Constant BSODs and crashes after updating the BIOS for P67 Pro3

[BloodyRose]

A couple of days ago I went to the official ASRock website just to check if there were new drivers for Windows 8 that I've had since its official release date for MSDN and TechNet users, August 15. I didn't notice anything new among the drivers so I went to the BIOS section. As soon as I saw that the latest bios update for my motherboard (3.20) brings an improvement for Windows 8 I thought I would get the update and run it. I'm a long time PC user with many years of experience. I've never had any issues updating BIOS before.
I read the instruction provided by ASRock and proceeded by closing all applications and running the .exe. There were no visible errors. The program asked if I wanted to restart the system and I clicked OK. The updating process continued out of the OS. Another restart occurred. After that I could not boot into Windows 8 getting the same BSOD every time. It said INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE. I've spent the whole day trying to repair the system, changing BIOS settings and seeing if my HDD was doing ok. None of that has helped. I also realized I had my iPod connected to the PC during the updating process and that it may have caused some issues. I used to have been unable to boot into Windows 7 with it plugged in.
When I went to the official ASRock website again from a different PC to download the same BIOS update and copy it to my USB stick I saw that the installation instructions I've previously read were not for Windows Vista or newer operating systems. I was meant to scroll down and see that I needed to run the update as administrator. I usually disable the UAC altogether but it was enabled in Windows 8, so that may have been another mistake on my side.
On that same day I booted into Windows XP from a USB stick and updated BIOS to 3.20 once again, now making sure there's no iPod and UAC. That still didn't allow me to boot into my only operating system that was Windows 8.
On the next day I decided to completely reinstall Windows 8 as I was out of options. I did that from the USB stick with no apparent errors during the installation. I was able to boot into the system this time but using it was impossible. It would give me different types of BSODs all the time. The minidumps and the BSOD messages have been pointing at filesystem corruption and issues with my HDD. Even though I knew I haven't done anything about my hardware and all this started after the first BIOS update, I decided to give it a try and completely format my system drive, then reinstall the OS again. I plugged in my USB stick but the Windows installation program would always give me a BSOD. I had to plug it into a different USB port to stop the BSODs. That way I was able to format and install, but using the system was just like before. I still get a BSOD no matter what I do. The programs in the system also crash, sometimes they don't install, all despite it being a fresh OS installation and recently formatted HDD. The model of the HDD is Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS. I have another one that's older and it's ST31000333AS. All my files are on it now. I'm really out of options and it feels like my computer is completely broken just because of the BIOS update. I don't know how to fix it.

One more thing: Windows 8 can't be to blame as I've used it for more than 2 weeks every day with my computer running 24/7 prior to updating BIOS. No BSODs have appeared.
Right now I'm running a newly installed Windows 7 and also getting BSODs referring to ntoskrnl.exe. There are also random application crashes, as in Windows 8. Perhaps there's not as many BSODs but they're there.

[parsec]

What BIOS version did you have before you changed to 3.20? On the ASRock page for your board (the USA site, if that makes a difference) the only BIOS versions shown are 3.10 and 3.20. 3.10 has a required driver, really the Intel Management Engine, and a new version of AXTU. Were you using 3.10 and loaded the Intel ME software that is necessary? If you were using a BIOS version earlier than 3.10, I assume you would need that version of IME with 3.20.

One potential option (?) for you might be, there is a Beta BIOS version L2.11H, in the "Beta Zone" download area. Yes not the best option, and will the BIOS update program allow you to load it over 3.20? I don't know.

A guaranteed fix would be to buy a new BIOS chip, with an earlier BIOS version on it. That might not be easy to do where you live, hopefully it is. I've read about others doing that with other boards, getting the chip and BIOS from ASRock or even eBay. You might need to install Windows 8 again, but at least your PC would work.

You might be a victim of what I call the "BIOS updates for Ivy Bridge CPUs but using Sandy Bridge CPU syndrome". That is, the BIOS updates for IB CPUs cause issues with SB CPUs. I've seen that with other mother board manufactures products, and apparently on some ASRock boards too. I won't put the latest BIOS on my ASUS P67 board, since I use an i7-2600K in it, and users have reported strange issues when using that BIOS (for IB support) on their PCs with SB CPUs. This may not matter in your case at all, just FYI if you've never heard of it.

[BloodyRose]

What BIOS version did you have before you changed to 3.20? On the ASRock page for your board (the USA site, if that makes a difference) the only BIOS versions shown are 3.10 and 3.20. 3.10 has a required driver, really the Intel Management Engine, and a new version of AXTU. Were you using 3.10 and loaded the Intel ME software that is necessary? If you were using a BIOS version earlier than 3.10, I assume you would need that version of IME with 3.20.

One potential option (?) for you might be, there is a Beta BIOS version L2.11H, in the "Beta Zone" download area. Yes not the best option, and will the BIOS update program allow you to load it over 3.20? I don't know.

A guaranteed fix would be to buy a new BIOS chip, with an earlier BIOS version on it. That might not be easy to do where you live, hopefully it is. I've read about others doing that with other boards, getting the chip and BIOS from ASRock or even eBay. You might need to install Windows 8 again, but at least your PC would work.

You might be a victim of what I call the "BIOS updates for Ivy Bridge CPUs but using Sandy Bridge CPU syndrome". That is, the BIOS updates for IB CPUs cause issues with SB CPUs. I've seen that with other mother board manufactures products, and apparently on some ASRock boards too. I won't put the latest BIOS on my ASUS P67 board, since I use an i7-2600K in it, and users have reported strange issues when using that BIOS (for IB support) on their PCs with SB CPUs. This may not matter in your case at all, just FYI if you've never heard of it.

I got my current PC in june 2011 so the version might have been 2.00 or earlier. I'm not sure. I know it had an older UI.
As for the beta BIOS version, it also appears to be older than 3.20 and Instant Flash doesn't see it on my FAT32 formatted USB stick although it's there unpacked. I don't have a floppy drive and my HDDs are NTFS formatted.
The only BIOS chips available for my motherboard on eBay have the latest BIOS, according to the descriptions. That's clearly not what I need.

[parsec]

What about the IME software? A link to it is provided in the 3.10 BIOS download description.

You do realize you took a MAJOR jump from ~2.00 to 3.20! A... bold move on your part. What drivers are you using. You cannot ignore them!

[BloodyRose]

What about the IME software? A link to it is provided in the 3.10 BIOS download description.

You do realize you took a MAJOR jump from ~2.00 to 3.20! A... bold move on your part. What drivers are you using. You cannot ignore them!

I have all the latest drivers for Windows 7 x64 from the official ASRock website now. That includes the Intel ME driver. I've updated BIOS from 3.20 to 3.20 again using this configuration. Nothing's changed.
No other drivers have been installed so far, excluding those that come with Windows Update.

[BloodyRose]

It turns out my original BIOS version was 1.80. It's on the chip sticker. Is there no way to downgrade?

[Bluemeanie]

While you say you've changed some bios settings, was one of them the sata port that your drive is connected to? Have you tried both AHCI and IDE modes?

[BloodyRose]

While you say you've changed some bios settings, was one of them the sata port that your drive is connected to? Have you tried both AHCI and IDE modes?

I've always used the IDE mode due to my lack of knowledge about AHCI. After I updated the BIOS IDE was enabled by default too. The PC disaster I'm in right now is the reason I know about AHCI. Yes, I've tried switching to AHCI and installing an OS with that enabled. Both modes lead to the same outcome.

[BloodyRose]

I've made my system stable again by going back to the BIOS version 1.80 and later 2.00. I get a message saying HECI POINTER MISMATCH and "cannot get fw version" when I boot. That must be because of the newer Intel ME firmware that comes with the BIOS version 3. Other than that, everything is good.
It's still an issue that I can't stick to 3.20, though.

[Bluzzard]

A couple of days ago I went to the official ASRock website just to check if there were new drivers for Windows 8 that I've had since its official release date for MSDN and TechNet users, August 15. I didn't notice anything new among the drivers so I went to the BIOS section. As soon as I saw that the latest bios update for my motherboard (3.20) brings an improvement for Windows 8 I thought I would get the update and run it. I'm a long time PC user with many years of experience. I've never had any issues updating BIOS before.

Thanks for relating your story. I've just been through almost exactly the same experience, and had no luck getting my system stable under 3.10 or 3.20 after upgrading from 2.00. I was alarmed by the POST error messages after flashing back to 2.00, but you've encouraged me to ignore them, stick with 2.00, and finish rebuilding my Win7 install. Did you ever find a way to make 3.20 work?