I recently bricked my girlfriend’s HP Pavillion dv6-1122us laptop when I tried to flash the BIOS using the tool HP themselves provided me. (Really HP?) After much struggle and reading a LOT of very indefinite information from across the web, I was finally able to get the proper BIOS reflashed and her computer back to its previous state. The steps below may also work with your HP Pavilion dv5 and other various models running a BIOS from Insyde.
- Download the latest flashing utility that corresponds with your laptop’s model number from HP’s website. It should be in the form of a self-extracting archive.
- Extract the files and let the flashing software open. Once it does, close it and navigate to the folder containing the new firmware… should be C:/SwSetup/<something>
- Find the .fd file and note the first four numbers of the file name. In my case this was “3059″. Now make four copies of that file naming them as follows: 3xxx.fd, 3xxx.bin, 3xxx.rom and simply 3xxx. (I’m sure only one of these is actually needed, I’m just unsure which one and don’t want to bother testing. Its probably the .fd.)
- Place those four files in the root of a FAT32-formatted USB thumbdrive.
- With your laptop powered off, place the thumbdrive into one of the USB ports. Then depress and hold down the Windows key and the B key.
- While still holding down Win+B, press the power button and let the machine boot. You should shortly hear some strong beeps. When you do, you can release Win+B.
- At this point, the machine should start scanning the thumbdrive beeping at a regular interval as it goes. Once it finds the correct file, the machine will flash the new BIOS and power down when complete.
- Power it back up and you should be seeing a standard boot process.
And that’s how I did it. Standard warnings about doing shit ’cause the Internet says so apply. Good luck.