Bricked a Toshiba u300 with bad flash- crisis disk wont boot
Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 1:28 am
Hi there,
I was trying to update my BIOS last night to correct some ongoing issues I've been having... It was done 10 blocks out of 16 when windows BSOD'd. (winphlash.exe)
After rebooting I'm welcomed to a nice blank screen with no sign of activity... Lovely.
I called Toshiba and explained to them what happened and they said that should definitely be covered by warranty... but for some reason the serial number has rubbed off of the warranty sticker I've never cleaned the bottom of the laptop with anything and I'm generally pretty careful with it, but somehow the s/n was rubbed off, and because of that they won't help me (even though my laptop model was first introduced less than a year ago and therefore *MUST* be under warranty.).. I can't figure out why they would use water soluble ink for something as vital as a serial number, or why they would use a windows based bios flashing program, or why despite these both being problems directly caused by toshiba that they refuse to fix it... but I digress..
At any rate, I've downloaded the crisis boot disk for phoenix bioses, downloaded the correct WPH file and obtained a USB floppy drive, but no combination of keys will get it to see the floppy drive.. I've tried FN+B, WIN+B, FN+ESC, and a few others, but it never seems to try the floppy at all.
Is there some other key combinations I can try, or does anyone know if this laptop has some kind of "recovery jumper" or "boot block" or something, or is my 4 month old laptop now a $1000 paperweight?
I was trying to update my BIOS last night to correct some ongoing issues I've been having... It was done 10 blocks out of 16 when windows BSOD'd. (winphlash.exe)
After rebooting I'm welcomed to a nice blank screen with no sign of activity... Lovely.
I called Toshiba and explained to them what happened and they said that should definitely be covered by warranty... but for some reason the serial number has rubbed off of the warranty sticker I've never cleaned the bottom of the laptop with anything and I'm generally pretty careful with it, but somehow the s/n was rubbed off, and because of that they won't help me (even though my laptop model was first introduced less than a year ago and therefore *MUST* be under warranty.).. I can't figure out why they would use water soluble ink for something as vital as a serial number, or why they would use a windows based bios flashing program, or why despite these both being problems directly caused by toshiba that they refuse to fix it... but I digress..
At any rate, I've downloaded the crisis boot disk for phoenix bioses, downloaded the correct WPH file and obtained a USB floppy drive, but no combination of keys will get it to see the floppy drive.. I've tried FN+B, WIN+B, FN+ESC, and a few others, but it never seems to try the floppy at all.
Is there some other key combinations I can try, or does anyone know if this laptop has some kind of "recovery jumper" or "boot block" or something, or is my 4 month old laptop now a $1000 paperweight?