Emmc Bios Not Accepting Drive Selection.

Lenovo ideapad 100s-11BY model: 80R2 OS: Windows 10

Problem: eMMC has been formatted. BIOS cannot find eMMC or USB for start-up, or repair. BIOS will not allow selection of USB or eMMC or anything else for that matter.

Request: Is there a USB stick utility that will enforce itself over the BIOS and allow for BIOS update and windows 10 reinstall (windows 8.1 would also be acceptable).

History: Ideapad was passed on to second user who did not have Bitlock key. Original owner has no knowledge of set up as such no Bitlock key. During windows 10 update Bitlocker activated and requested key. As none could be found eMMC was formatted. BIOS will not accept start-up from USB stick. All that is required is a new install of Windows OS 10 or 8.1 as no info on eMMC is required for retrieval.

I thank you in advance for your kind assistance is restoring this computer to its former, err, glory.

 

Disable UEFI and secure boot in bios.....try legacy boot or similar!

 

I tried

Formatted a 14GB stick

In Ideapad changed secure boot to disabled, no other options for legacy or changing boot media, or disabling UEFI.

Downloaded a USB creation tool ISO2Disc which is free

Downloaded Windows 10 64bit ISO image file via Microsoft's website using their Media Creation Tool.

Following the instructions for the ISO2 tool I created a bootable Windows 10 USB stick. I did this twice using both formats, MBR and GPT neither worked.

BIOS still refuses to acknowledge external USB.

Thank you for the new direction I shall continue to see if there are other options along similar paths.

Alas issue remains unsolved.

 

It would be good for the disk is recognised by the motherboard.
Have you tried different USB ports.
I know of USB sticks working on some machines and not others.
I was going to recommend Hiren's bootable

s.

 

I tried

Formatted a 14GB thumb drive

The Ideapad UEFI (bios) is not disabled although secure boot is, and continues to circle in not reading a bootable drive. This leaves the Ideapad in a 'bricked' state.

Downloaded Windows 10 32-bit ISO image the correct version for the Ideapad model.

There are two USB ports and I have been alternating with each different try.

Used Ultimate Boot CD via USB stick alas not recognised.

Used Hiren's Boot alas not recognised.

Even tried System Rescue the Linux bootable, alas not recognised.

The Ideapad is a glorified tablet as such once the eMMC is formatted it looks as if the UEFI is damaged and is unable to recognise any further source of boot. Coming back to the original request of is there a utility that will rewrite the UEFI.

The Ideapad's motherboard is small and fully manufactured as such chips cannot be removed or adjusted from what I can see, easily. All the usual tricks of short-circuiting etc. would be financially non-viable and rather risky on such a small motherboard. Has it got to the stage where a UEFI bios is so secure that when damaged it is not reparable?

My thanks to directions given so far, they have given new ideas and paths to follow.

I await other ideas on this mind teaser.

 

Have you ever booted this Ideapad from a USB stick?

 

No I have never booted this Ideapad from a USB stick. It has been unused for most of its life. Hence the update then the Bitlocker lockout and then format. It is looking more like spare parts at this time...

 

Not all motherboards allow booting from a USB device.

 

Are there any bios firmware updates available for this device?
Have you checked?

Its risky, but there would no doubt be a 'hacked' bios available allowing deeper configurations......someone would have figured it out.
Who said Google?

Remember these can brick your device on fail, so use at own risk......well, they cant really, but its a PITA to get em back.

 

It is true that not all motherboards allow booting from a USB device however, as Ideapad has two USB ports and was loaded with Windows 10 from manufacture; I would believe that suitable software would rewrite the hardware and get it working again. A low cost mass-produced computer although needing to be secure would not be manufactured with quite such high security, one would hope.

Yes, there is an update available from the Lenovo website and I have a copy, which I have been trying to use brutally. So far not successful.

I will look into a deeper configuration as it is worth the risk as the Ideapad is useless now, other than the challenge of getting it going again.

Opening up the case a while ago, I looked at the motherboard, which is rather small. Having not dealt with such a board I am hesitant at trying anything physical on it at this time until I have exhausted all other software repair fixes. A new motherboard is $139, but I am actually unsure that that would even work due to the Bitlocker. If Bitlocking a device is contained just to the motherboard, then I presume that a new board will fix the issue.

Again, my thanks for the new leads and the research avenues. I shall spend the weekend indulging the mind in this puzzle.

 

Thank you for the link to the user guide, I had read it, thus was aware that getting into a UEFI might be a tad overreaching. User guides though are not Tech repair manuals so they tend to be less informative. However, there is brute force software out there and was hoping that someone had come across this problem and found a software workaround. Alas, I do agree, it is looking more and more that the only publicly known fix at this time is a new motherboard.

Unfortunately, when I received the Ideapad the drive had been formatted and the UEFI had not been updated to the latest version of UEFI, which allows USB/legacy boot.

 

Found a blog and software for brute forcing the backdoor, alas not quite right for my situation.

However, some of the info may be of use to those having similar problems.

There are several ways to get the original keys out of the system:

Sometimes, the decryption key can be extracted from the hibernation file, which is created when the system is hibernated. The system dumps an image of the computer’s RAM into a file when entering hibernation. Windows uses the hiberfil.sys file to store a copy of the system memory. However, some systems (e.g. slates with Connected Standby or Modern Standby, which are very likely to employ BitLocker Device Protection) may not use hibernation at all (Connected Standby is used instead until the system reaches a very low power state, after which it can either hibernate or shut down). More information how to enable or disable hibernation is available at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920730.

You can also attempt imaging a ‘live’ system using one of the many memory-dumping tools (administrative privileges required). The complete description of this technology and a comprehensive list of tools (free and commercial) are available at http://www.forensicswiki.org/wiki/Tools:Memory_Imaging. I recommend MoonSols Windows Memory Toolkit (paid tool, no demo version, pricing on request with no contact form available) or Belkasoft Live RAM Capturer (free, immediately downloadable, minimal footprint and kernel-mode operation on 32-bit and 64-bit systems).

The last option is available on certain systems equipped with a FireWire port. It is possible to access the memory of a computer (even if it is locked) via a FireWire port. There are several tools that can acquire memory using this technology, e.g. Inception (yes, it’s “that Python tool”).

Elcomsoft Forensic Disk Decryptor to decrypt BitLocker volumes, and Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery to break BitLocker passwords.
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Well, I am getting quite hopeful that there is a brute-force UEFI tool that will restore this Ideapad; as such, I will continue my learning curve and just maybe, achieve my goal. Meanwhile if nothing else I continue to learn.