Instructions to Update the BIOS/UEFI for an HP Laptop on Linux

hp-bios-update.md

Instructions to Update the BIOS/UEFI for an HP Laptop on Linux

To update the BIOS/UEFI firmware requires HP-specific files in the EFI System Partition, also referred to as ESP.

On a Linux system, the ESP is typically mounted on /boot/efi or /efi. Whithin you should also find a EFI directory, e.g. /boot/efi/EFI or /efi/EFI. This article assumes that the ESP is mounted on /efi and that the /efi/EFI directory exists. You can replace that with the mount point your system uses.

The HP-specific files are located in /efi/EFI/HP or /efi/EFI/Hewlet-Packard. These files typically come preinstalled in HP Windows PCs. If you have these files you could skip Install HP-specific files.

Install HP-specific files

We can obtain the HP-specific files using HP's HP PC Hardware Diagnostics 4-IN-1 USB KEY installer. This installer contains the needed files. We can simply extract this installer and copy the needed files to the ESP

HP's installer only runs on Windows, but it is possible to extract it by running the self-extracting executable on Wine. You cannot simply extract the executable using 7-zip because the executable needs to do some file generation.

Download the executable. You can get the URL to the latest executable from HP's website.

$ wget https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp112501-113000/sp112853.exe

Run the executable using wine. This will extract its contents to ./sp112853.

$ wine sp112853.exe /s /e /f sp112853

Copy the HP-specific files to the the ESP.

# cp -r sp142721/field/{Hewlett-Packard,HP} /efi/EFI/

According to HP, this works for most hardware. For some cases you may need additional files. I have tired this with an HP Pavilion 13-an0008ne Laptop only, which required no additional steps.

Install BIOS update

You'll need to find you updated BIOS image. You can find one by going to HP's Software and Drivers page, and input your serial number. Make sure you select Windows as your Operating System, otherwise it may not show the updates.

These drivers often also come in Windows executables, you should run them in wine. The executable will first fail to install automatically. Then it will display different options on how to procede. Select the Copy option and select a directory where the BIOS image and the key file should be copied to.

$ wget https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp112501-113000/sp112516.exe
$ wine sp112516.exe /s /f sp112516           # extract and execute

Complete BIOS update using HP Hardware Diagnostics

There should be a .bin and an .s12 file. Copy these files to the ESP to the directory /efi/EFI/Hewlett-Packard/BIOS/New and /efi/ESP/HP/BIOS/New. Here I am using 084C5 as an example.

# mkdir /efi/EFI/Hewlett-Packard/BIOS/New
# cp sp112516/084C5{.bin,.s12} /efi/EFI/Hewlett-Packard/BIOS/New
# mkdir /efi/EFI/HP/BIOS/New
# cp sp112516/084C5{.bin,.s12} /efi/EFI/HP/BIOS/New

At this point you should have the needed HP-specific files and the BIOS update installed in the ESP. Now, you can actually complete the update.

Boot into firmware settings and press F2 to enter HP Hardware Diagnostics. You should be presented a menu and there should a menu entry named BIOS Management. Navigate to BIOS Management > Update BIOS. Your BIOS should start updating.

If you have enabled Secure Boot with custom keys, you will first need to sign the HP-specific .efi files.

Complete BIOS update using Win+B key combination

Sometimes the previous method does not work, and the BIOS Management option does not show up. You can alternatively copy the .bin and .s12 file to /efi/EFI/Hewlett-Packard/BIOS/Current or /efi/EFI/HP/BIOS/Current, and press Win-B while the PC is booting up. This key combination should cause a BIOS firmware recovery using the files you copied.

Also note that updating will re-enable Secure Boot if had it disabled. If so, you might want to disable it again. Your custom Secure Boot keys will be preserved.

PeterM18: ...
Also, I found your board ID in BIOSCopy.csv:

System_Board_ID, Street_Name, Binary_Prefixes, Product_Name
86E2,HP Pavilion Laptop PC 15-cs3000,086AA,

I would interpret this as: Board 86E2 is supported, Binary_Prefixes (=name of the BIOS files without suffix ) is 086AA. So 086AA.bin and 086AA.s12 should work for you.

Thank you for all your input! However, I cannot find a line in BIOSCopy.csv that contains '86E2', my board number (or so I think: it was called 'BaseBoard Product 86E2' in msinfo when I still had Windows on the laptop; dmidecode gives my board product name as 2AF3, which does not occur in either msinfo or in BIOSCopy.csv). I re-downloaded and extracted sp142721.exe in case there was some download error. The result is the same. My BIOSCopy.csv line reads: 86AB HP Pavilion Laptop PC 15-cs3000 086AA . There are 2 other lines like that with the first value of 8600 86000 . You got BIOSCopy.csv from sp142721.exe under 'field'? I'm concerned that if my board is not specifically mentioned, flashing the BIOS by this method may brick my laptop.

A few other odds 'n ends for clarity:

• So you just do a normal copy of the sp142721/field/* to the flash drive?
• The USB flash drive Windows created for me does have HP_TOOLS as a label. It also has two flags: boot and lba . Did you find that unnecessary?
• I couldn't create the USB flash drive in Windows without first creating a partition table and then placing the FAT32 partition on the drive. (gparted allows doing just the latter, but the drive won't read, at least not consistently, on Windows). Necessary or not?
• Would you fix the 'grub gone' issue by a) booting from a linux usb drive, b) using chroot to 'become' the laptop, c) using update grub?

PeterM18:

For the drive I created a gpt partition table as eNV25 described, then created a normal fat32 partition, labeled the partition HP_TOOLS and just copied sp142721/field/* to the drive mounted as /mnt/HP_Tools.

Then grep gives me this:

$ grep 86AA HP_TOOLS/BIOSCopy.csv
86AB,HP Pavilion Laptop PC 15-cs3000,086AA,
86E2,HP Pavilion Laptop PC 15-cs3000,086AA,
86E3,HP Pavilion Laptop PC 15-cs3000,086AA,
86AA,HP Pavilion Laptop PC 14t-ce0000,086AA,
86E1,HP Pavilion Laptop PC 14t-ce0000,086AA

On the one laptop that refuses to boot after the upgrade the boot selection menu (F10) becomes available as soon as a bootable medium is available to the system. Don't know what genius at HP had this idea...
So just insert a bootable CD, DVD, linux USB drive, or USB hdd and hit "F10" quickly enough to get to the boot selection screen. From there you can boot the grub EFI file on the internal harddisk. As soon as the system is up you can grub-install /dev/sdX (or /dev/nvme.. whatever your internal drive is). This way you don't boot the external medium an don't need to chroot.

Edit: you should find your board number on the system information screen. Press F1 when booting.

Holy sweet potatoes--that worked for me! Many, many thanks Samweis2111 :-) .

A question and an observation:

When I hit Window-B and started my laptop, it went to a mostly black screen with a progress meter that said it was flashing the BIOS and did so quite quickly. After that finished, it went to a more sophisticated GUI that said it was recovering the BIOS. Is this sequence what you experienced? I thought recovering was flashing, so am surprised at seeing both. I am wondering whether the first screen was perhaps a BIOS flash that I had managed to put on my system with the Hiren Boot USB but had not previously activated with a needed Windows key combo.

Also, running the recovery seemed to have reset my CMOS. So when I tried to reboot from anything, it wouldn't let me because SecureBoot was on. Once I changed the security settings, I was able to boot without problems.

Anyway, the procedure that eNV25 present and that Samweis2111 updated here is a really terrific way for people experiencing problems updating their BIOS in Linux to do that. As I mentioned above, I considered every method of doing this I could find with a search engine, many from the ArchLinux blog, and either the method failed or seemed too likely to brick my laptop to be worth trying. The method here is all-linux and looks like it will work for most if not all HP laptops.

PeterM18:
Good to hear it worked for you!
The procedure seems to vary depending on the unit. I upgraded two different HP laptops. Both showed at some point a progress bar with "Flashing boot sector" (which I thought was odd and misleading, since I would use "write" in this context).
However, the order was reversed: One wrote the boot block before the BIOS upgrade, the other in the end of the procedure.

And yes, settings saved in the CMOS may not survive. Having encryption keys stored in the CMOS before a BIOS upgrade is probably a pretty cool way to lock yourself out of your hard drive for good. ;-)

Thanks again for a clear explanation Samweis2111!

BTW, the reason I couldn't find my board ID is because I used LibreOffice Calc to view the .csv file. It for some reason converted 86E2 to 8600. But I could see 86E2 with nano or grep.

Great write-up! Unfortunately, executing some of HP's sp-files via Wine will result in an "unable to initialize memory manager" error. I wrote a few notes for a workaround, were that to happen.

##
# HP BIOS/Firmware Update Procedure
##
# Note: When preparing an USB-flashdrive for updating:
# 1) Windows may be required for HP file execution, execution via Wine does not always work (as of 2022.12.28),
# 2) If no Windows-installation is available, a free Microsoft-provided Windows Enterprise evaluation-ISO can be used,
# 3) If no physical Windows-installation is available, any hypervisor with USB-passthrough can be used,
# 4) An USB-harddrive will not be accepted by the HP-exe, an USB-flashdrive is required.
##
# 1) Prepare USB-flashdrive by filling it with zeroes:
	dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/XXX bs=4M conv=fsync oflag=direct status=progress

# 2) Get HP-signed Windows-exe from hp.com via laptop serial number:
	wget [URL to HP-exe]
	
# 3) Attach USB-flashdrive to Windows-machine and format it with default settings.
	
# 4) Run HP-exe in Windows, select option to prepare USB-flashdrive.

# 5) Ensure power-adapter is attached to machine that is to be updated.

# 6) Attach prepared USB-flashdrive to machine that is to be updated.

# 7) Hold keys "Windows" and "b" before pressing power button.

Thanks FLAGEL! While my current spXXX.exe is an older one, it's good to have info about how to do this with something more recent, in case I need to upgrade in the future. Your instructions look very helpful.

One question: in your 2) are you referring to the BIOS upgrade file spXXX.exe? The way this is written it sounds like you might be indicating a way to get a copy of Windows from HP.

Hello Peter,

Point 2) does indeed refer to the spXXX.exe-file from HP that upgrades BIOS/Firmware. HP-signed meaning said exe-file is digitally signed by HP. As for getting a copy of Windows, that can be found here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-10-enterprise (90-day use limit, registration data form accepts any data, without verification).

Thank you for the clarification and the up to date information! Incidentally, my HP laptop came with Windows. While I overwrote that with Linux, I still have the product(?) number somewhere. I wonder if there's some way to reclaim a copy of Windows with that, if someone knows?

…

On Fri, Dec 30, 2022 at 10:56 AM FLAGEL ***@***.***> wrote: ***@***.**** commented on this gist. ------------------------------ Hello Peter, Point 2) does indeed refer to the spXXX.exe-file from HP that upgrades BIOS/Firmware. HP-signed refers to the exe-file being digitally signed by HP. As for getting a copy of Windows, that can be found here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-10-enterprise (90-day use limit, required data form accepts any data without verification). — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <https://gist.github.com/c8001491dc0440656ff7b0ae18993ba1#gistcomment-4418377> or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AQVBQJ7F4GDKEMJEQXHRAUDWP4H3XBFKMF2HI4TJMJ2XIZLTSKBKK5TBNR2WLJDHNFZXJJDOMFWWLK3UNBZGKYLEL52HS4DFQKSXMYLMOVS2I5DSOVS2I3TBNVS3W5DIOJSWCZC7OBQXE5DJMNUXAYLOORPWCY3UNF3GS5DZVRZXKYTKMVRXIX3UPFYGLK2HNFZXIQ3PNVWWK3TUUZ2G64DJMNZZDAVEOR4XAZNEM5UXG5FFOZQWY5LFVEYTAOJTGA4TKNRYU52HE2LHM5SXFJTDOJSWC5DF> . You are receiving this email because you commented on the thread. Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675> or Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub> .

Solved! I finally found a BIOS for my laptop.

@eNV25 I assume the new key works a bit differently than the one you described. It does not boot as it is - I guess you will need the other 4 packages for it to boot, but I have not verified this. It can still be used for a BIOS update even without those packages. Here is what I did. Changes to your procedure marked bold.

cd /tmp Extract files for HP Diagnostic Key to /tmp/sp142721: 7z x -osp142721 ~/Downloads/sp142721.exe

This will do the same, just cancel when asked for the drive letter: wine ~/Downloads/sp142721.exe /s /f sp142721

Extract BIOS files from your downloaded HP BIOS spxxxxx.exe: wine ~/Downloads/spxxxxx.exe /s /f spxxxxx

When asked select "copy to any file location". Copy to /tmp/sp142721/field/Hewlett-Packard/BIOS/Current and to /tmp/sp142721/field/HP/BIOS/Current.

Now the key: A USB key with a normal fat32 partition will suffice. No need for an efi partition. The USB key created by Windows does not have an efi partition either.

The fat32 partition must be labeled HP_TOOLS:

fatlabel /dev/sdX1 HP_TOOLS

Otherwise it will not work. I tried.

Shut down your computer, insert the key, push the keys "Windows" and "B" while you power on. Keep pressed for at least 3 seconds.

The BIOS Update window will appear. Wait for the process to complete. Do not interrupt! This procedure uses the EFI files on the key and leaves a logfile in Hewlett-Packard/BIOSUpdate/.

Caution! You may need a bootable USB Stick afterwards. The boot block of the internal hard disk will be restored to factory state - so grub will be gone! I tried with two laptops: One of them allowed to boot the internal system via "Boot from EFI file". The other does not offer to boot from an EFI file unless it finds a working boot device.

HP 255 g8 here, laptop was crashing sometimes, just updated bios in one go thanks to you ! See later if crashes stop ;)

@Samweis2111, many thanks you for your post. I also have HP 255 G8 which came with F.27 BIOS and rebooted seconds after laptop woke up because of BIOS bug which was fixed in F.31.

Several moments I want to append.

First of all - all these manipulations with USB key are unneeded. In UEFI everything that works on USB key works also on EFI partition on your HDD, i.e. USB key has no special meaning like it was with classic BIOS. So I've just copied HP and Hewlett-Packard directories to /boot/efi/EFI and had the same experience like you do with the USB Key. Furthermore, running a System Diagnostics now hooks up new version from EFI partion.

The second moment and I want to stress that it is the Rosetta Stone of this discussion - it is the Win+B combination pressed during power on. Where the hell did you, @Samweis2111, found information about it? ) Everything I've read before stated that a new menu item have to appear in the HP Startup Menu but it didn't.

The third moment - the procedure is quite a nervious one. After initial flashing laptop powers off for a minute or so, blinking with couple of LEDs on the left side with no other signs of life. After a minute it powers up and starts BIOS "recovery" (this time I thought that first step failed). Then it powers off for a minute again, and starts up with flashing boot block again. And only then it notifies that recovery was successful and upon reboot I've found that I have new version F.32! So be patient!

Final words go to HP guys. You are crazy idiots! It is such simple procedure to update BIOS via Linux. You have to provide just a tar.gz which user should unpack to /boot/efi/EFI and write a README to mention Win+B. Instead you have packed all the stuff into installer into installer into installer which can be run only on Windows or wine and left your customers googling for such a dirty magic!

@dmitrmax

just copied HP and Hewlett-Packard directories to /boot/efi/EFI

Hahaha. I haven't tried it, but if that's true, that's crazy.

The second moment and I want to stress that it is the Rosetta Stone of this discussion - it is the Win+B combination pressed during power on. Where the hell did you, @Samweis2111, found information about it? ) Everything I've read before stated that a new menu item have to appear in the HP Startup Menu but it didn't.

I had noticed the built-in "System Diagnostics" before, but I didn't see a BIOS update option.

Hahaha. I haven't tried it, but if that's true, that's crazy.

Yep. I don't even have a USB key - all of them lost due to being unused for along time. I've even installed Linux via PXE because of this )

Actually when you install BIOS update via Windows installer it does the same job - copies its files to EFI hidden partion and deletes afterwards. Except that it adds temporary EFI boot entry so BIOS update starts instead of the OS bootloader.

I had noticed the built-in "System Diagnostics" before, but I didn't see a BIOS update option.

@eNV25 it is strange but on HP 255 G8 there is no BIOS management menu item in System Diagnostics either. Though I'm pretty sure that it boots System Diagnostics from HDD because there are so many differences between built-in one and that one I have installed. It seems that it depends on the laptop model. I think that HP wants to emphasize that my laptop is pretty budget one and I have to suffer doing some maintenance tasks instead of doint it the simple way. I see no other reason to hide this menu item in System Diagnostics for this model )

BIOS management menu item in System Diagnostics either

I saw an update for "HP PC Hardware Diagnostics UEFI" it seems to provide the functionality we're looking for. Maybe older models need this update.

But again, this is for windows, don't know about Linux.

From the release notes:

DESCRIPTION:
This package provides the HP PC Hardware Diagnostics UEFI for the supported models running a supported operating system. The HP PC Hardware Diagnostics UEFI provides UEFI based hardware diagnostics for the supported models which is used to validate if a system is functioning correctly. In addition, it provides support for updating and managing the system BIOS and other device firmware on the system.

I have updated the gist so that it doesn't use a separate USB drive.

@eNV25 nice! But I'm not sure whether it should be /efi/HP/BIOS/Current or /efi/HP/BIOS/New. I saw different variants around the internet. So I just did both before I attemped and it succeeded )

Also mine worked when Win-B was pressed and held before power on button was pressed. May be it is also important.

I updated my omen 15 ek-1000 to F.32 and now I can't downgrade it any longer. The bios updater from windows doesn't allow selecting the update option to be selected.

Trying to flash old bios from usb also fails (Failed to find bios signature file).

Also tried with this method, where i manually copy old bios files to efi partition, then running bios managememt efi from bios update folder (same error about signature failure)

And Win + B only shows that bios recovery files are not found or corrupted (i copied them both to HP folders including Current and New folders).

Any ideas?

@TicTac7x Did you copy the signature file (.s12, or similar) too?

Yes, mine is .sig file, i also tried to make duplicate of it and rename it to .s12, still fails with the signature check.

If i use the latest bios version, the .sig file is in same place and there is no error about the sig file. I have no idea how to downgrade the bios now...

Feel free to add me on discord to discuss it, willing to pay money if someone helps me get it resolved.

TicTac7x#5352

Why do you want to downgrade? Just curious.

Since this version im getting BIOS reset errors, fan curve is different, laptop is running hotter, resume from sleep no longer works (screen stays black, i need to force poweroff from button and then again i get BIOS RESET error). So yeah, this version is really bad compared to previous ones... Looking for any way to downgrade this.

…

On Tue, May 23, 2023, 21:03 eNV25 ***@***.***> wrote: ***@***.**** commented on this gist. ------------------------------ Why do you want to downgrade? Just curious. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <https://gist.github.com/eNV25/c8001491dc0440656ff7b0ae18993ba1#gistcomment-4577250> or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ASBCGMWDR6P3KPZETVNULDDXHT3W7BFKMF2HI4TJMJ2XIZLTSKBKK5TBNR2WLJDHNFZXJJDOMFWWLK3UNBZGKYLEL52HS4DFQKSXMYLMOVS2I5DSOVS2I3TBNVS3W5DIOJSWCZC7OBQXE5DJMNUXAYLOORPWCY3UNF3GS5DZVRZXKYTKMVRXIX3UPFYGLK2HNFZXIQ3PNVWWK3TUUZ2G64DJMNZZDAVEOR4XAZNEM5UXG5FFOZQWY5LFVEYTAOJTGA4TKNRYU52HE2LHM5SXFJTDOJSWC5DF> . You are receiving this email because you commented on the thread. Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675> or Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub> .

Found following tool to flash bios from linux without verification: https://ftp.hp.com/pub/caps-softpaq/cmit/linuxtools/HP_LinuxTools.html

Has anyone tried using it or is this something better not to use?

Found following tool to flash bios from linux without verification: https://ftp.hp.com/pub/caps-softpaq/cmit/linuxtools/HP_LinuxTools.html

Has anyone tried using it or is this something better not to use?

Nope. I see it for the first time in my life. If I didn't find out how to deal with EFI way of flashing (above) I would definitely give it a try.

EFI way of flashing is easier than compiling this thing tho... But i'm not sure if I have the guts to try this out, wouldn't want to turn my laptop to a paperweight :)

EFI way of flashing is easier than compiling this thing tho... But i'm not sure if I have the guts to try this out, wouldn't want to turn my laptop to a paperweight :)

Well, you know, the most nervous flash was the one described above. Because it was rebooting several times with intervals of being off for quite a time with no indication that everything is going fine. I'd expect that this tool you've found is more user friendly and will check for compatibility of firmware file and will explain you further steps and what to expect.

So, next time I'll give it a try because I don't expect to get a brick at the end with it )

Actually this is the opposite, as far i have read from the docs, this tool doesnt verify the validity of the bios file, it doesnt even check if its compatible with your motherboard. It just starts flashing the file you feed into it. Havent tested myself tho...

…

On Wed, May 24, 2023, 20:21 dmitrmax ***@***.***> wrote: ***@***.**** commented on this gist. ------------------------------ EFI way of flashing is easier than compiling this thing tho... But i'm not sure if I have the guts to try this out, wouldn't want to turn my laptop to a paperweight :) Well, you know, the most nervous flash was the one described above. Because it was rebooting several times with intervals of being off for quite a time with no indication that everything is going fine. I'd expect that this tool you've found is more user friendly and will check for compatibility of firmware file and will explain you further steps and what to expect. So, next time I'll give it a try because I don't expect to get a brick at the end with it ) — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <https://gist.github.com/eNV25/c8001491dc0440656ff7b0ae18993ba1#gistcomment-4578489> or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ASBCGMRKDHKYVLZB5233O4TXHY7RZBFKMF2HI4TJMJ2XIZLTSKBKK5TBNR2WLJDHNFZXJJDOMFWWLK3UNBZGKYLEL52HS4DFQKSXMYLMOVS2I5DSOVS2I3TBNVS3W5DIOJSWCZC7OBQXE5DJMNUXAYLOORPWCY3UNF3GS5DZVRZXKYTKMVRXIX3UPFYGLK2HNFZXIQ3PNVWWK3TUUZ2G64DJMNZZDAVEOR4XAZNEM5UXG5FFOZQWY5LFVEYTAOJTGA4TKNRYU52HE2LHM5SXFJTDOJSWC5DF> . You are receiving this email because you commented on the thread. Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675> or Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub> .

@Samweis2111
Thank you so much... The Win+B thing was what I needed. I wish HP would just let you download a bootable disk image with the flash toop and a binary file for the BIOS like many other vendors do... Never have this issue with Asus systems for example.

Since this version im getting BIOS reset errors, fan curve is different, laptop is running hotter, resume from sleep no longer works (screen stays black, i need to force poweroff from button and then again i get BIOS RESET error). So yeah, this version is really bad compared to previous ones... Looking for any way to downgrade this.

Hello, same problem here: latest version from HP resets the laptop after 15-30 seconds, on and on forever, and downgrading does not work.
Have you ever found a solution?

Thx in advance!

In answer to my own question: I did a BIOS recovery again with the same version (the latest). No errors (as before), and this time my laptop works correctly. Likely, I borked something on the first attempt.