Laptop tragedy

[Tom]

A few weeks ago my laptop returned from the hold of an aircraft, refusing to boot up. I gave it to a mate who fixes laptops, presuming the screen was fucked (there was a crack on the lid). He's sorted the screen but the problem is that the BIOS is corrupt. Apparently this can happen in the cold environment that is an aircraft hold.

Presently, it recognises the cpu, memory, boot stuff, etc, but freezes at "mouse initialized". Its a Lenovo 3000 N200, and runs on a Phoenix BIOS. I can go into the BIOS and muck around with things, change the boot order etc, but that's it.

I have the ROM file, and according to him (and the internet) the solution is to write it to a bootable device (I'm using a bootable usb stick), rename the file (from google I've renamed it to bios.wph), disconnect the battery and power, plug the stick in, and holding Fn and B plug the power back in, and power it up.

Now I've done all that and I get a blank screen, the fan stays on permanently, and no boot loader, so obviously its doing something, but even after leaving it for 20 minutes it still doesn't work when I reboot.

Any tips? BTW it isn't a corrupt HD, because it won't boot off a CD either. Seems a shame to bin a perfectly good laptop just because of a bit of bad code.

 

[Bob007]

I believe in this case it still needs to be done from floppy. Grab a Crisis recovery disk tool. Run wincrisis from within the tool set and make a floppy.

When thats complete replace the BIOS.WPH with one for your system. Make sure its named BIOS.WPH. Then do what you are doing now but with a floppy and not a PEN drive.

Crisi Recovery Tool
http://www.rechner.org/data/B1800_crisis_recovery_disk.zip

Lenovo (IBM) Support for 3000 N200
Lenovo Support & downloads - BIOS Update Utility - Lenovo N200 (type 0769)

You should get a black screen then a beep within a min or so. It don't take long. So the 20 mins wait from pen drive is wrong.

Edit: Working on the assumtion its a Pheonix Bios.
If its AMI bios then drop the bios file on the root of the floppy as AMIBOOT.ROM this should recovery most AMI bios when you use fnB

EDIT2: Crisis recovery tool i found is fairly old, if you can find a newer one use that. It should work for you.

EDIT3: Yu can also use a CD in most cases. So if you have floppy on puter and not on lappy, create floppy, apply bios files and use nero (or something like) to create a bootable CD. Put that in and do what you been doing.

 

[Tom]

Thanks, I will see if I can find someone with a USB floppy. Amazing how these crappy old things are still required...

 

[Bob007]

Yes i agree

If you confirm the bios i can build you a CD image. Then you can try that way while you try to find a floppy.

 

[Moriath]

i would never check a laptop

always carry on

suprisingly the hold isnt pressurized and electronics dont like the cold

 

[Tom]

There was no way around it, I had about £10,000 worth of audio gear and that was my hand luggage

I've got a little further. I've borrowed a USB floppy, it reads it for about 2 minutes while booting with Fn+B, but does nothing else. The BIOS version remains the same.

I saw on another forum (google search) that a bloke had the same issue, and just kept trying different versions of PHLASH16.EXE until it worked. I have version 1.3, build 47.

 

[Tom]

So if anyone knows where to find a PHFLASH16.EXE that's newer than what I've found, feel free to link it

 

[Tom]

ok I found a file with a load of different versions in. If anyone else wants it, grab it from my ftp here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tom.jeffs4/Phoenix_Crisys_Disk.rar

You have to copy your bios to the folder you extract that file to, and rename it bios.wph. Rename whichever version of PHLASH.* you need, to PHLASH16.EXE, and then run the batch file to install.

 

[Tom]

Ok I have managed to update the bios to v3.05, the latest version according to:

Lenovo Support & downloads - Drivers and software - Lenovo N200 (type 0769)

Its still hanging at "Mouse initialized", however.

Possibly the BIOS chip itself is fucked? It won't boot from the CD, I tried it with my copy of Windows 7.

 

[Tom]

I am so smart! I am so smart! S M RT I mean SM...

Its got 3 gigs of ram, I pulled the 2 gig stick out and it booted right up. I guess that means that either the 2 gig stick is knackered, or the slot holding that 2 gig stick is knackered.

Either way it now boots up and runs Ubuntu, so I'm happy

The 2 gig stick says "2048MB UNB DDRII-667 CL5"

Is there any way I can test that, before I go and shell out on more RAM?

 

[Bob007]

drop it in the other slot and run mem test from grub ?

And i grabbed that file, always handy to keep. cheers

 

[Tom]

Nah, tried it in both slots. The laptop only boots with the 1 gig stick in.

The mate who fixed the screen issue for me will have a look at it for us. The laptop only runs Ubuntu for internet anyway, so it will be fine.