Updated BIOS, seems to have bricked board...

[evilsatan]

This is a bit lame, I had a Toshiba Satellite U400 in from one of my best mates (fortunately!). It needed a BIOS update so I went onto the Toshiba website, narrowed it down and found the right BIOS using the model prefix. Current BIOS was 4.00, new BIOS was 4.70.

Extracted onto the machine and winphlash made a backup of the current BIOS which I have safe on my PC. Winphlash freezes the mouse and keyboard so the user can't mess anything up during the flash but it just never flashed the BIOS. It got to the point of the flash and just halted, I have the log file. IT stayed this way for an hour after which I powered off the machine and powered on ok as the original BIOS was still on the chip. I then made a bootable USB stick, put the updated BIOS file on it with phlash16 and booted from the POST screen, updated the BIOS fine but now the power comes on but nothing is on the screen.

I can't work out what has gone wrong here, perhaps the mobo was replaced some time ago and so the BIOS I used was incorrect? On the Toshiba website there is one model of mobo that has v5.00 BIOS.

Anyway, now I have the BIOS backup and have to work out the recovery procedure, I have had very little success with recovering a bricked board in the past. I also need to try and clear the CMOS in case that has any bearing on it.

Any tips? I will be checking guides at mydigitallife too when I get back from my jobs today

[scott23red]

Hi,

Is it award or Phoenix there used to be a Phoenix crisis recovery file knocking about (but this was a long time ago when the bios files were smaller so may not be applicable now). My first thought would be to remove the cmos battery to clear the bios to see if its just a rogue setting if that doesn't work you could just slot a new bios chip for relatively small amount of money might be worth a punt if all else fails

Heres a link but there are lots of company doing the chips http://bios-repair.co.uk/Programmed-...o-Laptops.html

[evilsatan]

Cheers, I have replaced the chip on a board before so might end up doing that. It's phoenix bios but the Phoenix Mod Tool does't give me recovery filenames when loading the backup in.

[evilsatan]

I used drdflash.exe from bootdisk.com which is listed as "Driver Free Disk For BIOS Flashing", I used that to format a floppy using a USB Floppy drive. I loaded phlash16.exe and renamed my FLASHABL.bak BIOS backup to bios.WPH and put an autoexec.bat file on there containing:

echo off
phlash16.exe /x /s bios.WPH

Removed the battery from the laptop and power cord and inserted the USB floppy drive, held Fn+B and plugged the cord in and powered up, nothing happened. Tried Win+B, nothing happened. Tried Fn+Esc and the Floppy made a brief noise, green light flicked on then off in a split second and now nothing.

Looks like Fn+Esc may be the hotkey for recovery, so now I need to work out which variable is causing the problem. Any ideas?

[evilsatan]

I had also used the HP USB Boot tool and MiniDOS to create a bootable USB and copied the same files as above onto it. Just tried that with Fn+Esc and now it is beeping and the power light is flashing, fingers crossed this is positive!!

Edit - beeping in a pattern with power light flashing on and off, goes on and on, doesn't look good. Might be the bios backup at fault but I don't know if the mobo matches the laptop model so can't be sure which clean bios is right!

[Over Carl]

Try renaming it from bios.WPH to BIOS.WPH

[evilsatan]

I think I tried that, I used the case that was in the autoexec batch file, will check tomorrow

[evilsatan]

I thought I had cracked it, using the USB floppy drive I followed these instructions:
http://gammarco.wordpress.com/tag/bios/

I used WinCrisis 1.0.0.4 to create a rescue floppy, used Fn+Esc which accessed the Floppy and then the floppy was accessed for some time whilst the laptop made a series of beeps (different to before). After a while the floppy was no longer accessed and the laptop proceeded to make a buzzing noise followed by a beep, this sequence continued. As the floppy was no longer in use and it had made this new sequence for 5 minutes I disconnected the power. When trying to power back up the power light doesn't come on now... Will clear the CMOS and see where I stand.

EDIT:
Looks completely dead now, I left the CMOS battery disconnected for a couple of hours and power disconnected, reconnected the CMOS battery, held Fn+Esc, connected power cord (light comes on), press power button and ow no power light turns on...