Alienware 17 R5/R1 RANGER EMERGENCY RECOVERY BIOS

Hello!!!

This guide was made in order to help others to recover a corrupted BIOS on Alienware 17 R5/R1 Ranger.

Tools needed:

• A Windows base computer (7,8,10 x32 or x64).
• USB 8GB or less (the less the better).
• Firmware Recovery (Attached).
• Screw Driver.

1. Format USB as FAT32.
2. Disconnect Battery.
3. Recovery.
4. Final Legacy and RAID settings.
5. Questions
6. Special Thanks.

Format USB as FAT32:

1. On your keyboard, press the Windows button + R
2. type DISKPART and click ‘OK’
3. Click ‘Yes’ if prompted by the User Access Control
4. DISKPART will open in a command prompt window
5. Type list disk and hit enter
6. 
7. You will need to identify your drive by size, in this case I can see it is disk 2
8. Type select disk 2 (where 2 is the number from the previous step)
9. The command prompt will respond by saying “Disk 2 is now the selected disk”
10. Now enter the following commands (if your disk is a USB drive, I recommend sticking with fat32 for the best compatibility across different operating systems and for this case is FAT32.
    
11. attributes disk clear readonly
    clean
    convert mbr
    create partition primary
    select part 1
    format fs=fat32 quick
    assign letter (letter)
    list volume
12. 
13. Type exit and hit enter to close the window.
14. You drive will now be reformatting using the full capacity as FAT32

Disconnect Battery

Note: You don't need to remove the battery, just disconnect it.

Recovery

1. Extract the Files from this link
   https://mega.nz/#!T4wyTSTR!btuOakDMgPFj2hjTCqzZETh7WYtfYn_VdVWuNAop6hs
   to the root of the USB.
   
2. Be sure the power adapter is not plugged in.
3. Put the USB in the eSata(NOT USB SLOT) (The one next to the Mini DP).
4. Now hold the END Key and plug in the adapter.
5. The AW17 should restart several times and then it will come back to live (It will beep some times as well).

Final Legacy and RAID settings
Most of users today works on UEFI instead of Legacy, be sure you to change this back since the BIOS Recovery also revert this to Legacy as Default.
The same happen with the SATA Operation, the Default setting is RAID, Most users use AHCI, so, be sure you change this too.

Questions:
Please let me know on comments.

Special Thanks:
@TheReciever @MahmoudDewy @Falkentyne

 

Thanks for making this Striker, ill add it as a reference on the mod thread

 

No problem!

Hope this help others!

 

A lot of important information here. I believe should be a sticky.

 

Hello sir Striker, a newbie question here, whats an eSate port? is it different from an ordinary usb port?thanks

 

assuming esate is a type for esata.

ESATA is External Sata port, typically used for external drives the Ranger doesnt have such a port but I wouldnt be surprised if you find info about it in the BIOS.

Later versions of ESATA (or maybe all, at least all Ive used) doubled as USB / ESATA ports

 

I'm sorry for my late response!

The port I'm talking about is the port right next to the MINIDP.

 

Is it the usb3 with powershare ?

 

Yes!

 

Hello! Striker! I have tried your procedure with my Ranger. But it looks like only the fan is running but no beep happen. I guess the flash process is not working. My usb drive's light does shine a few times while powering on, but looks like the files are not flashed. Is it because the three files you uploaded are not named right? Or is it because of my usb drive? Mine is a 32GB drive. But I have tried to format it only with 500MB primary size. I tried both fat and fat32. But the flash has not work. Could you please help me to figure it out? Thanks a lot!

 

Alienware 17
R1 RANGER

i am just getting 1 beep every 2 seconds and a black screen need help

 

Could be a dead motherboard (or corrupted bios)

Probably should make your own thread....

 

Alienware 17
R1 RANGER

i am getting 4 beeps i have taken the all the ram out and re seated them one by one still the same problem is there a way to fix the problem or is the motherboard gone please i need some advice and if the bios is corrupted can some one help me re flash the bios please

 

@Striker1234
Myaptop is having same problem as fan spinning the drive is flashing light but no restart or anything happens

 

Probably a stupid question...but you did unzip the files ?


sounds like its trying to work...just not finding what it needs

 

yes i did.

what shall i do :/

 

After reading your other thread again seems you have multiple issues.
If it were mine i would strip machine to its bare bones. cpu and minimal ram only, no ssd/hdd or gpu.
Try to reset nvram again.
Then try reflash if that didnt work.

and if it still not working...thats end of my ideas

 

I think i did a mistake in flashing i flashed wrong bios using sleep bug maybe that's why i can't recover.
Even when i pull out the rams i am getting 7 beeps

hey do you know how to make .fd and .hdr file of the latest bios such as A17 cause the files are isyideflash

 

I dont know...But I would like to find out how.

@Striker1234 ??

 

open the exe file then open %temp% in run file then you will see a folder starting with %7 open it you will find .fd file but it didn't work either

 

@Striker1234

Hey brother I had reason to try this last night. I hadnt tested my usb stick before.
Im getting same issue. Fans run full tilt. Power button light cycles through different colours. Caps light on, but no hdd or wifi activity. USB light flashes a couple of times then stays solid. No restart no beeps. I may have been impatient...how long does it take normally?
I tried with all usb slots just to be sure. Does this look right to you?



Thank you

 

I tried everything nothing works

 

@Baqir....could you use a spi programer to force a new bios?

 

I tried the chip is gone.

 

Lots of replacement chips on ebay