Need help with weird situation, unable to access windows after BIOS flash

[ghotbijr]

Okay I'm going to try my best to keep this short, but I also want to be thorough so I'll apologize ahead of time if it's a long read

Background, leading up to the issue:
Earlier today I decided it was time to update my BIOS from the A06 I had on my m15x, after struggling to get the ISO for A09 written correctly to a disk (issue with Imgburn), I just ended up using the A08 BIOS, as it seemed the A09 had nothing spectacular anyways. So I used the built in CD writer from the A08 executable and created my BIOS flash disk. When I ran it it took a bit to start, but after a few loud beeps it asked me if I wanted to continue and I did. So it went through this checklist and everything looked good. It finally ended saying something like "BIOS Flashed successfully' and then went on to this other step which I saw little of, but I didn't see any errors, and the computer rebooted on its own, again no errors.

So now the computer was back on and I first noticed that my lights around my trackpad were on after usually being off, although this is probably no big deal. It was taking a long time to load windows, and after waiting a few minutes I got impatient and hit the power button to try again (probably a bad move).

Main explanation of the issue starts here:
This time on startup I hit F2 to enter the BIOS setup and double check that it worked, and indeed it said it was at BIOS version A08. But I noticed once in the setup that none of my keys on my keyboard worked, I couldn't move around with the arrow keys, nor could I press escape to exit, this was very weird because I was able to press F2 (and consistently can) while starting up to enter the BIOS, but once in, nothing works. so I hit my power button again to reboot and try loading windows again. So here's where I'm stuck: because I had hit the power button it gives me a message that windows failed to start up last time and tries to go into windows startup repair. The issue here is that I can't use my keyboard because it's not responding at all here and so the default thing highlighted is the windows startup repair option and I can't get to the actual windows startup in any way.

I'm currently trying to download a windows 7 installation disk because I've misplaced my original one, but even then I doubt I can get far without a keyboard. I find it weird that at the alien head on startup I can press the various F-keys and they all work (F2 to BIOS, F12 to startup menu), but once at the different destinations the keyboard stops working again. I realize that I'm a complete moron for putting my hhd as the primary boot source and that I probably could have tried a bunch more things using other CDs. I just find it hard to believe that a simple moronic move would completely lock my computer up, especially noting the BIOS flash appears to have functions 100% correctly.

I don't know if anyone has ever had anything like this, I personally could only find one other (unanswered) thread with a similar scenario. My computer is well out of warranty and I really would like to keep it as I can't afford a replacement any time soon. Please if there's anything I can try doing to fix this please let me know. Thanks.

P.S. I tried plugging in 2 other keyboards and using all the usb ports with no luck.

[jarvmeister]

Does sound odd. Why not try flashing the BIOS again, either with A08, or ideally A09 if you can actually get it burnt?

Also, the old trick of removing the battery and charger, pressing and holding the power button for 10 seconds then starting as normal can fix a mltitude of odd issue such as yours.

You have a separate issue loading Windows, which is a more common corruption to either the file system or registry, which is often easily fixed with a startup repair - however you need to address the main issue first, as you know.

Let us know how you get on.

[ghotbijr]

Well my issue is that I can't try reflashing it because, as I mentioned, I'm a complete idiot and have my computer set to start up off of the hdd rather than my cd drive. I already tried removing the battery and charger and doing a power drain and nothing happened. Is there anyway I can make the computer forget that last time it tried to start it failed? Because I feel like it could start up as long as I manage to get passed that damn startup repair screen. Oh and I did try doing startup repair with a disk in, but as I can't press enter to continue, it can't start >.>. Any other ideas guys? I'm sure something like this has happened to someone at some point before.

EDIT: Also is there any possible way to tell the computer to start off the cd? because at least then I could try a variety of different things to attempt fixing it.

[jarvmeister]

I would try this: Place the HDD as the bootable drive into another Intel based PC or laptop - then you should be able to boot past the warning, and close down normally, before placing the drive back in your m15x.

Not sure about how well this is going to get your keyboard working again - but it'll get it booting without the warning messages again.

[The Revelator]

Tapping F12 at the boot screen (large Alienhead) brings up the Boot Menu, which can be used to set the boot media for a one-time startup. Select CD/DVD from the menu and hit Enter. Your M15x will boot from the CD/DVD drive (assuming it contains a bootable disk).

Keyboard function is determined in part by the EC, which is that other little thing it went on to after flashing the A08 BIOS. Try reflashing the BIOS/EC again. Pay attention this time and when it asks whether to flash the EC, respond with Y or Yes, as specified.

[ghotbijr]

Tapping F12 at the boot screen (large Alienhead) brings up the Boot Menu, which can be used to set the boot media for a one-time startup. Select CD/DVD from the menu and hit Enter. Your M15x will boot from the CD/DVD drive (assuming it contains a bootable disk).

Keyboard function is determined in part by the EC, which is that other little thing it went on to after flashing the A08 BIOS. Try reflashing the BIOS/EC again. Pay attention this time and when it asks whether to flash the EC, respond with Y or Yes, as specified.

Yeah the problem is that my keyboard doesn't seem to want to respond beyond letting me press the F-keys at the beginning. I can and have pressed F12 to reach the boot menu, but, just like every other menu I hit, I can't select the boot choice because the arrow keys wont respond. I'd love to just try reflashing it, but I can't get it to load off the disk, that's why I'm curious if maybe there's some other way to start it up so that it automatically tries booting it off the disk, because that would be very useful. This situation is very unusual though, because it seems to run just fine, but the keyboard not responding has blocked me off from using it. Thanks for trying to help though, hopefully someone will come around with the answer to my problem.

EDIT: Just saw what you said about the EC, I'm thinking that something went wrong there most likely, because I saw the screen with the EC pop up and go away very fast and I didn't have enough time to read everything it said. I didn't tell it to flash by choosing yes, so this is probably my issue, did I screw up by not noticing this?

[The Revelator]

Do you have or have access to an external keyboard that could be connected. Worth a try.

[svl7]

Did you already try clearing the non-volatile BIOS memory by removing the adapter, battery and BIOS coin cell battery (you need to remove the back panel to get access to it, but it's easy to unplug it, check the service manual for reference, or the attached pic)
You need to remove the battery for a couple of minutes, then try booting again.

[ghotbijr]

Do you have or have access to an external keyboard that could be connected. Worth a try.

Yeah I've already tried two different keyboards and tried plugging them both into all 3 usb ports, no luck :/

Did you already try clearing the non-volatile BIOS memory by removing the adapter, battery and BIOS coin cell battery (you need to remove the back panel to get access to it, but it's easy to unplug it, check the service manual for reference, or the attached pic)
You need to remove the battery for a couple of minutes, then try booting again.

Trying this right now, haven't tried this yet because I didn't think it would effect the issue I have right now, but I'll post result after leaving it out for another few minutes.

EDIT: No change, other than the date being reset when I look in the BIOS menu (which at least shows it did reset). Any other ideas guys? I'm sure stumped

EDIT:EDIT: Also, in case it makes a difference, the error code it gives me within the startup repair screen is 0xc000000f, not sure if this is the standard startup repair error, or it means something specific (google search doesn't seem to really pinpoint this code to something that matches my case, but maybe I'm wrong).

[The Revelator]

You mention being able to get into the BIOS, so does F2 still work at the boot screen? Can you use the arrow keys while in the BIOS? If you could switch the boot order in the BIOS to put the CD/DVD drive first and save the changes, then it might boot from the CD. At boot a bunch of drivers are loaded from the installation disk that include keyboard and mouse drivers, which you could use to attempt further repair efforts. My brief research suggests that the first suspect given that error message and behavior is a corrupt bootloader, which can ordinarily be fixed, but requires keyboard control to undertake.