Acer Laptops - Repair a FAILED BIOS Update

[Psymon]

Hi,

Well my GF's Acer Aspire 5720 doesn’t always connect to the router at home, so I guessed it was the wireless drivers, as my iPhone and sisters laptop always connect fine.

After an update, which didn’t solve the problem, I thought I would try a BIOS update, V1.17 to V1.42 - quite an upgrade.

Well the winFlash file opened, erased the bios, then failed on "VALIDATE FAILED" error AFTER ERASING THE BIOS FFS!

Press the power button, hard drive cycles continuously, screen doesn’t turn on, it was a brick.

After some reading I found something quite fantastic, if your laptop has a PHOENIX BIOS, you can do the following to revive it from being a brick.

1. Download the BIOS from the manufacturer’s site, preferably the version that worked originally.
2. Burn ONLY the .FD file to the CD.
3. Remove the Battery and Power Cable from the laptop.
4. Open the CD Drive with a Pin (Push a pin into the hole on the drive to force an eject)
5. Put the CD with the original .FD BIOS file into the drive.
6. Hold the FN and ESCAPE keys down.
7. Plug the MAINS LEAD ONLY into the laptop.
8. Press the power button whilst still holding the keys.

a. This will FORCE the computer to load the .FN file from the CD and write it to the BIOS of the machine.

9. The laptop will power up, you can release the keys; leave the laptop for 20-30 minutes if needed.
10. The computer will turn itself off once complete.
11. Re-insert the battery, power on the laptop.
12. It works

a. In my case – Happy GF.

I tried the version that failed the update on my laptop first, and it did not install, I downloaded the 1.19 version (closest I could find for my BIOS to 1.17 [original]) and it worked.

Hope this works for anyone that experiences this problem, thought it was a pretty awesome fix, and worth people knowing.

Read also that you can do this with desktop PC’s if you hold CTRL and Escape when pressing the power button, but don’t want to create the problem just to fix it.

Regards,
Psy

[leco]

Thanks I have some of these machines so it may very well come in handy - another tool in the knowledge box

[zepmsn]

Hi

I try that method above in my Acer Aspire 5920 but it's seen didn't work...

anyone who have original BIOS driver for Acer Aspire 5920 please help...I need that for last tries...

[Gibbo]

There's more helpful info here:

[Resolved] Failed BIOS Update on Acer TRavelMate 4150 series - Wim's BIOS Page

I've cut and pasted the text just in case the link ever goes (credit to LinuxGuru)

Do not use the Windows BIOS version to make a BIOS Flash. I did the same mistake with my "new" Acer 4152 NCLI Laptop purchased in 2006 and when I asked for help from Acer support I realized I had to pay "phone consultancy charges" per 30 minutes.

So, Always create a DOS Boot Floppy and then Flash the BIOS, its simpler and saves you headaches later.

Anyways, this was not the first episode with my ACER Laptop- I had Windows XP not booting up or "hanging" on boot up, so I decided to move to Linux - PCLinux 2007 which is a far better O/s. You can read all about my Acer Adventure and PC Linux 2007 recovery on my blog charlesvaz.blogspot.com/2006/09/is-it-knoppix-time.html .

Ok, here is the step by step instruction since I faced the same problem and I have fixed it - easily to my surprise.

*Get an External USB Floppy Drive

*Create a DOS Bootable Floppy Disk
(using Win XP from Format Menu, you can also go to any of the disk recovery sites and get a dos bootable ISO and write that ISO to a CD and then boot the CD and then make a bootable Floppy)

*Go to the Acer Europe web-site or choose region as Europe from Acer.com (ftp://ftp1.work.acer-euro.com/notebook/) .

*Download the latest BIOS zip file for your model or the closest model (Example: If you have an Acer 4152 model laptop, you should choose travelmate_4150) . From the bios directory, download the latest BIOS zip file, in which you will find a readme.txt Example for 4150 the latest BIOS version is 2.50D.

*You have to be lucky to find the following line in your readme.txt
"Using Crisis"

*If you find the above line in your readme.txt, you can proceed with the recovery, since you have a DOS floppy and you also have a way to create the 512K ROM file which can be copied along with bflashit.bin on the Floppy.

*Now when you have downloaded the zip - sometimes there are two versions as for 4150 model - EDL00_250_WinFlash.zip and edl00_250.zip.

*Do not use the Windows version to make a BIOS Flash. I did the same mistake. Always create a DOS Boot Floppy and then Flash the BIOS, its simpler and saves you headaches later.

*Unzip the edl00_250.zip file and then you will see a file that resembles the name BUILDROM.Bat or BUIDROM.bat (spelling mistakes are common with ACER)

*Open a DOS command prompt on your Windows machine or other laptop and then run the batch file

*You would have created 6 ROM files of 512K length each - 43M.ROM,44MV.ROM, UMA.ROM and their corresponding DOCK versions - i.e. 43Mdock.ROM and so on.

*Now you have to copy bflashit.bin and one of the above ROM files onto the DOS Bootable floppy you have created.

The process is trial and error and there is no harm done at all.

*I tried without the DOCK versions and when I tried by renaming UMA.ROM to BIOS.ROM as the first readme.txt said, and copying that to the Floppy it worked like magic.

*Take the floppy and connect the external USB Floppy Drive to the "Dead screen Acer Laptop", No need of removing any battery or any screws from the laptop,

*Just press Fn and ESC keys together on the "dead screen laptop" and press the power button (making sure that the laptop is on AC power - since if the power in your laptop fails during the BIOS Flash, then you may need to replace the BIOS Chip - which is a sad process.)

*After you have pressed the power button on your "dead screen laptop", keep the hold on the Fn and ESC key till you see the green light on your External Floppy Drive with your DOS Bootable Flash floppy being read inside.

*This is a good sign and you can now release the Fn and ESC keys and just watch the laptop slowly reading in the Flash from your Floppy and "Burning"/writing the new flash software into the Flash EEPROM chip.

*Keep the laptop for 2 minutes as it is and you will see the hard disc power light go off and the laptop only showing the AC/Battery light - meaning the laptop has now powered down.

*IF ALL is WELL with the .ROM file you selected then you shall see the BIOS screen as soon as you press the Power Button on your "new ALIVE screen Acer Laptop"

All the BEST and keep trying all the 6 files (maybe 6 files are an example for 4150) - similar process should exist for all the "new" ACER model laptops.

[SYNACK]

Don't trust floppy drives, they are just as likely to ruin your day by corrupting the BIOS file before you get to write it. I use bootable USB for prefference and bootable CD if it does not support USB booting. Much more reliable.

[Gibbo]

Update: Just tried the above advice on a faulty Travelmate 4151 laptop and its worked!

I renamed the UMA.ROM to BIOS.ROM