Please help - W540 bricked after BIOS update

[mikkhh]

Friend of mine bricked her laptop after BIOS update. One of the BIOS chip(smaller chip) gets different read on some of the sectors all the time and I believe that is why the bios update failed .

Where I can find both the dumps and what tool I need to change the BIOS dump serial number and so on?
I  can attach the dumps from the computer if needed (direct reads from the chip).

[Dudu2002]

Friend of mine bricked her laptop after BIOS update. One of the BIOS chip(smaller chip) gets different read on some of the sectors all the time and I believe that is why the bios update failed .

Where I can find both the dumps and what tool I need to change the BIOS dump serial number and so on?
I  can attach the dumps from the computer if needed (direct reads from the chip).

Hi
need your bad dump

[sergeyc]

Last week I have got notification from Lenovo about critical BIOS update for my perfectly working W540. After reboot BIOS update has stopped mid way with message "cannot write something". I have restarted the laptop and now I have beeping brick - 5 beeps pause 5 beeps. 

I have tried to use the *CRISIS tools via usb, nothing had helped - laptop never enters the bios recovery mode, just beeping as regular.

I have bough the CH341A programmer, disassembled the laptop and was able to read both of the SOIC8 chips (25x064 and 25x032). phoenixtools250 recognized the UFI bios dump (from 25x064). 

Now, I completely stuck. Does anybody have an experience to re-flash the BIOS?

[Dudu2002]

I have bough the CH341A programmer, disassembled the laptop and was able to read both of the SOIC8 chips (25x064 and 25x032).

Hi
these files are needed to recovery your bios

[Uhggernaut]

Last week I have got notification from Lenovo about critical BIOS update for my perfectly working W540. After reboot BIOS update has stopped mid way with message "cannot write something". I have restarted the laptop and now I have beeping brick - 5 beeps pause 5 beeps. 

I have tried to use the *CRISIS tools via usb, nothing had helped - laptop never enters the bios recovery mode, just beeping as regular.

I have bough the CH341A programmer, disassembled the laptop and was able to read both of the SOIC8 chips (25x064 and 25x032). phoenixtools250 recognized the UFI bios dump (from 25x064). 

Now, I completely stuck. Does anybody have an experience to re-flash the BIOS?

I had the exact same thing happen about two weeks ago. It was extremely frustrating. Now i'm in the same boat, none of the recovery tools helped and I have the CH341A programmer which has successfully read both chips using flashrom. I just need to find ROMs of the good chips to reflash but as far as I can tell the W540 isn't a very popular model. At least I haven't seen any images anywhere, nor modded BIOSes.

The issue with the files you can get from lenovo is they come in the form of a bootable CD but it seems to have hundreds of different relevant files in it.
Not sure if they compile them all together when they go to flash the chips? Or if there is only one file that actually matters like that .fl1 file?

I'm also wondering if there is a tool out there to essentially act as a virtual chip and create a BIOS ROM from the bootable CD image that you can then flash to your real chips.

Easier yet, does anyone have ROMs for working chips that we could just flash onto them?

[Dudu2002]

Easier yet, does anyone have ROMs for working chips that we could just flash onto them?

no and can not be!
need to restore the bios using your bad dump!

[krenari]

Dear all,

Device: thinkpad w540

I stopped bios update without noticing that lenovo software was updating it.

Now I see only logo of Lenovo in the start, but it doesn't boot anything.

I tried:
Removed battery(bios battery), drained energy out... it doesn't work
I tried bootable bios CD, it doesn't boot so it doesn't have any effect.

any suggestion?

[Dudu2002]

Dear all,

Device: thinkpad w540

I stopped bios update without noticing that lenovo software was updating it.

Now I see only logo of Lenovo in the start, but it doesn't boot anything.

I tried:
Removed battery(bios battery), drained energy out... it doesn't work
I tried bootable bios CD, it doesn't boot so it doesn't have any effect.

any suggestion?

Hi
Need recovery your bios...for this you need a SPI-programmer

[krenari]

Dear all,

Device: thinkpad w540

I stopped bios update without noticing that lenovo software was updating it.

Now I see only logo of Lenovo in the start, but it doesn't boot anything.

I tried:
Removed battery(bios battery), drained energy out... it doesn't work
I tried bootable bios CD, it doesn't boot so it doesn't have any effect.

any suggestion?

Hi
Need recovery your bios...for this you need a SPI-programmer

I found a seller in ebay, he says that I have to change both chips of bios. It is just 25 euro and I don't have any experience using SPI-Programmer

[Dudu2002]

I found a seller in ebay, he says that I have to change both chips of bios. It is just 25 euro

this is a false path! Corrupted contents of only one chip - 4Mb
you just throw money into the rubbish