How do I undo a BIOS update?

I updated my Acer Travelmate P645-MG from version 2.07 to 2.09. However, I strongly suspected that the BIOS update caused some stability issues, but apparently the BIOS update file that Acer provided won't allow the rollback.

 

Normally you just flash an older version. I don't remember it being blocked in a notebook although it is sometimes impossible to flash older firmware in routers for example (because of a change in a bootloader which shouldn't apply to BIOS).

Try reverting BIOS to default settings and see if it helps.

 

It's already at default settings.

 

Go into BIOS and find "back flash" setting and change it to enabled. That should do it.

 

I've looked through the BIOS menu and there were no specific options regarding BIOS flashing.

EDIT: I looked through Acer's two-year limited warranty on the laptop and it mentions nothing about BIOS. Hopefully that means I didn't void my warranty through flashing the BIOS (it works, but it caused some issues with a few appliances after the update).

 

Almost with all the acer laptops you can do a bios recovery via USB. I have done it on 2 different laptops. Just google it. Here is the one I used Undocumented INSYDE BIOS recovery method.-Use andy's tool to obtain possible names.

 

The only file that Acer provided is that BIOS update utility tool. I'm not sure if that can be directly booted off of a USB stick when in the BIOS mode.

EDIT: More specifically, the update utility tool is a 7-zip installer.

 

I called Acer's tech support and they said that they don't do BIOS rollbacks. They did say that the repair center will take in laptops with bricked BIOS, but if the BIOS is functional and the laptop is able to boot to the OS, then they can't send it to the repair center.

 

I remember on Asus' BIOS flash tool you needed to start the flasher with a switch which ignored the current installed version, thus allowing it to downgrade. Maybe this flash tool has switches which can be set at startup?

Take a look at this:
and thus goes by another day » Blog Archive » InsydeFlash Bios downgrade.

 

Thanks! Although I ran into another issue, probably has to do with the 7-zip's permission stuff or whatever. I copied the file into my desktop and edited it, but I can't delete the original file within the 7-zip installer. Should I try extracting everything and run the InsydeFlash.exe directly?

 

Base on your comment I knew you didn't read the link in my post. But that is fine because the error shown is different then what you wrote. The program is trying to tell you that the bios is configured not to allow bios back flash. Disable this feature in the bios will allow you to flash to an older version.

 

I did read the link. I had to use 7-zip because the files were inside an installer and couldn't edit the platform file within the installer.

I decided to extract the files from the installer to edit the platform file. Running the InsydeFlash.exe directly is possible, but I'm uncertain about it.

 

Should work if you extract all files from the archive to one folder. Just to be sure, don't use spaces in the name of the folder.

It's pretty much the same the self-extracting archive does, it extracts the contents to a temp folder and runs it from there.

 

Hm, another error message even when I didn't edit the platform file. I already re-tried extracting the files.




I've also read that 7-zip doesn't allow writing within an archive because of a "solid mode" enabled by default. I'm not sure where that "solid mode" option is. I think that editing the file within the installer might be the only way to get the BIO flashing to work.