Oops! Aspire Z1620-UR31P BIOS Upgrade - Windows 10

That's "oops" as in, Oops, when I upgraded my Aspire Z1620-UR31P (Windows 7) and Aspire E1-732-4651 (Windows 8.1) to Windows 10 I failed to notice the important Acer Community asterisk: "Please make sure to upgrade the BIOS before upgrade to Windows 10." Due to installation problems -- especially with the Windows 7 unit -- I was forced into clean installs for both machines. So, as discussed on this forum, when you do a Windows 10 clean install a product key already resides on the BIOS and is read from BIOS by Windows 10 installation and authenticated at first web connection. Given such a Digital Entitlement setup I assume it is too late to follow the BIOS upgrade alert because I will lose Windows 10 activation. Am I correct?
At this time both machines run smoothly with Windows 10 but unlike the E1 the Z1620 repeatedly fails to accept the first major Windows 10 update: "Upgrade to Windows 10 Home, Version 1511, 10586." At two-thirds into update comes a blue screen hangup requiring a hard shutdown, failure to automatically restore the update, and finally automatic restoration of the earlier Windows 10 build after the message: "Windows 10 Update Error 0xC1900101-0x40017. The Installation failed in SECOND_BOOT phase with an error during BOOT operation."

Accepted answers

billsey

You should be able to do the BIOS upgrade even though that first release of Windows 10 is already installed. The Windows key will remain during the BIOS upgrade.

How much space do you have on the C drive? It's possible the 1511 upgrade is failing with an out of space error... They're pretty cryptic with the error codes.

All comments

billsey

You should be able to do the BIOS upgrade even though that first release of Windows 10 is already installed. The Windows key will remain during the BIOS upgrade.

How much space do you have on the C drive? It's possible the 1511 upgrade is failing with an out of space error... They're pretty cryptic with the error codes.

WJB-2

So, the key remains. Thanks to Billsey for explaining. I'll upgrade both machines as recommended, but sense a BIOS upgrade is not likely to solve the Z1620's 1511, 10586 failure. As to space, I've already dropped to a meager 42 GB used with a whopping 406 GB open. In addition to clearing space, I tried every MS suggestion for update error 0xC1900101-0x40017, including disconnecting Internet, deactivating and later removing Avast to default to Windows Defender, and having nothing connected but keyboard and mouse. Yet after all that, continual second boot attempt failure.

I follow each **bleep** failure with an extensive admin-based cleanup and repair. However, since the last failure I noticed "Host System Device" had been knocked out. I let Windows search "C" for what was missing and it found and reinstalled two JMicron Host Controllers. Go figure. Following the BIOS update I'll try 1511 once more. Will report if/when solved.

Given undetermined Z1620 upgrade issues, would it be wisest to use DOS for BIOS upgrade instead of Windows? The suggested E1 Series BIOS upgrade is "to enhance system performance." Unfortunately, the application in the Zip file has no guidance with it, e.g., a DOS or Windows guide. So when I get to the E1 BIOS I'll likely start a new thread to seek clarification.

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