[clug] can upgrading ubuntu kill your bios? DON't PANIC - How do I start the BIOS recovery on a Dell system?

[George at Clug]

Bob,


This reminds me of the old quote DON'T PANIC, though I forget the
colouring that was part of the skit.


I have had the issue that UEFI looses all boot information for a disk
drive. Personally I hate complexity, and UEFI is just that, more
complexity than benefit (personal opinion only).



I would assume that you have already checked the below possible
solutions?  If not, let me know if this could work?


https://www.dell.com/support/article/au/en/audhs1/sln300716/bios-recovery-options-on-a-dell-pc-or-tablet?lang=en


WHAT IS A BIOS RECOVERY TOOL?

The BIOS Recovery tools are software designed to recover a corrupted
BIOS.


 

How Do I Initiate BIOS Recovery On A Dell Laptop?



Before you begin the BIOS Recovery, ensure that the laptop's battery
is charged up to at least 10%.




	*  

Verify that the laptop is powered OFF and disconnect the AC adapter.


	*  

Press and hold the CTRL key + ESC key on the keyboard.


	*  

Plug in the AC adapter to the laptop.


	*  

Release the CTRL key + ESC key on the keyboard once you see the BIOS
recovery screen.


	*  

On the BIOS Recovery screen, select Reset NVRAM(if available) and
press the Enter key. Select Disabled and press the Enter key if you
wish to save the current BIOS settings.


	*  

Select Recover BIOS and press the Enter key to start the recovery
process.

Note: Your Dell PC may restart a few times during the process of BIOS
recovery.


Note: This works slightly differently for Alienware Notebooks. Please
follow the steps below instead. 


	*  

Shut the PC down and remove the AC adapter cable


	*  

Press and hold the CTRL and ESC keys together while carrying out the
next steps


	*  

Connect the AC Adapter cable and press the PC's power button


	*  

Release the CTRL and ESC keys as soon as the power button LED is lit


	*  

Select option Recover BIOS and wait until it finishes



George





On Monday, 21-01-2019 at 18:52 Bob Edwards via linux wrote:


I have a colleague who recently upgraded his Dell XPS13 laptop from
Ubuntu 18.04 to 18.10 and, as part of the process, it seemed to
attempt to update the BIOS.

I have never heard of a Linux distro, let alone Ubuntu, wanting to
update the BIOS. Further, if this was thing, I would have expected
it to ask first, possibly more than once.

Something apparently went wrong during the BIOS flashing and now the
laptop is a brick.

I have looked around on the web, but I can't see any evidence that
Ubuntu would pre-emptively update the BIOS during an O/S upgrade.

Is this a thing, or has the laptop been infected with some sort of
malware?

cheers,
Bob Edwards.

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