DELL Studio XPS 8100 BIOS help - bricked

kris00l · May 11, 2014

Hello,

Was not sure what got me into today to decide to update BIOS for DELL Studio XPS 8100 from A03 to A05 but I went ahead and did upgrade guess what I think I bricked it . I had Win 8 64 bit running and tried to flash. Flash went to 36% and hung. So rebooted. Now I see NO BIOS.

Please help.

Thanks
kris

SOCRATE_MMXII · May 12, 2014

Here's the solution:

1. Head to Dell support and download the latest bios. This will be an exe file.
2. Extract the rom image from that file by using the following command line switch: /WriteRomFile (that means run the following command: 1340_A11.exe /WriteRomFile). This results in a file called 1340_A11.ROM being placed in the same folder as the 1340_A11.exe file.
3. Grab a usb stick (try to find an old one that only shows as a single drive) and format it to FAT. Not FAt32, not NTFS just plain old FAT.
4. Rename your ROM file to BIOS.WPH and place it on the usb stick along with PHLASH16.EXE (phoenix flash utility) and MINIDOS.SYS (from minidos).
5. Remove the battery from your Dell and unplug the power chord. Plug the USB stick in a free USB slot. Press the End key, plug the power and release the END key. This will power on the laptop and make it search for a valid PHLASH16.EXE and BIOS.WPH on the usb stick. If your usb stick has a led indicating activity this should be blinking for about 2~3 minutes. Once the led stops blinking the actual flashing will be performed. This will take another 3~4 minutes. Once the flashing is completed the machine will restart and boot.
Click to expand...

Replace the exe file according to your model.

kris00l · May 13, 2014

Thank you for responding to my request SOCRATE_MMXII.

Unfortunately the steps you are recommending are for laptop that has Phoenix BIOS but my system is a Desktop that has AMI BIOS.

DELL Studio XPS 8100 BIOS help - bricked

kris00l MDL Novice

SOCRATE_MMXII MDL Expert

kris00l MDL Novice