Lenovo U410 - Reflash / Fix broken BIOS

[GefreiterOberschutze]

Hey there,

I am starting this thread because you (as an experienced community) are probably my last hope to revive my U410 I recently tried to update with a newer BIOS version.

Originally I planned to utilize a better ac adapter (Intel 7260) to replace my old atheros WiFI. After the first assembly I got the known error that the device could not be varified by the BIOS. In the following I went back to the old adapter and (foolishly) tried my luck with the newest manufacturer release of the BIOS. The old version was the 65CN21WW, the newer one is the 65CN99WW which I downloaded as an executable for Win7 x64. When starting the client I hit the backup + flash button and waited for the laptop to reboot. When the boot procedure began I directly entered the BIOS config to see whether the changes were applied. Unfortunately I had to observe that the device identity had changed from U410 to U310!

Thus, as far as I can tell, the client has failed to install the proper BIOS version which lleads me to the issue that the notebook cannot boot in UEFI mode (with flashmode enabled) anymore. On startup I can only see the Win7 logo, then the PC freezes and reboots.
In pure Legacy mode I can still boot into the system. Some of the Lenovo software functionality are (of course) broken but otherwise the computer runs mostly fine. But on the other hand I am not able to reflash the BIOS due to the UEFI mode + flashmode being disabled ("Only secured capsule is allowed on a SecureFlash system").

At this point I am not quite sure whether the comuter can be fixed at all (or at least: not that easily) because I cannot boot in UEFI mode. All my latest attempts with a USB drives and the W7 installation disc lead to freezes or errors. When starting in UEFI mode, the startup of the disc freezes (just like when booting the system). When trying to install a new system (on another hard drive) via Legacy mode the progress appears to run at first. But when finalizing the installation Windows recognizes a incompatibility and cancels the process... rebooting leads to the same issue.

I have also tried some scripts that flash a modified 65CN99WW via usb DOS but they all fail at some point. Via Legacy they possibly cannot write iin flashmode. And I could not find any working usb scripts so far that work in UEFI mode. There was only an older (kinda dubios) post in another forum which I tried in my dispair. The package does even allow me to start via usb in UEFI mode but spits out an error when trying to flash resp. loading the image ("PFlash: Read file error – 65CN99WW_v10.CAP").

Well then,
do you think there is any chance to flash a working BIOS that restores the U410 device status?
Before contacting a local lenovo partner that might charge a fortune for a fix (reflash with default BIOS) or who might even fail to find a solution for this issue I wanted initiate another thread, hoping for you help. Needless to say I am also willing to offer an appropriate donation in case a user takes his or her time to help me out of this misery (as far as the forum allows such private agreements ).

Best Regards,
G.O.