ASPIRE 5315 BIOS RECOVERY using a USB THUMBDRIVE

[bigozone]

THIS IS INTENDED FOR USE WITH ASPIRE 5315, 5720, and 7720 models based on the ICL50 motherboard which uses the INSYDE type BIOS.

HISTORY::

EXCUSE THE LACK OF FORMATTING...
i cut and pasted this from a PM i sent to a member who had a corrupt BIOS.
i accidentially corrupted my BIOS while creating this walk-thru for him, but atleast my effort to help him ended up helping me recover my own BIOS even though it didn't work for him...


INSTRUCTIONS::


FORMAT A USB THUMB DRIVE use FAT, or FAT16 as the file structure when you format it!
use a small capacity thumbdrive if possible,, large thumb drives may require FAT32 to format properly(and no floppy ever required FAT32 so that might cause the recovery to fail)

then put the FILE (linked below) ON THE BLANK THUMB DRIVE

ICL50HW.fd (important FILE from the actual CRYSIS FLOPPY DISK IMAGE)


download and copy it to the formatted thumb DRIVE

go to the 5315,,

(1.) REMOVE CD or DVD if possible (you may have to press the power button the quickly press the CD EJECT button)

(2.) REMOVE ALL USB DEVICES, NETWORK CABLES, (anything hooked to the laptop)

(3.) PRESS AND HOLD the POWER BUTTON DOWN FOR 5 secs to shutdown the laptop

(4.) REMOVE BATTERY

(5.) REMOVE AC CORD

(6.) PUT the USB THUMB DRIVE IN USB SLOT ON RIGHT SIDE OF LAPTOP (the one i used anyway)

(7.) PRESS AND HOLD the POWER BUTTON down for 10 secs... release

(8.) while holding FN + ESC plug in AC POWER CABLE, (KEEP HOLDING FN+ESC the whole time)

(9.) NOW PRESS POWER BUTTON & HOLD IT DOWN... THE FAN SHOULD SPIN UP (keep holding FN+ESC) ONCE FAN SPINS UP, RELEASE POWER BUTTON

(10.) eventually the fan will shut off.... (seemed like 30 seconds,, but could have been 5 minutes... i was freaking out)

when fan shuts off i unplugged my AC CORD... REMOVED THE USB DRIVE,,,, and then plugged the AC power back in,,,

then pressed power and my the miracle of technology and my preserverance... i got a green power light followed by an ACER POST SCREEN!!!

(BIOS VERSION IS GOING TO BE OLD AND TIME IS WAY OFF)... but atleast it should boot..

time to winflash back to 1.43

BTW when using WINFLASH... exit all programs,,, kill all tasks in taskbar... (i never do,,, but it's a good habit to be in)


GOOD LUCK,

bigO

[Andy]

Finally....!!

And it is best to flash in Dos, since you can't really trust Windows , when playing with firmware.

(I'll have to spread some luv before repping you..!!)

[hoggie]

hip hooray BigO did it

[psolms]

should i put the exe on the usb? should i do anything with it? try to run it or anything like that?

[bigozone]

if you have a floppy drive in the PC you are using now you can copy that exe file to this PC and exicute it... it tries to create a bootable floppy image

and that floppy when created should contain ONLY the file "ICL50HW.fd"

then copy that file or all files on that floppy onto a freshly formatted USB DRIVE

then remove batt and AC in the dead laptop... and resume the walk-thru at the point where it says to plug in the USB DRIVE

[psolms]

!!!!!!!!

it worked.
the steps followed through, almost to the letter.

on the Aspire 5720Z model:
you DO NOT need to hold the power button down the whole time... in fact, it wont even start until you release the power button.

also, i removed the USB drive before turning the power on, also went into safe mode to make sure everything was good, but it worked.

thank you bigO and everyone else.

[bigozone]

you are welcome... that will be $20 sent to my pay-person account j/k

congrats on being the second to use the BIG-O BIOS RECOVERY METHOD with success!

glad to have been of help
maybe some day you can return the favor

later,
bigO

BTW how do you like the TIME and DATE settings... it's Y2K!!

[psolms]

actually, mine are correct.. dont know why...
anyways i dont mean to hijack this thread, but i figure it might become a common issue for anyone else who needs to use this to recover their bios.

for some reason, my touchpad doesnt work when i boot windows normally. it works when im in safe mode though.. thats the weird thing.
should i try to flash my bios (to v.1.42) from safe mode? or should i try to boot flash it?

[Andy]

Boot Flash, or uninstall - then reinstall drivers.

[psolms]

ok, i could certainly use some help with boot flashing...