The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Bios Corrupted on HP Pavillion dv6-2015

    Discussion in 'HP' started by ktsangop, Jan 24, 2012.

  1. ktsangop

    ktsangop Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Hi everyone!

    I'm having trouble on my hp laptop.
    The system won't post, instead i get a blank screen and CAPS LOCK + NUM LOCK leds blinking twice, then pause, then blinking twice repeatedly.

    According to hp support website this indicates : BIOS CORRUPTION
    Blank Screen LED Error Codes - HP technical support (Denmark - English)

    So i tried to clear CMOS the old way (remove CMOS battery etc...) but no hope.
    After research i found out that the new UEFI/BIOS system stores extra information on a hidden hard drive partition and there is no documented way to flash your bios outside windows, neither on hp's website nor on Insyde's.

    from Wikipedia :
    Extensions to EFI can be loaded from virtually any non-volatile storage device attached to the computer. For example, an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) can distribute systems with an EFI partition on the hard drive, which would add additional functions to the standard EFI firmware stored on the motherboard's ROM.

    Googling around i found that there is an emergency bios recovery method using a usb flash drive on boot.

    Recovering From A Bad Insyde Bios Flash

    Anyway after a lot of struggle finding the right BIOS images etc, i couldn't manage to recover my BIOS.
    According to the procedure mentioned above and on other websites when bios recovery completes the machine would shut down.
    Mine doesn't...


    So i am pretty sure that, either i got the wrong bios file (quite impossible as i downloaded all available versions from hp's website), or the procedure cannot be completed because of a corrupted EFI partition on my hard drive(?)

    I would appreciate any help from anyone that has faced the same problem!
    Can i re-create the efi partition in any way?
    Would it be helpful if i placed the laptop's drive in another machine as a slave disk and tried to check it for errors?

    p.s. This problem was not a result of flashing the bios in the first place. It just happened...

    p.s.2. Is there a slight chance that the BIOS chip on the motherboard is damaged? Read it somewhere but never heard of it before...

    Thanks in advance!
     
  2. Dr. Bass

    Dr. Bass Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    217
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I believe the EFI partition is called HP_TOOLS. (Correct me if im wrong)
    p.s.2: Highly doubtable.
     
  3. ktsangop

    ktsangop Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Yes it's HP_TOOLS, i've just hooked the drive in a desktop PC...

    Should i format this partition?Would it help??