Bricked Dell Precision M3800 after failed BIOS Update

[ashrid]

Hi,

Apologies if this is in the wrong place.

I tried to update one of our M3800's to A13 and Windows hung at 21% of whatever the second stage is (finished the blocks and moved on to the bar) laptop is now effectively dead. I've trying resetting the EC and pulling the main and CMOS batteries to no avail.


Having found this, this and this I've been able to get it to boot from USB using ZAU50A13.hdr but after it writes the new boot block, the new data block, the new main block and the new nvram block the screen goes black, fans go off but it doesn't reboot (power light still flashes) and it's still dead - From the linked posts I suspect this is because I need the original ROM version I was upgrading _from_ which is where I hit a snag.

I'm 99% sure it was A02 which I have been unable to find on the web, I've found 00, 03, 05, 07, 09 & 10 but none of these will even get to the Aptio recovery.

Does anyone have M3800-A02.exe or have any suggestions on what to try next or shall I resign myself to having to buy a new BIOS chip for it?