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Re:Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-muta... by gruez on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @02:32PM (#28383836)
>I remember most laptops nowadays can re-flash the BIOS from an attached USB with specific format and layout

Source for this? I've seen it available on various enthusiast desktop motherboards, but I haven't seen it on laptops. I haven't even seen it on the pricier thinkpad line.

Re:Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-muta... by tyingq on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @03:04PM (#28384240)
Instructions for one specific Dell laptop: https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetai...

Expand the "Installation Instructions" part, and you'll see "Updating the BIOS from BIOS Boot Menu (independent of operating system)"

I don't know if Dell supports it across all their laptops, but it has on the ones I've owned.

Re:Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-muta... by gruez on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @03:45PM (#28384710)
GP said the device was "bricked", so I'm not sure whether that feature would work. "bricked" to me would imply BIOS is broken (otherwise it's not really bricked because you can reinstall the OS). The feature on various gaming motherboards involves you copying the BIOS file on a formatted USB, plugging it into the motherboard, and pressing a button (on the motherboard itself). This works even if the current BIOS is broken/corrupt.
Re:Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-muta... by gigel82 on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @04:04PM (#28384917)
That's correct: the BIOS was corrupt; the machine had no display at all, so no way to enter the BIOS menu or "boot" an OS.

Other Lenovo laptops have a recovery mode (Fn+R) where some bootstrapping firmware would flash a BIOS from USB, they neglected to include that feature in the (presumably lower cost) Flex lineup.

Some folks out of support went as far as desoldering the EPROM with the BIOS and hooking it up to a flash programmer, to get the laptop unbricked.

I realize they have a lot of different models and probably a limited test matrix, but it's still unforgivable to push a forced update that bricks the device to this level (and until that happened I didn't even know OEMs can push BIOS updates over Windows Update, probably because most of my machines are custom builds).

Re:Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-muta... by yjftsjthsd-h on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @05:00PM (#28385467)
> I realize they have a lot of different models and probably a limited test matrix

Why would that be hard? They're the manufacturer; all they have to do is keep a handful of every model they've made, stick them in a room connected to network and power, and have Jenkins run a job on them that flashes the firmware and reboots. I know I'm oversimplifying, but I don't think I'm oversimplifying by that much, and it shouldn't be hard for the manufacturer to keep test units of their own hardware on hand.

Re:Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-muta... by freemint on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @03:57PM (#28384849)
There could be something immutable that boots the BIOS that also checks for things to flash the BIOS with.
Re:Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-muta... by phatfish on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @04:27PM (#28385141)
It is key for desktop motherboards, at least AMD ones where they reuse the same socket over multiple CPU generations.

I bought a motherboard and a new AMD Zen 3 CPU together recently. The motherboard wouldn't POST because the BIOS was too old to and didn't have Zen 3 support.

The only way to get it to work was to flash a new BIOS using the out-of-band update tool that works with just the PSU and USB stick attached.

Without that you would need a spare CPU knocking about...

Re:Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-muta... by mtone on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @04:42PM (#28385289)
Not sure what % of motherboards support USB BIOS Flashback but I remember AMD in Ryzen 2 era shipping out "loaner cpus" exactly for that purpose -- so people could buy a CPU/AM4 motherboard combo that needed the BIOS upgrade to boot it.
Re:Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-muta... by hspak on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @03:00PM (#28384185)
For my Thinkpad X1 Carbon (Gen 5), I download the ISOs from here: https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netb...

And I use my re-write of geteltorio to flash it on a USB drive: https://github.com/hspak/geteltorito-zig

I've done this multiple times now without issues, but your milage by vary!

Re:Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-muta... by Jochim on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @04:06PM (#28384935)
I had to do this recently on an old Dell XPS 9530 circa 2013.

It had been sitting in a cupboard for a good year or two and when powered on it produced no video output, or BIOS/POST screen. The backlight for the screen didn't even come on.

While it wasn't particularly easy to troubleshoot. I eventually managed to flash an uncorrupted version of the BIOS over USB and it's been working fine since.

Re:Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-muta... by gigel82 on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @03:04PM (#28384236)
I can't find any Lenovo official documentation, but if you google for something like "lenovo laptop fn+r bios usb" you'll find a bunch of tutorials for how the recovery works.

It does not work on the Flex model line-up though (I presume because they didn't include the bootstrapper firmware or some h/w component).

Re:Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-muta... by iarenaza on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @03:00PM (#28384190)
I've done it at least twice with my Thinkpad T495. Bootable USB with El Torito format, if I remember it correctly. Using Lenovo official ISO images and instructions, etc.
Re:Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-muta... by jbhouse on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @04:13PM (#28385001)
Just did this about a month ago on my hp laptop