[geeks] recover from HP Pavilion failed BIOS update

[gsm at mendelson.com]

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 11:03:04PM -0600, Dan Duncan wrote:
>Short story:   The HP Pavilion I just got booted to Vista (home
>premium, as shipped) to install a BIOS update HP lists as CRITICAL and
>croaked during the BIOS update.  Now the system will not boot or show
>any display and just sounds 3 long beeps.

Besides sympathy all I can offer is an old memory. Some computers have a
BIOS failure recovery mode. You move some barely documented jumper and it 
will load a specific file from a specific device. 

If you can find it, it's a lifesaver, assuming it exists. Note that it
is very specific, the file name and device are usually fixed, e.g.
rom0001.bin from a dos formated floppy. 

There is no display, no error messages, etc. Either it loads or it doesn't.

Now that it is too late, of course, there is an HP download somewhere
which boots Linux and loads BIOS update files. It's a complete package
which formats a USB stick, installs Linux and the BIOS file on it, etc.

I did a web search on "HP pavilion bios recovery". This is the first relevant
hit, it may help (or not, but it's a start).

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01443366&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&rule=30514&product=3369393

Good luck.

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
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i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.