Help: Blind flash on Acer

matttkd · Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 12:13 pm Post subject:

Well I have already tried removing battery and HDD and tried booting with Fn + Esc pressed and the USB pen plugged in. The light on the pen comes on for maybe 30 seconds or so, but nothing happens afterward. I left my laptop for half an hour before cutting power, but no help.

I also tried the same without pressing the buttons, but it just does the same thing.

Just in case I was using the wrong bios I have tried each of the ones given on the acer website, starting with the oldest working my way up. Still nothing.

mannubhai · Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 10:40 am Post subject:

i'm sure you've formatted your pen drive in the correct manner and it's a good sign that your laptop isn't dead since it powers on and your flash drive ights up for a while. I do hope you've removed the DVD drive as well (incidentally does the DVD drive light come on at start up ?) if it doesn't work after a few tries with all ..HDD, Battery and DVD Drive out perhaps you could try it with a start up CD containing the autoexec, phlash16 and the BIOS.

Just a thought , you have the autoexec.bat and the phlash file as required don't you ?

matttkd · Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 8:02 pm Post subject:

Right... OK
So what I've done so far is:

1: Format memory stick to DOS format using 'HP USB disk storage format tool' (As described previously)
2: Copy onto pen bios.wph
4: Copy PHLASH16
5: Open notepad and open autoexec.bat and enter command 'PHLASH16 /mode=3 /x bios.WPH' and save.
6: With battery, HDD and power cable removed place pen in USB port, holf Fn+Esc, plug in power cable then power up laptop.

Result:
Green power light comes on, a couple of LEDs flash a fan can be heard momentarily then quietens. Light on USB pen comes on for about 30s as before. After that nothing.
Leave laptop for an hour, come back, reboot and I'm back where I started.

I have also tried the CD boot option and using the phoenix tool but cant seem to get it to work.

Any1 able to point out where I'm going wrong? I'm probably making some stupid blaring mistake but all my brain power is currently going into revising for my final year exams for my chemistry degree, leaving little or no brain power anything else.

Cheers again

steve3211 · Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 4:40 am Post subject: travelmate 300

Hi guys,
Same problem here with a travelmate c300. Ran BIOS upgrade within xp and reboot failed with blank screen. Should really have known better. Issue is that when I download the new BIOS it is in the form of a zip exe. When I extract it I get three files, 113.exe, abvxd.vxd and flash.sys. No .whp files. How do I incorporate these into this solution? Do I still need an autoexec.bat? What should the entries read? Thanks for any help

matttkd · Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 12:09 pm Post subject:

UPDATE:

I accidentally left the USB pen in my desktop when i rebooted and when the computer started it tried to boot for it and there was a message saying

'the following file is missing or corrupted cdrom\oak\cdrom.sys' and
'error in config.sys file on line 13'

could this be part of the reason I am struggling to reflash?

mannubhai · Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 6:39 pm Post subject:

mattkd atleast you got a visual ..so theres hope yet. BTW isn't your cdrom removable ? If it is then i suggest you remov that along with everything else (HDD, Battery) and then try your pen drive flashing..reason being the laptop will not really try to access the flash drive till it has no other drive to access .

If it is a nonremovable one i think you'll have to amend the driver file for your cd rom and include it in your pendrive and include that line in your autoexec.bat..I think there was a post about that somewhere not too sure where..sorry.

Easiest option ..remove the cd rom drive and try ..I don't thnk you have done that yet ??

matttkd · Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 7:00 pm Post subject:

Sorry I wasn't very clear in the last post. It was the desktop that I have been making the boot disk on that gave the error message when I accidentally rebooted it with the USB pen still attached, not the Laptop, still no signs of life there.

Also I dont think I mentioned that I have actually already removed the DVD drive, forgot to put that in the other post, removed it when I removed the HDD.

Still going around in circles. Hopefully the answer will present itself some time shortly. If not I think I guess I will just have to concede defeat.

matttkd · Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 9:32 pm Post subject:

Me again, yay.
I came across this on the acer website....
http://support.acer-euro.com/documents/reports/bootblock.html

the page refers to enabling boot block via repositioning of a jumper on the mobo. Now, is this relevant to my problem, will this potentially allow me to finally reflash the bios? Is it possible with laptops or just desktops?

If it is a potential way of getting around things can any1 point me in the right direction of the jumper?
If it helps this is the same mobo is the same as mine i think....
http://www.a1laptopshop.com/images/acer3000.jpg

mannubhai · Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 7:31 pm Post subject:

matttkd, i don't know if that'll solve your problem because in most laptop mobos the jumpers are soldered on..if you're really able to open it up and take a peek at the jumper perhaps you'll see that.

I still think you should keep at it wih the USb drive..try reformatting the drive again and adding all the relevant files once again as detailed in earlier forum replies...use two or three pen drives and try this ..it just might work. A lot of people have succeeded after 10 tries or so...best of luck.

mannubhai · Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 7:32 pm Post subject:

matttkd, i don't know if that'll solve your problem because in most laptop mobos the jumpers are soldered on..if you're really able to open it up and take a peek at the jumper perhaps you'll see that.

I still think you should keep at it wih the USb drive..try reformatting the drive again and adding all the relevant files once again as detailed in earlier forum replies...use two or three pen drives and try this ..it just might work. A lot of people have succeeded after 10 tries or so...best of luck.

BTW what is the model of the Acer laptop you have ? I do hope you're using the correct BIOS and if possible try using onewhich is older than the one you tried to upgrade to and also older than the one on your laptop if you can remember this.

matttkd · Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 11:50 pm Post subject:

I have an Acer Aspire 3002lmi.

I checked and rechecked that I was using the right BIOS.

My problem didn't actually arise from attempting to change the BIOS at all, as far as I'm aware. I just came to turn on my laptop one day and all I got was the light on the power switch and the fans etc, same symptoms everyone else is having for a problem with the BIOS. It was even suggested to me on another forum that my BIOS needs reflashing, and after extensive googling I found this site which seemed like the perfect answer.

I shall persist for a while longer and see if I get any results, but seeing as my problem did not arise from an attempted BIOS update i think there might be another slightly different cause, and therefore will need to find another solution.

mannubhai · Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 11:37 am Post subject:

matttkd, since you say you didn't try flashing and you had a problem all of a sudden it could be a hardware problem or evn something simple like loose RAM modules or something ..are you savvy enough to check your ram modules, if it or they might have suddenly come lose ?How old is your laptop ? Could be a lot of dirt and grime collecte in there by now. mine (around 3yrs old) had tons of dust and my worktable was covered in fine black dust after my first cleaning. (yeh i was brave enough to open mine ..was trying to see if I could reset jumpers to allow bootingfrom USB drive..didn't needto eventually..it worked after i removed all the other boot up sources.viz..HDD and DVD Drive.)

Perhaps you hit it on the head..no not the laptop..the problem..yours isn't a BIOS problem it's just a hardware one.do keep us posted when you sort it out.

Just curious does any other computer boot when you use your bootable USb drive ?

matttkd · Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 3:54 pm Post subject:

Yeah, I'm relatively confident with taking it apart. Having a look at the RAM was actually one of the first things I attempted as I've had similar problems with my desktop. I took out both lots of RAM, then reinserted them and got nothing, then tried with each one in individually to see if that helped but unfortunately not.

I also had a pretty good clean around in there to try and remove a lot of dust but again this didn't help.

I've been thinking for a while that it could be a hardware failure, however I wanted to try alternatives just in case they worked. My laptop has been prone to over heating and I think it just overheated one too many times perhaps and something went on the motherboard.

Only thing I can really think of doing now is replacing the motherboard, which is a nuisance in itself, even if I could afford to buy a new one. Unfortunately with the laptop being over 2 years old its well out of the warranty period as well.

mannubhai · Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 6:27 pm Post subject:

matttkd although it seems a remote chance that your BIOS suddenly got crrupted withoutay intervention by a user it is possible i suppose and the symptoms are all classic , if your RAM is OK then possibly your mobo is gone . But could you format a USB drive as a bootup disk and try booting yor desktop with it ? (Without the BIOs and Phlash and changed autoexec.bat obviously otherwise you'll have another dead computer on your hands. Very Happy

). If that works OK then take another shot at the blind update like before try it with both Fn+Esc and without ..even if you don't hear the beep.Don't think theres ay mor you can do besides changing the mobo or CPU I guess.

All the best.

js · Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 11:29 pm Post subject:

I am having the same problem and the laptop is trying to boot from the DVD drive rather than the bootable floppy drive that I made. How do I remove the DVD drive? I have an acer aspire 1690. Thanks.