BIOS ROM checksum error - how to fix HP m8000n

[n3et]

HP Pavilion m8000n BIOS ROM checksum error - fixed

Awdflash.exe ver 8.59E and 513.ROM worked great and I have my new 64x2 computer back.

AwdFlash.exe at:

http://www.jetway.com.tw/evisn/download ... dflash.exe

I ran sp37190.exe BIOS update from HP site for m8000n computer (on another computer) and stopped short when it said "Please close any applications...)" and clicked the "X" in upper right corner to abort, then clicked "Cancel" at the next prompt. My guess is that it would not have caused any damage to this Compaq computer if I had continued.

I searched all my drives for 513.ROM and found it in my boot drive under pft50.tmp directory. I then made a bootable floppy and copied 513.ROM and AwdFlash.exe to the floppy. Inserted the floppy disk into the floppy drive that I connected to my m8000n motherboard and powered on. At the DOS prompt I typed "AwdFlash 513.rom old.rom" and all went well. When finished, I pushed ENTER key and the m8000n restarted and booted VISTA windows.


The AwdFlash.exe took 3 minutes and showed the whole time it's progess and was accessing the floppy disk (clunk, clunk, clunk). Later I looked for old.rom on the floppy and it was not there.


If you try this trick, do a search of your boot harddrive *.rom, the BIOS .rom file should show up as xxx.rom where xxx is the BIOS version of the spxxxxx.exe BIOS update file from HP.


I tried burning a bootable CD, but did not work, likely because I put too much other junk on it.


HP customer service wants me to send the computer back for repair. They were less than useless to fix this problem, but polite about it. The fix above saved a few hundred dollars and a week without the computer.

Note that since the BIOS is already destroyed it is unlikely to cause any more damage if you try the above fix.

mbs_MA at majorgeeks.com credited for this fix to a difficult problem.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread ... ost1068202