Samsung r560 Bios Recovery

[Josh192]

Hi, I have a Samsung r560 laptop and I have failed to flash a correctly working bios. I attempted to install a modified bios. Although the flashing process worked, I am left with a bios that I can access, but it will not move and further. It will not boot to windows or from any other device. When the laptop is turned on the logo screen appears and I can press F2 the access the bios, I can change setting and save, but I need to reflash an original bios to be able to use it. The bios is phoenix and i have tried crisdisk and and the key combinations I have read about but it wont recovery the bios from any usb drives. I would try a usb floppy drive, but the bios.wph file exceeds the capacity of a floppy disk. Any suggestions?

 

[Josh192]

Hi, I have a Samsung r560 laptop and I have failed to flash a correctly working bios. I attempted to install a modified bios. Although the flashing process worked, I am left with a bios that I can access, but it will not move and further. It will not boot to windows or from any other device. When the laptop is turned on the logo screen appears and I can press F2 the access the bios, I can change setting and save, but I need to reflash an original bios to be able to use it. The bios is phoenix and i have tried crisdisk and tried all the key combinations (fn + b) I have read about, but it wont recovery the bios from any usb drives. I would try a usb floppy drive, but the bios.wph file exceeds the capacity of a floppy disk. Any suggestions?

 

[szaboaz]

I've searched around for Samsung BIOS recovery, and I've found only two success reports. One for Samsung R519, involving a "bios programming tool": http/forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/25625-recover-a-samsung-R519
and another one for Samsung RV409, which links to a Russian site:
http/forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/29533-solved-samsung-rv409-crisis-bios-recovery
http/acerfans.ru/faq/page,1,2,1400-bios-voprosy-po-proshivke-i-vosstanovleniyu-bios.html

The guy's latest access is from 22 Nov 2011, maybe you can reach him with a private message...


I found some other Samsung recovery reports, which are very similar to yours unfortunately: able to go into BIOS, unable to initiate a recovery.
http/forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/16205-Bios-Recovery-for-Samsung-Q70-Laptop


That's not much help, I know.

Hey, if you haven't tried everything, try this: change something in the configuration, and try to boot. Of course you can't change much for a laptop, but you can
- take out hard disk drive,and try booting from CD or USB
- take out the battery
The thing would be, maybe it's some failed hardware test that prevents the system to go ahead with the booting process.

 

[Josh192]

Thanks for the reply. One thing i did notice in the first link, is the guy saying that he attempted to bridge the crisis pins or bios pins. Now that is something i have not tried. I have read stuff about boot block jumpers and stuff, but it was never really stated in any tutorials as a requirement. So is it that it is common sense to everyone to bridge the pins before trying recovery or is it only required for some models? Basically have i missed a trick in my procedures, do i need to bridge bios pins on the motherboard?

 

[szaboaz]

That's not something I have experience with.

Jumpers and motherboards - I've only seen them in one sentence in relation to CMOS clearing. What I read about BIOS recovery so far, was only software modification.

You're absolutely right to take utmost care (is that en expression? ), because of the harm it can cause if done wrong. Maybe armed with a step-by-step guide and a precise motherboard reference, I'd give it a try, no other way.


A propos, CMOS clearing. I bet you tried reloading BIOS "default", or "optimized" settings. Didn't cause that any change?

Hehe, just for the facts: the BIOS doesn't have built-in flashing utility, does it? I looked up the manual, but it's not comprehensive.

 

[Josh192]

Thanks for the advice. I now have a usb floppy drive, used crisdisk but still cant get the laptop to recovery. I have no idea what to do or if im doing any wrong. Please can someone help.

 

[mprob]

Thanks for the advice. I now have a usb floppy drive, used crisdisk but still cant get the laptop to recovery. I have no idea what to do or if im doing any wrong. Please can someone help.

Did you get this resolved Josh192? I am facing a similar problem with a r590. Bricked it while "updating" bios. I'm going totally crazy.

 

[szaboaz]

*Maybe* it's necessary to clear the CMOS after (some) BIOS updates?

I searched around again with "samsung bios recovery" and came up with nothing. Then I went on to search for "samsung notebook service manual", hoping that their own instructions for their technicians will contain the information we need.

Well, these proved to be a very scarce resource, but I've found this site with some pdf files, most of which are only the disassemby chapter of the whole manual:
http/www.tim.id.au/blog/tims-laptop-service-manuals/#toc-samsung

However, it is the whole guide for the X460, and let's assume for a moment that Samsung uses similar bioses (the name "Phoenix bios" always came up with previous searches):
http/tim.id.au/laptops/samsung/samsung%20x460.zip

The zip file contains the 07_Troubleshooting.pdf which speaks about bios update on Page 27 (Chapter "4-8. Bios and Micom update"). Nothing about recovery, unfortunately, but I find it interesting that there is a "Reset security Number" instruction, which means clearing CMOS by shorting a point on the motherboard (probably requires disassembly, on that model only the keyboard needs to be removed).

HTH.

 

[szaboaz]

Yo mprob, I followed your "saga" at http/www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-Request-Samsung-R590 . Wow, that's what I call perseverance.

I understood that you were able to do a bios recovery by putting the 11JBB.wph file on a pendrive, and pressed fn+escape at startup. Did the bios flash automatically happen, or you got to a DOS prompt where you had to issue a command?
After that, you still had a problem of it not being stable, but it's not clear for me, what made the difference in the end. Could you elaborate here, please? I'm simply curious, but I believe it will be useful for future visitors.