2003). I put the bios file on a blank floppy, renamed it to AMIBOOT.ROM, then I turn on the system, black screen, it beeps once, it try to access the floppy and then it beeps again (it doesn't restart) and try to access the floppy again, and it repeats again and again. I've tryed with AMIBOOT.ROM, amiboot.rom, AMIBIOS.ROM, amibios.rom but I think it fails to find the bios file. The floppy is OK, the disk is OK the computer is OK. The program BCP760.EXE report a bad checksum on module 6 (DMI data) of the moded bios i flashed, and the diferences between the original BIOS and the moded bios is just the OEM string "Hewlett-Packard" added to the DMI data. Any help or idea it will be very very appreciated.
Toshiba PRO L40 PSL4BE Hi there, Toshiba PRO L40 PSL4BE. Corrupt bios after windows XP based bios update. Anybody know what bios (award/phoenix/ami) this laptop uses? Can't get any information from Toshiba site or manuals. For now trying to complete a flash from either USB FDD or USB Flash drive, but neither FDD or Flash Drive are being detected on power up. Is there a specific key combination for this model (or any other Toshiba to try) out there? Any findings will be added to this post. Update I was under the impression that since after WinXP BIOS update, the laptop had initially rebooted, passed BIOS, entered WinXP and after the second reboot and attempted save of BIOS, a simple BIOS reset to default was necessary. (Summary WINXP_BIOS_UPDATE > REBOOT > WINXP > RESTART > ENTER_BIOS_TO_SAVE_DEFAULT > REBOOT > BLACK_SCREEN) 1.The laptop was dismantled with help from the excellent guide: irisvista.com/tech/laptops/Toshiba-Satellite-L45/laptop-disassembly-instructions-1.htm 2. The CMOS battery was located and a small piece of solder was placed across battery wires connected to motherboard and left for fifteen minutes, in order to create a short and therefore force a BIOS default reset. This was a success. The BIOS was AMI based. I hope someone, somewhere finds this information helpful, as it took me a full day to resolve this problem. Regards. Thanks.