Helios 500 - PH517-51 firmware update fail

trkfz · September 2019

In Device Manager I saw an error message under Firmware "Acer Inc. System Firmware 1.16."

And the properties showed the message "This device cannot work properly until you restart your computer. (Code 14)
Click Restart Computer to restart your computer."

After restarting I got BSOD (windows 10) saying "Inaccessible boot device". Tryed to restart once more but now everything is stuck. Cannot get even to the repair options.
I didn't want to update Firmware, it was an automatic update without any warning, and now I'm without laptop. Please, help because I need it for work.

Is there anything that could be done (quickly) and possibly without losing data?

Thanx

Commodore_1995# · September 2019

Yes, this driver updates the uefi bios firmware through windows update. This is why some users disable windows update. After restarting the notebook, did you see a green progress bar with the Acer logo? If so, then your uefi bios has been updated. Can you access uefi bios by pressing f2?

Commodore_1995# · September 2019

If the tips from fellow xapim and sri369 don't work, enter the bios and then press f9 to restore it and f10 to save on exit. You must restore the bios every time the firmware is updated to fix some bugs.

trkfz · September 2019

Yes, there was a green progress bar but I'm not sure if the update finished completely. I did manage to access bios and the version is 1.16. Still getting BSOD and is stuck on "Preparing automatic repair"...

xapim · September 2019

trkfz said:

Yes, there was a green progress bar but I'm not sure if the update finished completely. I did manage to access bios and the version is 1.16. Still getting BSOD and is stuck on "Preparing automatic repair"...

Try ALT+F10 on boot and repair it keeping your files see if you can get it at least to boot back into windows

sri369 · September 2019

trkfz said:

Yes, there was a green progress bar but I'm not sure if the update finished completely. I did manage to access bios and the version is 1.16. Still getting BSOD and is stuck on "Preparing automatic repair"...

Prepare a windows 10 bootable USB on another system, and try repairing using that.
Once you get in, via repair, or a clean install, disable auto updating for drivers and bios via windows update. And defer all kinds of updates to atleast 15 and 60 days.

trkfz · September 2019

Thank you for your suggestions. Today i finally got time to try some of them but still without luck. Only once i managed to boot from usb but then i choose to repair (insted of a clean install). Tryed "start up repair" but it didn' t help (at least there are no disk errors) . There were no restore points or image files (used this laptop only for shrot time) so couldn't use those options.
But after restarting i cannot access this options anymore to try at least clean install.

So, i guess, it remains to restore BIOS. But what if this also fails and lose the possibility to access even bios?

And, this automatic bios update, without any warning, is it an option in Windows or some Acer software? I wasn't aware of this default "feature", never happened before.

Commodore_1995# · September 2019

Take it easy. You can access uefi bios, right? I have also seen a problem similar to yours in the German community. Try disconnecting hdd and ssd m2 and then resetting the battery:

https://youtu.be/NfhgnxUJoZo
The problem is that your notebook may be in raid mode and when disconnecting hdd and ssd, the array may be broken.

Have you also tried the alt + f10 command as your colleague xapim said?

trkfz · September 2019

Alt + F10 didn' t help, nothing happened, at least nothing visible.
Since i was afraid to try something more drastic i simply left the battery drain out because the only time i could get to repair options was after several days of inactivity. And upon powering up, some "magic" happened. In BIOS appeared an option that was not available before - to boot from usb, so i just changed boot order and finally installed Windows. But i lost everything on that partition because upgrade wasn't possible.
One thing still bothers me. The drives were previously in RAID but now this changed to AHCI. Not sure why this change.

Commodore_1995# · September 2019

If you want to choose raid mode, enable safe boot in msconfig and then restart windows and login to uefi bios. Then go to menu and function sata mode select rst with optane ..

STOPchris · September 2019

Windows 10 strikes again! Once you get it up and running go to the search bar on the task bar. Search for "advanced system settings", select the "hardware" tab, click "device installation settings" and select "No". I would uninstall anything that Acer has installed that "updates" driver software and do it manually if you need to. Heck, the first thing that I did with my Helios 500 is clean install Windows 10 Pro and disabled automatic updates for 3rd parties.

xapim · October 2019

Bios updates are forced by MS nothing to do with Acer it was microsoft choice to force all updates from all manufacturers via windows update (basically they wanted to create a AIO bundle

) which it might brick the laptops when it comes to update bios because windows update has loads of bugs, the bios should only be updated if its to fix anything that its stating in the update itself if and only updated manually via acer support website if theres no issues shouldnt be updated at all this is all MS and their windows 10 fault wanting to take over everything one of the main reasons why i disable all the updates permanently and not moving up from 1809 never had a single issue the only ways to reflash a bricked bios its by crisis recovery mode or if still on warranty sending it back to acer to get it fixed

XdxD · October 2019

Sad but on older models like my G3-572, BIOS update isn't delivered automatically, even through Windows Update. We need to manually choose to update online through Device Manager. Perhaps for newer devices, Microsoft is allowing us to choose which optional updates (Firmware and Drivers) from Windows 10 20H1, but till then, always keep your internet connection as meterred. Nothing gets past this 'meter' check.

Weasly · December 2019

Man, i did something similar but with intent, i manually got the 1.28 firmware update, and updated it from windows. Updated uefi and all good, but CPU was overheating again.

Turned out i had to re-apply CPU uv. settings in ThrottleStop, battery etc, just off/on and it went back to cool state.

i did it with no reason, just curiosity knowing it might mess up the system.