I have read the entire "Undocumented INSYDE BIOS recovery method" thread and found several ideas to fix recover this BIOS, but all seem to be failing. I flashed the incorrect BIOS to this laptop, by force... I have a L350-S1001V (BIOS 1.50) and found a newer L350-S1701 BIOS (2.20) on the Toshiba website, tried to flash and it said it wasn't compatible, stupid me figured it was just trying to keep from flashing a foreign or "world-wide" BIOS so I issued the command "FLAs**t ps10220m.fd /ALL /MC" and it seemed to flash fine, but now will not boot. So now I have the correct BIOS file and the proper BIOS recovery for Toshiba seems to be: 1) Rename BIOS file to BIOS.fd (per Andy's tool and other user experience) 2) Copy to FAT32 formatted USB drive 3) Remove battery and power 4) Hold down FUNCTION+F 5) Apply power wait a few seconds, then press Power Button, wait a couple seconds and release FUNCTION+F and the Flash should start, but I get nothing. Power light comes on but will not do anything anything else. I have tried multiple key combinations (FUNCTION+ESC, WIN+B, Arrows, etc) with the same results. So, did I brick it or am I missing something??? Kind of assuming since I flashed the wrong BIOS file with the /ALL parameter I might have hosed the boot block?
try FN + B or FN + X or FN + U and yes the filename is BIOS.fd might have to do it in cd or floppy usb.. and possibly add flas**t.exe with autoexec.bat with blind flashing forced however since u forced a new different bios id .. it might not take it. SPI USB flasher like EN25T80 might be only solution.. desolder chip.
OK, thank you...will give those options a try tonight. I did try the FN+B, but not X or U, and it didn't access the USB Flash drive. If it gets to a point I need to look at desoldering or spending much money, I will skip it, it's just not worth much, I will part it out and buy something used on eBay or Geeks.com for a couple hundred bucks.
I am seeing more and more references to the Toshiba with Insyde BIOS requiring a key combination of POWER+F to initiate recovery... can anyone elaborate on this a little more with details on the procedure, it doesn't seem to be the typical way a Insyde BIOS is recovered.
Well, all efforts to recover this have failed, I cannot get the BIOS Recovery routine to even start and I have tried a USB Floppy, USB Flash Drive, and CD ROM, even an old hard drive with a 10MB bootable DOS partition setup to force flash the BIOS. I sat for several hours and tried every key combination I could come up with, and then some I just made up too. Looks like it's buy one for parts on eBay and swap out, or I can get a new motherboard for $66 on Amazon but for a 5 year old laptop I am not sure it's worth it and just went back to my old HP Mobile Workstation nw8240 for now. Thanks for the help!
Thanks, I might do that... for about $20 total for the cable and programmer I guess it can't hurt. Sorry can't post a link, but I assume by EN25T80 you mean one of these eBay items: 260863545145 (just search number, it will pop right to the item I am looking at). Realistically with a programmer (and a little assistance) I don't see how I can't recover this, I can't imagine the EEPROM is actually bad, and I have the proper BIOS.fd file, shouldn't I be able to just re-flash it with the programmer and be good to go? Thanks again for your help!!!
Looks like I found someone who has the programmer and the clip cable I can borrow for a couple days soon so I don't have to order one from China... what software do I need to reflash the chip or do a capture of the existing ROM, or can you point me to a thread that has this information?
OK, sounds good. I will make sure I get the software with the unit... might be a week, but I will get back to you when I get to that point! Thanks!!!