M11x R1 BIOS recovery guide

Hey everyone, just thought you might need a good guide on how to Recover a bricked alienware m11x (R1 only).


REQUIREMENTS: 2gb or less flash drive, the provided files, a windows 32bit pc.





step 1.) your going to need the files provided, heres the link.

http://bestvater.org/misc/Crisis BIOS Recovery Alienware m11xR1 (by ajslay).zip

step 2.) your going to need to use 7-zip to extract the files. after you extract the files you need to go to the folder
where there located.

step 3.) plug in your 2gb or less flash drive. (you must be using a 32bit pc.)

step 4.) in the folder where you extraced the files, there should be a file called WINCRIS.exe. you need to run it as administrator and in xp compatibility mode. double click on it.

step 5.) the program should have found your flash drive automatically. click on start. after the files are done being coppied, pull out your flash drive.



step 6.) disconnect the m11x battery, and the power cord.

step 7.) plug in your recovery flash drive to your bricked m11x.

step 8.) hold down the "end" button on the m11x keyboard, and while still holding "end" plug in the power cord.

the m11x should startup automatically and make a brief beep and fan going full blast. after about 30 seconds there should be many beeps,that indicates the bios is being recovered.


step 9.) it should take about 5 minutes, after that, it should be up and going.

thats it, i hope this helped.

edit: many reports that some flash drives do not work. all i can suggest is trying different flash drives that haven't had any recovery files on them before. also reports that 4gb flash drives do indeed work with this guide, just picky on which ones do.

 

Dude, you rule. I would rather have the ability to recover even if the likelihood of needing to is slim. I've been in the PSP scene for years and I know when messing with flashing firmware/BIOS, sometimes bad things happen.

 

thanks, i tried to make the guide as simple as possible. i was also in the psp scene for a long time, i still have 3 pandora battery's hahah.

 

Mmhmm. Just what I was looking for.. I browsed the VBIOS topic for a while trying to follow exactly how you did the recovery. This right here solves that problem.

Now I'm more comfortable with actually doing the vbios mod.. YAY

 

im glad it helped =P

 

wait, you said that you need a 32 bit OS for this to work rite? the windows version shipped with my R1 is a 64 bit so it wont work? im asking because i was thinking of doing DavyGT's .95 v mod and dont wanna flash the BIOS blindly with no safety net

 

yeah you need a 32bit OS on a *different* computer.

 

came here to throw a big thanks to op. saved my life today

 

your welcome glad its helping lots of people

 

My buddy just tried to use the link on the first page of this thread for his r1 and it bricked, I know he used the R1 files on his R1 because I sent him the link, and the zip file says its m11xr1.rar. Trying recovery now

should there be a problem using a mac for win 32 emulation?

 

This just saved my life! Bricked my machine after a bad flash, if i didn't stumble upon this guide I would have been ruined. I can confirm that this works with a 4gb stick though

 

im glad it helped you out. =)

 

Thank you very much, yeah I was frantic when Office Max didnt have anything less than a 4gb flash, but I guess the 4 worked anyway.

+1 Rep


edit- oops I meant 4gb. lol

 

thanks a lot =P and i didnt think it would work with 4gb either.

 

Ajslay you really are the dogs bits. Thats saved me throwing my m11x in the bin. Thanks mate.

 

Ok, I have created the recovery usb, after plugging in the power-cord and holding end, after the first beep, the m11x does about 6 or 7 beeps, then BUZZZZZ and 2 Long Beeps, it doesn't flash, any clue what I can do?

 

try unpluging the battery too

 

Ok after trying about 6 different flash drives the 4gb one turns out to be the only one that works.


For anyone else that's wondering, heres what to expect,

After holding the end button it will beep then the 30 seconds of silence, then if its flashing properly it will continuously beep until its finished.

 

the m11x is really picky with flash drives. that iv noticed anyway. glad this is helping so many people tho =p

 

Hey, so I tried the BIOS flash for the R1 increased voltage but I had discrete enabled at the time and did not read all 47 pages of the thread to find out that it would brick it. I tried the recovery listed here (thanks very much for taking your time to write this) but it did not work for me. I created the Crisis recovery on the thumb drive and then followed the rest of the steps plugging the power cord in while holding end (and the battery was out at the time). It made the beep and then began processing something. It never boots though and even on restart nothing happens. Anyone know where I've gone wrong? I've tried it on both an 8gig and a 250Mb USB stick. Also, I left the laptop running the Crisis recovery for a good 20 mins. I can't figure out what the problem is.

 

only thing i can suggest is trying multiple flash drives. everyone's been saying that's the only thing that's wrong. try using a 4gb stick that's brand new.

 

I only have 3 sitting around here, and I don't really want to spend $80 on USB sticks trying to find one that works. To anyone who has had success with this, can you please tell me the brand and size of the USB stick? That may have had something to do with it, but I'm not sure.

I also noticed that the USB drive I just used only has 4Mb used on it. Is this normal? That seems like a very small amount to recover the BIOS, but I'm not that knowledgeable on the BIOS so I could be wrong. Also, even with show hidden files and operating system files on, no files show up on the recovery USB stick. Is this normal? Thanks.

Edit: Another note, WinCris recognizes the O drive as my removable USB drive, but my computer calls it the D drive. It seems to be the same one though, it is exactly the same size.

Edit2: I managed to fix my laptop. Thankyou so much Asjlay for this wonderful guide. Although, my results are slightly different than most. I tried 3 different USB sticks, 2 2gbs and a 250Mb. None of them worked at all, until I decided than instead of running WinCris.exe in Win XP compatibility mode, I'd just get out my old Win XP comp. I blew off the dust, persuaded it to turn on and ran Wincris on it. Worked like a charm. Before, I could not get the files to show up on any of the drives, but when I tried it on my Win XP machine, I could see all three on the drive. Plugged it in and it worked well. I ended up using a SanDisk Cruzer 256Mb. I also tried a SanDisk Cruzer 2Gb though and that didn't work. So, if trying different drives is not working for you, try running WinCris on a XP machine. Thanks again Asjlay.

 

megaupload offline. This should be the right file:

Bios Recovery

not sure how long it will be there

 

thankyou, im glad someone actually kept a backup haha.

 

no prob. Not sure = I might delete at any time but not in any hurry

 

il just download the files and keep a backup just in case =p

 

I recently bought a used R1 and this guide really helped me in fixing the BIOS
(from bricking-r1-by-switching-discreete-gpu-with-.95-volt-mod ) I honestly didn't read the whole.95v mod thread



I used an 8gb flash drive by the way Thanks

 

the volt mod works completely fine with my original files. in my sig

 

This works perfectly for me, I used the program but nothing showed up on the stick, all I did was put the 3 files (bios, and the other 2) onto the drive, restarted and was able to flash successfully (and continue flashing due to GT335M dying and wanting to make sure it was not a driver issue)

You have my full gratitude

 

thankyou

 

I love you OP. Like two bros who just went through a traumatic experience together...
But in all seriousness, thanks do much! You definitely saved my here.

 

Hi, I just bricked my R3 with the latest official A05 bios, does anyone know where I can find the same kind of recovery files for my model?
I'm crossing my fingers so hard right now...
Please help!

 

I discovered a thing there is worth sharing. I use a pc with 32bit windows 7 ultimate, and I ran the WINCRIS.EXE as administrator and in windows xp compatibility, the result was that only 2 of my flash drives (8gb and 4gb) wanted to get the three files. All the other 5 was empty every time.

Even that the files was on the flash drives I was unable to recover the BIOS, it just gave me a couple of beeps, then a buzz and then 2 long beeps and the nothing happend.

I tried many combination by copying the 3 files manually to the other drives but same result.

Then i tried run the WINCRIS.EXE as at administrator WITHOUT RUNNING IT AS WINDOWS XP

Then I was finally able to get the three files to every one of my flash drives and every one worked to recover my BIOS.

I tried:
1x 8GB
2x 4GB
3x 2GB
1x 256mb

I tested if it would work on a windows 7 64bit and windows 8 64bit none of them was able to find the usb drives.

I can tell I noticed that you cannot run a modded bios flash from windows 8 it just freezes close to the finish and brick you pc. You have to use windows 7.

In case you cant find the BIOS recovery I uploaded a copy.

Crisis BIOS Recovery Alienware m11xR1 (by ajslay).zip
http://www.4shared.com/zip/uW-soWqq/Crisis_BIOS_Recovery_Alienware.html

 

OP, you are a gentleman and a scholar! Seriously I thought I was going to have to throw away my brick when it froze during a BIOS update, but thanks to you, I'm back in business. Thank you so much!

 

Hello, I tried this method with my R1 but it doesn't work for some reason. I flashed a modded bios for the R1 but it seems like it didn't accept it. It began to beep every two seconds when it tried to reboot. Now, I tried this recovery but when I turn the computer on again, it does do the blasting fan and beep at the beginning but after that it stays like that and nothing else happens. No other beeping occurs after that and it still doesn't reboot. Any help please?

 

Just had to try this recovery on my son's M11x R1 and it worked perfectly :thumbsup:

Many thanks for the recovery information.

 

Using a 16 GB flash drive just makes it beep and beep for many minutes on end with no prevail after the beep + 30 second pause...should I just scavenge for a 4 GB?


And do the eyes flash if it is working for the HDD being read/written to? Or is it just guess and check... And does it matter which USB port I plug my drive into?

 

Not sure how many are still around that can answer those questions with certainty...

Given the reports of how picky the system is on drives it might be that simple (to use a diff one). I would not be shocked at all also about port swap. In any case worth a try.

 

Port swap did it, and I really am glad I got this for free, but wish I could take the GT 335m and stick it in my Dell Inspiron 4110

 

Thanks for reporting back... seems folks still have use for the knowledge. Glad it all worked out.

 

if anyone still happens to have one of these thats bricked and wants to use this tool try formatting the drive you're installing on to NTFS, you might see success from doing so

 

I can confirm this method worked with VM Virtual Box... I have 64bit W10 installed Oracle Virtual Box installed 32bit XP in like 1 minute then allocated the right USB and boom done.


gg