Corrupt Bios Recovery

Ok Heres the Deal....

Just received a HDX 9200 (**AKA the HDX Dragon**) from a client.

The back story goes, they reformatted downlaoded ALL the drivers from HP's website and installed, after isntall PC wouldnt turn on.

Symptons -- Black Screen, Fans spinning up, Lights on ---NO one Home.

Now before istarted i though F*** motherboard, what a shame on a nice 22 inch Laptop, i thought cant do it any harm to take it apart and reset everything on the MOBO including the HEatsink ect.

Done, during the putting back together proccess it suddenly occurred to me what he had said he had done **INSTALLED ALLL OF THE DRIVERS OFF THE HP SITE** Does this include Bios i thought to myself, i checked The SP packages on the PC he downloaded them on and lo and behold there was the Bios package.

Now after a long bit of thought i thought i mite well be, it could be the BIOS

-The only Bios fixes ive done in the past were with swapping of chips.

Found a nice forum explaining clearly how to enter MOBOS Crisis recovery
http://forum.notebookreview.com/com...sis-recovery-diskette-recovery-bios-fail.html

However a few problems on the way

1) didnt have a usb floppy (after foruming found its unlikely to work with USB Flash or CD)

So i went and bought one

2) the extracted Setup File only contains a Bios ROM not a Wph File,. HMMM>

Thought id try just a basic generic Phoenix Bios, however the Laptop still wont read the FDD.

Tried on a CD and the CD spins up but still nothing

Strange thing occurs when i press the Win Key and B during the plug and turn on stage --- THE Caps lock key flashes every 2 seconds

Could this mean its entering a crisis mode, or could this be an alternative to the beep codes im sincerely missing to tell me whats wrong???

Any help would be apprecciated

Thanks Guys

Billy

 

This does sound like a corrupt BIOS probllem. Need to find the motherboard make, model, Rev # and Bios version. They should be on the board itself, if not ther are utilities out there that will give you this info. Then go to motherboard website and find the motherboard and use an upgraded version of Bios.

They will read off of a USB drive, you have to make sure it is plugged in before you restart the computer, if it doesn't work, then go into your BIOS and set the USB in the boot order

 

you may have missed part of what I said in my jargon rant,

Am not getting to post, no beep codes, no screen, nothing so impossible for me to get. Into the bios settings,

Have. Downloaded the latest bios from hp?s site however there is only a rom file and not a wph file, which is what's needed for the crisis recovery, so am having no luck with the win + b combination to enter bios boot block

Any help would be great

Billy

 

Why? What's the real back story?

Though it can happen, I note that it is unusal for a BIOS these days to become corrupt - at least not where a simple reboot, or in extreme cases, a BIOS reset does not fix it. The last truely corrupted BIOS I have encounters was well over 15 years ago when we had a power outage in the middle of BIOS flash. Not pretty.

Check out these HP Blank Screen LED Error Codes.

Sorry Trussman but I disagree with the advice to use the motherboard maker's BIOS and drivers. If this were a self built machine, I would agree, but since this is a HP, I would urge the use of HP's versions. Going to the motherboard makers will yield "generic" versions as supplied to all notebook makers using that board. But it is typical for computer makers to customize the drivers for their specific hardware configurations.

 

Hmmm, for some reason, the link to the HP Blank Screen LED Error Codes disappears after about 2 seconds here - on two machines. ???

http ://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01443366&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

Remove the space after http and it should work.

 

1st thing is, when you turn on the PC, will it let you hit the F1, F2, Delete or End, so that you can get into the bios. Also you didn't say if you tried to clear the CMOS.

 

Why can't you access the system restore and it restore it back to factory

 

Mr Trussman, without access to the bios (being as it is corrupt) there is no way of resetting to defaults, please read my original post before replying (sorry to sound Rude)

I When the PC turns on there is no screen --- the fans are whirling the lights are on but NOThing.

To access criticcal bios recovery you generally have an option of pressing win +b to tell the computer to read an external device *this is all done blind* with no GUI

the problem im having is getting the PC to read an external FDD to access the Bios Rom.

From all the guides i have read most are quite straighhtforward, however another problem i ran into was that the guides tell you to use a .WPH file (generally a bios config file) on the Bios download packet from HP i can only find a .ROM file, am wondering if its ok to change file extension as it should still hold the valid data


Sorry if i didnt explain myself previously

Billy

PC repair and tuition

 

Have been to the HP link, ---and thanks has been very informational, however its only tells me that i could have a problem withg my BIOS which i already know.

This problem is starting to annoy me, such a lovely machine and i dont want to see it go to waste, i jsut hope after al lthis it is actually the BIOS thats the problem every sign points to the fact that it is...

Next step, either keep trying the Win +B step, or move on to hot swapping, either that or purchase a new bios chips online ....YAWN

Cheers Guys

 

Or, sending it in to HP tech support - which at this point, may be the best option.

 

Hp Support = Expensive, am jsut gonna try calling tham and see if i can wangle some free asnwers from them

 

Sorry about my misunderstanding. In original post you said,

"Strange thing occurs when i press the Win Key and B during the plug and turn on stage --- THE Caps lock key flashes every 2 seconds

Could this mean its entering a crisis mode, or could this be an alternative to the beep codes im sincerely missing to tell me whats wrong???".

In Digerati's earlier post, he gave a link to the flashing light codes. It has a lot of info on the codes and fixes you might want to look at that.

Here it is below

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...3366&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

 

I know - but otherwise you might have a very expensive paper weight. And replacing the BIOS chip is not as simple as installing RAM, and it may not fix the problem either.

Any chance it is still under warranty?

 

Have you tried pressing the 4 arrows as down the bottom of that HP page.

 

Ok So i tried HP support, tried blaggin that it was in warranty = FAIL


Thought id have another play around before i ruled it as a doorstop

Tried 3 different things tried Creating a crisis recovery diskette and renaming my driver Binary file (.BIN) to . WPH = FAIL

Then found these instructions http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...official-hp-hdx-dragon-owners-lounge-899.html

This time the Computerread from the floppy drive straight away.

WIN WIN WIN

It did it, updated my bios and now im setting up windows again

WIN WIN WIN

Cheers for everyones help guys

Billy

 

Thanks for your explanation, on how you solved it - no doubt others will appreciate it.