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    Corrupt bios

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by yannisG, Jan 11, 2013.

  1. yannisG

    yannisG Newbie

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    I have a HP Pavillion DV5 laptop with Vista 32-bit.
    Recently I did a clean install of Ubuntu 11.10 on the laptop. The installation went well, but when it restarted, after the installation was complete, I got a screen with the HP logo and "press Esc to enter menu". From then on I couldn't access the bios of proceed any further.
    I made many attempts to proceed further by hard starting the laptop, and reinstalling the bios with a USB stick following various instruction from the forums and HP site. Using the UBS stick with the bios files from the HP site, and modifying file extensions according to methods that supposedly work all I got was a series of beeps and LED flashes.
    I have done various linux installations on desktops, and never had any problems with the bios. Was the new installation just a coincidence to the problem that would have happened anyway?
    Any views or recommendation are appreciated.
    YannisG
     
    yannisG, Jan 11, 2013
    #1
  2. DarkoL

    DarkoL Notebook Consultant

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    Have you upgraded or changed any hardware prior to the Ubuntu install? It doesn't sound like a software problem to me.

    Try removing the HDD and start the machine, if it posts then that would be your problem.
     
    DarkoL, Jan 11, 2013
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  3. yannisG

    yannisG Newbie

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    Hi DarkoL,
    Thanks for responding. I finally got fed up. I had spent a lot of time trying to get it to work, but I was getting nowhere. So I took it to a local service shop. They open it up, accessed the MB, and reset the bios.
    It still did not work. They will contact HP next week.
    YannisG
     
    yannisG, Jan 11, 2013
    #3
  4. yannisG

    yannisG Newbie

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    DarkoL Hi,
    Yr advice to remove the HD was correct. When the service shop removed the HD the laptop booted. It seems that the faulty HD prevent the laptop to enter the bios.
    After replacing the HD everything is fine.
    Thanks,
    YannisG
     
    yannisG, Jan 21, 2013
    #4