Dell BIOS recovery detail you might miss

[leocb]

After some head banging I've discovered a detail on the recovery process for my DELL Latitute: The file you want to put on the flash drive for the recovery process is the "*.exe" itself, don't extract anything from it as many online tutoriais tell you to, or it won't work! (note that this is the case for the Latitude 3540 and may NOT be the case for you)

here's the steps I took to recover mine. Your mileage may vary:

[DELL Latitude 3540 Insyde BIOS Recovery]
Note: Nothing is shown on the laptop screen during the whole BIOS recovery!

1 - Download the bios flash utility from Dell's website: Link Here

2 - Do _NOT_ extract anything from the file you just downloaded, as MANY online tutorials tell you to, instead rename it to "L3540.hdr" - windows will whine about changing the file format, just ignore it. (in my case, I renamed "L3540A10.exe" to "L3540.hdr") - Use Andy's tool to figure out the name for yours, just open the .exe with it and the tool should shout it out for you in a message box. Download the tool here - if it returns a name like "L3540.hd?" (my case) I believe this is a bug with the tool, NO filename has a "?" on it, instead try to complete the name with the most common bios extensions (.bin | .fd | .wph | .hdr | .rom)

3 - Grab a less than 4GB flash drive and format it as fat32

4 - Copy the file you renamed in step 2 to the flash drive

5 - Put the flash drive on your laptop, any USB port should do the job

6 - Remove the AC power from your laptop, _HOLD_ the "END" key down, plug the power again (no need to remove the battery)

7 - The laptop should now power up automatically, without you pressing the power button. The laptop "power on LED" will start to blink, this indicates you're in the correct mode. You may release the "END" key now

8 - In a few seconds, your flash drive LED will light up (access), the laptop will look for the file on it, after 10 seconds or so it should find the file and the flash drive LED should stop, if not, the laptop didn't find the file. check step 2 and try again from there.

9 - If the laptop has found the file, and it is the correct one, you should start to hear a beep every two seconds to indicate the flashing process has begun, if not, the laptop have found the file, but it's not what he wants, check step 1 and try again from there.

10 - after 3 minutes or so, the beep pattern will change to 5 beeps in a row, this means the flashing procedure is done and your laptop should reboot automatically, if not you may hold down the power button and do it manually.

11 - Enjoy your recovered laptop!




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Mods, feel free to edit/delete/move this post as you see fit!

Thanks everyone

[Eric_hc]

After some head banging I've discovered a detail on the recovery process for my DELL Latitute: The file you want to put on the flash drive for the recovery process is the "*.exe" itself, don't extract anything from it as many online tutoriais tell you to, or it won't work! (note that this is the case for the Latitude 3540 and may NOT be the case for you)

here's the steps I took to recover mine. Your mileage may vary:

[DELL Latitude 3540 Insyde BIOS Recovery]
Note: Nothing is shown on the laptop screen during the whole BIOS recovery!

1 - Download the bios flash utility from Dell's website: Link Here

2 - Do _NOT_ extract anything from the file you just downloaded, as MANY online tutorials tell you to, instead rename it to "L3540.hdr" - windows will whine about changing the file format, just ignore it. (in my case, I renamed "L3540A10.exe" to "L3540.hdr") - Use Andy's tool to figure out the name for yours, just open the .exe with it and the tool should shout it out for you in a message box. Download the tool here - if it returns a name like "L3540.hd?" (my case) I believe this is a bug with the tool, NO filename has a "?" on it, instead try to complete the name with the most common bios extensions (.bin | .fd | .wph | .hdr | .rom)

3 - Grab a less than 4GB flash drive and format it as fat32

4 - Copy the file you renamed in step 2 to the flash drive

5 - Put the flash drive on your laptop, any USB port should do the job

6 - Remove the AC power from your laptop, _HOLD_ the "END" key down, plug the power again (no need to remove the battery)

7 - The laptop should now power up automatically, without you pressing the power button. The laptop "power on LED" will start to blink, this indicates you're in the correct mode. You may release the "END" key now

8 - In a few seconds, your flash drive LED will light up (access), the laptop will look for the file on it, after 10 seconds or so it should find the file and the flash drive LED should stop, if not, the laptop didn't find the file. check step 2 and try again from there.

9 - If the laptop has found the file, and it is the correct one, you should start to hear a beep every two seconds to indicate the flashing process has begun, if not, the laptop have found the file, but it's not what he wants, check step 1 and try again from there.

10 - after 3 minutes or so, the beep pattern will change to 5 beeps in a row, this means the flashing procedure is done and your laptop should reboot automatically, if not you may hold down the power button and do it manually.

11 - Enjoy your recovered laptop!




---

Mods, feel free to edit/delete/move this post as you see fit!

Thanks everyone

You just saved my life.

Thank you very much!