Acer Bios Recovery
Owoeye Heatley
I have an Acer ZG5 netbook. After 1 year of using Ubuntu, I installed Windows 7 on it. Additionally, I installed a BIOS update that was supposed to fix battery issues. However, it restarted and would fall into a loop of restarting once it hit the Windows login as if it never actually flashed the BIOS.
Then I proceeded to do a BIOS restore per the instructions found here in which one copies the image unto a USB and tries to reset the BIOS by starting with Fn+Esc pressed.
At this point I did this with the correct BIOS (I double checked), but since this point, my computer never started again.
I tried to reset the BIOS again but it would not read from the USB. I even tried it with a USB floppy to no avail.
I had the same issue with my friends similar model, when the 3310 version of the bios failed to flash it, I used the previous version and it worked just fine. the instructions are the same in both cases, perhaps you can try that if you still have that Aspire One.
Fat/Fat32 does not matter and the whole process took just under a minute. You could just copy the files on an existing stick on root just as long as it's the aforementioned filesystem format. The bootblock routine on the Acer scans the whole stick for the required files.
The Acer Aspire One has a built-in BIOS recovery routine, which can boot into a minimal BIOS environment via a special boot block to re-flash the BIOS, even if the system does not pass POST and does otherwise not boot anymore. This procedure is also known as Crisis Disk.
Download the latest BIOS, and extract all files. Put both FLASHIT.EXE and the BIOS file with FD suffix in the root directory of the flash drive. The files must not be in a folder. Rename the BIOS file to ZG5IA32.FD before proceeding. It only works with this exact filename.
Press Fn and Esc simultaneously, keep them pressed and press the power button. Release Fn+Esc after a few seconds. The power button starts blinking at this point. Press it once. The AA1 will now access the files on the flash drive and initiate flashing the BIOS. After a while the power button stops blinking, and the AA1 reboots by itself. Wait patiently.
I had downloaded the latest BIOS Update v1.08 from the Acer website by looking up my computer model (Acer Aspire 5349). I chose to run the Windows flash update located in the Windows folder. For whatever reason, this caused my computer to freeze during the BIOS update and I decided to restart the laptop. This had interrupted the BIOS update and caused my screen to go black and I was clearly not able to get into Windows 7 (Home Premium 32 bit). After multiple tries using the Crisis Disk Recovery instructions found in the Acer Aspire 5349 Service Manual(Chapter 2, pg 28) to try and create a USB stick to recover/rebuild my BIOS, I finally found a method that worked.
6. Download the Phoenix/Insyde Tool v2.50. Unzip the file and run PhoenixTool.exe. Then in this program where it says "Original BIOS" load the ZQR.fd file to figure out whether you need to rename the ZQR.fd file to something else (ie. I have seen .BIN, .WPH and .ROM out there on the internet which can get super confusing!). In my case, the PhoenixTool.exe told me to leave my file name as ZQR.fd. This is your first file to copy over to the USB stick.
8. Next, make sure your Acer Aspire 5349 laptop with the corrupted BIOS is powered off and unplugged (I had my laptop battery inserted). I inserted my USB in the left USB slot on the laptop (ie. I had 2 on the right also, not sure if it matters which one you use!)
9. Next, to cause the laptop to enter the BIOS Recovery Mode hold down the Fn + Esc keys and plug in the AC power. Continue holding the Fn + Esc keys and press the Power button. Continue holding the Fn + Esc keys for approximately 5 sec. The blue AC power light on the laptop should start blinking and the USB stick will light up which will hopefully indicate your BIOS is being recovered. The computer will reboot once and allow you to start using your laptop again! The recovery took about 2-3 min in my case.
Thanks so much for posting your resolution to your flash issue. Flashing the bios is a risky procedure. It shouldn't be done if the system seems to be working satisfactorily. Did you have an issue that you felt a bios update would fix?
Press Y to reset fTPM, if you have bitlocker or encryption-enabled system, the system will not boot without a recovery key.
Press N to keep previous fTPM record and continue system boot, fTPM will NOT be enabled with new CPU unless fTPM is reset (reinitialized). You could swap back to the old CPU to recover TPM related keys and data.
disable the tpm module in bios or reset the tpm keys, either will do.
its caused by installing a fresh bios on an install of windows 10/11, which either invalidates existing keys or gives this warning if tpm was off before the upgrade and is now on.
boot into the system and see if bitlocker is being used.
if it is, you will have to roll back to the old bios.
then go to the tpm key in bios and write it down, all 48 digits of the key.
reboot and see if bitlocker still works. (it should)
When using Bitlocker, do keep a backup of the Bitlocker key, it also normally gets saved into the Microsoft account, but you will need another device to access the backup, in case the original device decides to invalidate the TPM configuration.
The other day I had to reset the CMOS battery on my Acer 5920G laptop. I found a nice little short cut in getting the job done quickly and efficiently. After reading a couple of tutorials online most of the people said that I would literally have to completely dismantle the laptop (apart from the monitor of course), which seemed a little long-winded, seeing as that I was able to spot the CMOS battery just by removing the back cover.
Eres un genio hermano. Me funciono perfectamente. Tengo una laptop acer 5920 y esta tenia una clave para entrar en las Bios; hice el procedimiento que sugeriste y ahora puedo entrar a las bios sin clave. Gracias. Te amo.
Glad it worked! I presume you could do the same with ither laptops, but it all depends on where the cmos battery is located. In any case, i would always check first as removing it this way saves a lot of time and hassle.
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