Have a HP G61 408CA which I believe has a corrupt bios (Just out of the blue) Symptoms: On boot, CPU fan starts up, DVD drive makes initialization noise, and both Caplock and Numlock flash twice in a repeating pattern. Nothing visible on screen. I believe the laptop is Pre EFI bios (but can't really be 100% sure as I haven't been able to locate any documentation to say that it is or isn't. The firmware package looks to not be EFI [single FD BIOS file] and the Laptop is from 2009) I downloaded the latest firmware package from HP (sp46806.EXE) and the following files were extracted I looked in the platform.ini and noted 363F, and 3652 in the [Platform_Check] section. I then took a 4 GIG USB stick and formatted at FAT16 As I initial test, I Put the BLANK USB stick in the right port closest to me, and booted the machine while holding down Windows-B. The computer boots, the USB stick is accessed, the computer Beeps 1 time, and the shuts down. I copied 363FF12.fd to the root of the USB key, and did the above boot steps. Same results - The computer boots, the USB stick is accessed, the computer Beeps 1 time, and the shuts down. Renaming 363FF12.fd to 363FF12.BIN and did the above boot steps with the computer.. Same results - The computer boots, the USB stick is accessed, the computer Beeps 1 time, and the shuts down. Renaming 363FF12.fd to 3652.BIN and did the above boot steps with the computer.. Same results - The computer boots, the USB stick is accessed, the computer Beeps 1 time, and the shuts down. I renamed 363FF12.BIN to 363F.BIN and did the above boot steps with the computer. New results - The computer boots, accessing the USB stick while doing the following pattern 3 Beeps, pause, 1 beep, Pause, 1 beep, Pause, 1 beep, Pause, 1 beep, Pause, 1 beep, Pause, 1 beep, then USB access stops (the machine sits with the Capslock and Numlock flashing) So most likely the 363F.BIN is the correct file name (based on the different results) According to this link,h/t/t/p @ support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02222922, the 1 beep (nothing found), and 3 beeps (Unable to start flashing such as when missing a utility or BIOS image) may make sense.. So I either have an incorrect bios file, a corrupt bios file, or the bios is actually EFI, Anyone been able to successfully recover a G61 bios (VIA USB) and able to provide some details on what worked (or ideas on what I'm doing wrong) Thanks! Paul
Hi Thanks for the reply Playing with trying to fix the laptop again without much success. Honestly had to shelf it for a while as I was going to rent a catapult and hurl the laptop at HP's corporate offices Have tried SP48394.exe and along with different file names on the raw bios file with the same level of non success. Note: SP48394.exe created a EFI looking folder on my USB stick (\Hewlett-Packard\SystemDiags) but didn't seem to help (or I didn't know what needed to be done in conjunction with this to solve the flash issue) Per your "my digital life link provided", Dont think I actually was able to locate "HP Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) Support Environment" for my G61-408ca laptop. There was a somewhat similar named tool (sp45774.exe?) in the support file section; but it looked to be some tool to copy an existing HP EFI partition to a USB stick versing allowing me to build one (ran it on non HP machine and it did nothing as far as I can tell) I took a shot at the BIOS file. Located a copy of phoenixtool250 and ran the bios downloaded from HP (sp48895.EXE) through it. Was expecting 2 files; but instead got thousands of files (as least the tool identified that the machine was EFI) Any ideas on how I'd get to the 2 files (in step 6?) Honestly one of the worst experiences I've had trying to recover a bios. The lack of any concise G61 recovery details anywhere is driving me nutts. I don't think I've found a single thread with someone successfully mentioning/restoring from a corrupt BIOS (there was one about someone praying to solve their issue; but I don't think its viable for me Again thanks for you previous and future replies Paul