How can I recover from a corrupt BIOS in a HP laptop?

Here is the issue: I tried updating the BIOS using one of HP's software downloads, and even though it exited successfully, my laptop does not boot. Nothing loads, and the screen remains black. I have tried resetting the CMOS battery and tried to recover from a USB drive with a HP_TOOLS partition that contained the UEFI Support Environment. My laptop doesn't have the HP_TOOLS partition since it got deleted when I reinstalled Windows.

The laptop is a HP Pavilion DV7 4190US. What could I do? In addition, my sister has the exact same laptop as me. Is there something I could use from her working laptop to recover mine?

EDIT: I forgot to add that I have also tried extracting a BIOS .bin file from the HP BIOS Update software downloads using Universal Extractor and putting it in a USB drive. This does not work either.

EDIT 2: The problem has been solved. When I tried using the other BIOS, it was giving me the "... BIOS no fully ACPI compliant." blue screen. I downloaded the HP Support Environment (link) and installed it to the USB. The BIOS that I took from my sister's laptop was still in the USB once the installation was done. Once the USB drive was ready, I inserted it in my laptop and followed Moab's procedure (Win key + b pressed until the screen pops up). The BIOS recovery tool appeared and after that, I just had to follow the instructions

My laptop now works. Thank you so much for your help. Now I need to learn how to do BIOS updates properly.

Damian

Posted 2012-11-10T19:37:30.197

Reputation: 183

Answers

You may have to unhide hidden folders in Folder Options on your sister PC before starting.

On Your sisters PC, access the HP_TOOLS partition (assign it a drive letter in disk management) and open the "Hewlett-Packard" folder, then "Bios" folder, in there will be 3 more folders, copy ALL the files from sis's "Current" folder to your "current" and "previous" folders on your usb drive that has the same folder structure.

Be sure the usb drive is fat32 and has the volume name HP_TOOLS with the proper folder structure, drive letter does not matter.

Connect usb (legacy usb 2.0 port if you have one) with laptop powered off, power up while holding the win+B keys down, keep holding them until you get a bios recovery screen.

hopefully it will crisis recover your bios, some models use the all 4 arrows keys instead of win+B

NOTE: Remove the drive letter from your sisters HP_TOOLS partition when done copying files.

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Moab

Posted 2012-11-10T19:37:30.197

Reputation: 54 203

Thank you. I'll try this when I get home. Do I have to disconnect the hard drive when trying to boot it up from USB? – Damian – 2012-11-10T23:21:55.710

Thank you so much! This let's me boot properly. Now, how do I get the BIOS in the computer so that I don't have to use the USB drive anymore? – Damian – 2012-11-11T00:05:45.733

In addition, I'm getting the blue screen error that says "... BIOS not fully ACPI compliant". I imaging I'll have to reinstall Windows. How can I access the BIOS options with the USB? – Damian – 2012-11-11T00:17:05.250

Remove the usb drive, You can access the bios without usb, use F10 keystroke (several times) when powering up. – Moab – 2012-11-11T01:10:06.577

I too had problems with an unbootable HP laptop. It turned out that my BIOS-Battery (inside the laptop casing), was getting weak and needed replacement. Taking out this battery did let me boot after several attempts of starting the laptop.

Matthias Amberg

Posted 2012-11-10T19:37:30.197

Reputation: 1