Is it safe to update Sony vaio bios?

I bought an aftermarket battery from hong kong for my sony vaio Vgn 5320e. The battery came with a small cd that requires bio update to make that battery compatible with my laptop. Since it's coming from hong kong, i am a liitle nervous to use that cd. I went on sony website found the bios update for my laptop, but every time i try to update it, i get message " cannot read"
Should i use the cd that came with my battery? Can it cause ireverssible damage?

 

Anybody can help?

 

Probably not super safe but if you want to use your aftermarket battery you don't have much choice

 

Can you return the battery and buy the name brand one?

 

I wouldn't upgrade the BIOS from some unknown cheap battery maker, it might brick your machine.

 

I tried to upgrade bios from sony site, but every time i use the utility it gives me message "cant read"

 

Lets say it does screw up my bios, can it be fixed if i do complete reinstall windows?

 

No, the BIOS has nothing to do with your Windows install. If you kill your BIOS you kill your computer.

 

That sucks, i waited 3 weeks for that battery. Bought it on ebay, seller has exellent feedback

 

If you do decide to do it, print out the instructions. Try to understand them - might not be very good grammatically - and clear up any doubts you might have. That said, those Chinese guys are rather good at this sort of thing.

Prepare yourself for the emergency BIOS recovery procedure, if it is supported on your VAIO. I believe Insyde BIOS has such a procedure - involves pressing a combination of key while booting with a specially prepared USB pen drive. A very good idea to use a pen drive of 2GB or smaller size.

 

Just ask yourself if it is worth bricking your expensive computer by saving a hundredish on a battery? If your answer is yes, then go for the BIOS, if you don't want to have any headaches, buy the Sony battery.

 

Plese provide the full correct model number of your laptop, then I can tell you if you could recover your BIOS if the CD bricks your laptop.

 

If you backed up your bios as per posts here

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/602497-latest-vpc-z1-330m-drivers-bios-hack-people.html post 1

and here

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/473226-insyde-hacking-new-vaio-z-advanced-menu-bios-45.html post 434 and 441

You may be able to revert to the original.

 

Thank you, i will go head and try

 

Sony vaio VGN-CR520E

 

I don't want to sound cynical or mean, but if you are asking THIS question then under no circumstances should you be attempting to use some third party's (the battery supplier) updates. You are in over your head on this. Best to return the battery and get a refund.

Please understand the intent of this message, I am most assuredly NOT trying to belittle you in any way, I am just trying to give you HONEST advice.

Gary

 

I disassembled the respective BIOS for your laptop provided by the Sony US support website. You have a Phoenix BIOS so you can save the time and not read the links paul3000h posted since he assumed that you have a Insyde UEFI like almost all newer VAIOs - the methods described in these two posts just won't work for you. In addition to that, these two links have nothing to do with recovering bad BIOS flash.

There are some recovery options available to your BIOS, more info here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...-your-phoenix-bios-bios-recovery-methods.html

If you want me to check if the update BIOS on the CD is safe, just upload it here and I'll have a look.

 

I'd skip the BIOS CD if I were you. There is already one person & also have a Sony notebook bricked his/her notebook because using the BIOS CD came with the aftermarket battery. You already know it is aftermarket battery & should already know the risk using aftermarket battery. What good with aftermarket battery is they cheap & have larger capacity. You can try the battery you just bought without installing the BIOS update from the CD. You will know immediately because BIOS or OS will tell you whether the battery is supported or not.

 

Great success! it's working great! thanx everybody

 

Please tell us all exactly what you did in the end. Thanks.

 

Used the cd that came with the laptop, flashed it, took about 3 minutes, it's just a patch. That's it, restart, insert new battery.

 

Do you mean that..... came with the battery?
Interesting to know it is safe to use cheaper batteries.

 

yes, came with the battery

 

Hi pyr0,

could you please look up VGN-S2XP too? I might decide to get a cheaper battery for that and need to go through the same stuff that forenplayer has just gone through.

 

Anytimer, your VGN-S2XP got a phoenix BIOS. Recovery options can be found here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...-your-phoenix-bios-bios-recovery-methods.html

 

Thanks, pyr0. I owe you a rep.