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    Help! Acer 8950G bios update failure

    Discussion in 'Acer' started by Zillion, Apr 25, 2011.

  1. Zillion

    Zillion Newbie

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    Hi everyone... help, bios updated failed ("write error") while updating from 1.05 to 1.06 in Windows, can't boot anymore, black screen, etc.

    Been looking around all over the 'net for a "crisis"-kind of solution.

    I think the machine uses "Insyde Flash" bios, so I guess I can't use the phoenix crisis disk, which requires a bios.wph.

    I've found some info on this forum, but that points to using an ".fd" file.

    On the Acer site, the "original" bios file for the machine includes two .BIN files: ZYF_102.BIN and ZYFec11.BIN. The first is about 4 MB, the second is about 512 KB, and it's in an "ec" folde (? ec ? error-correcting ??).

    Please, can someone help me to recover my machine ?

    None of the instructions I can find seem to apply to this machine... or I'm missing something.
     
    Zillion, Apr 25, 2011
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  2. Zillion

    Zillion Newbie

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    OK, I found it.
    Reading about lots of other machines with similar BIOSes, I found that they use an ".FD" file for the "crisis" bios recovery, but the problem is finding the right name for the file.
    Then I found I could "unpack" the Windows bios program (not the Dos one, he he he) using WinRAR, and in there I saw the correct filename is ZYF.fd for my machine.
    I put that file (straight from the unpacked windows bios) to a fat-formatted USB stick, unplugged the power from the broken machine, removed the battery, inserted the stick, pressed FN + ESC from then on all the time; then inserted the AC power, pressed power on, and after about 30 seconds or a minute, I noticed it started actually reading the stick (as opposed to the stick's light being just on or off all the time, which happened as long as I was using an incorrect filename).
    After another minute or so, the machine started beeping about once per second, which went on for a few minutes, then it restarted.... FIXED !!!!!

    Now I'm off to find how to flash a more recent BIOS on my machine from Dos... this is the second time this happens to me !! It happened last year on my Acer 8940 as well ! Acer, get Windows flashing to work properly, OR just create a user-friendly "make a bootable dos usb stick" program for us that immediatly creates a complete bootable usb stick...
     
    Zillion, Apr 25, 2011
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  3. tesna

    tesna Notebook Enthusiast

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    How do you unpack the windows bios program using winrar? I need to somehow reflash my 4750G since after flashing bios the machine refuse my power on password. I can't find the correct name for bios recovery.
     
    tesna, Apr 26, 2011
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  4. Orlbuckeye

    Orlbuckeye Notebook Evangelist

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    Sorry I flashed 1.05 to 1.06 last week with no issues. I hope you get this issue fixed fast.
     
    Orlbuckeye, Apr 26, 2011
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