Secure backup UEFI Fail

[Chris_gys]

Hello,

I have, from what is seems, bricked my A_Bios by doing an internet update from UEFI menu on my Fatality Z97 Pro.

I tried all the possible solutions to boot my pc but i always get a 4F, 2F, 9F status.
After reading the manual i decided to just boot from B_Bios and use the "Secure backup UEFI" in order to bring the A_Bios back to life.

When i try to do that though i get a message that the process with start shortly after reboot, but never does.
I get directly to windows bootup screen and when i try to switch to A_Bios i still receive the previous error codes. Searhing in Google on how to perform this Secure backup UEFI process returns nothing, so my guess is that it should either be really simple, or none really makes a tutorial for it.

The manual doesn't really state anything helpfull in general for this process ( like re-enter UEFI menu, press some button, or something ).

Can anyone help me do this? i can still work on my PC from the backup chip, but i hate to not have a failover...

[Chris_gys]

Re: Secure backup UEFI Fail

Anyway,

I eventually solved my issue by using an Arduino to read the B_Bios chip and then written the rom to A_Bios one.

Practically implementing this functionallity manuallly.

Now both chips work fine, and i am not planning to mess with them soon :P

[Joe-912]

Re: Secure backup UEFI Fail

Yes I see what you mean the manual does not help much, Glad you found another way with the Arduino board, does that involve removing the bad bios chip and putting it in the Arduino board and reprograming it, sounds fun!

[Chris_gys]

Re: Secure backup UEFI Fail

does that involve removing the bad bios chip and putting it in the Arduino board and reprograming it

Yes, it does, and it was fun :)

Obviously i got a bit lucky and i already have some know-how around reading-writing chips though.

As a disclaimer, i wouldn't recommend this to anyone that doesn't fully understand in what he is getting into, as you see i had to use the good Chip in order to get a working rom ( getting it from Ashrock seemed harder than reading it :P ), this process could brick that one also if done wrong, especially without applying the correct voltages.

Just so that this post becomes usefull for any other wanting to go this way, this is the datasheet i used:

http://nexflash.com/NR/rdonlyres/05A6F2FD-83D2-4748-8394-65909AC2A8E3/0/W25Q64FV.pdf

And based on my experience from this proccess i will work on a blog post on the full procedure.

In short though, and keeping it to the Thread subject, the problem with the A_BIOS chip was that the contents were bad, making it unusable for any automated procedure in UEFI menu, including the "Secure backup UEFI" one.

If you get on the same place as i was and you don't feel comfortable with using any Hardware to read/write the Rom, just stay with B_BIOS for the rest of the MB life, or order a new chip from some online services ( never tried it so i will not propose any )

[Joe-912]

Re: Secure backup UEFI Fail

Very interesting subject though, thanks for sharing your experience with the forum, I guess you wont be using Internet flash again, best stick to Instant flash on a usb stick I found the best method over the years