R61 BIOS recovery - how to?

[nortonishere]

Hi,
I tried to recover my R61 bios because the version that was installed there previously is not fully compatible with my thinkpad (I have the 14.1 inch without IEEE 1394, the bios on it is for the R61i/e), also I mention that I didn’t install this version of bios on there, it was done in a repair shop.
So as I said a tried to recover it using the general Phoenix bios recovery tutorial, but that doesnt work for me, so I tried some another tutorial for recovering the bios and that did not work too, even that it was for Lenovo laptops.
Does anyone here please know the steps to recover bios on the R61 Lenovo Thinkpad, please?
Thanks

[RealBlackStuff]

This should get you sorted: https://jensd.be/980/linux/bios-or-spi- ... g-a-ch341a
You'll need a second PC with Windows or Linux, plus a CH341A flasher and an 8-pin SOIC cable.

Download the 2.29/1.08 Middleton BIOS (last one, near the bottom) from https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Middleton's_BIOS (it's a .rar file with a huge name).
This download also contains 7kuj28uc.iso, the original Lenovo Bootable CD 2.29/1.08 BIOS.
With e.g. 7zip you can unpack first the RAR and then the ISO.

From this 7kuj28uc.iso you need the file $01AE000.FL1 which is BIOS (the .FL2 is EC).
After all your preparations, flash that FL1 onto your BIOS chip.

[unixed]

Welcome to the forum.
What is the machine type and model number? This is on the big barcoded sticker on the base of the R61.

Does the BIOS screen display on power on?
Did the repair shop flash the BIOS and not switch it on?
How did the repair shop flash the BIOS?
Did you make a note of what BIOS version was on there before the reflashed BIOS, something like this:
Version: 7OETC4WW (2.24)

[nortonishere]

Welcome to the forum.
What is the machine type and model number? This is on the big barcoded sticker on the base of the R61.

Does the BIOS screen display on power on?
Did the repair shop flash the BIOS and not switch it on?
How did the repair shop flash the BIOS?
Did you make a note of what BIOS version was on there before the reflashed BIOS, something like this:
Version: 7OETC4WW (2.24)

The machine type is Lenovo Thinkpad R61 14.1 inch without IEEE 1394, 7735
Yes, the laptop does show the bios screen and it works, but not completely. The ethernet port doesn't work and on startup the laptop has an error after it gets past the bios screen after power on (ERROR 0701: USB Over Current On HC/Port - Bus: 00H Dev: 1DH Fun: 02H / Port: 00H), also in Windows the control panel shows 2 audio devices, which are the same but one of them isn't working and I think in WXP it was showing as a modem
Well, the thing is the bios was corrupted 3 years ago so they had to flash it, but they definitely didn't do a research and they put a bios file from the official Lenovo site, and it probably was the bios for R61e/i without IEEE 1394 so the device would "work".
No, unfortunately I didn't make a note of the bios version before they reflashed it, but since then it doesn't even show the MAC address in the device bios, it shows that its "Not Applicable"
The bios version now is 2.23 7PETC3WW, but since I don't have the R61i/e I think I should have the 7KETC9WW version.

[unixed]

First thing I'd do is check your ports, especially the USB ports -- make sure the plastic tongue is not broken off and shorting the contacts.
I'd have more confidence in your answer if you include the model portion of the machine-type and model number, i.e. the 3 characters after the 7735, but you'll suffer the consequences if I tell you to flash the wrong BIOS as a result of your information.
The current BIOS on there is wrong, it should only be on machine-type 7650.
You can try flashing the BIOS update from the bootable CD, but that may refuse and tell you that you're flashing the wrong BIOS version.
Then extract the FL1 file extracted from the iso image as detailed by RBS, also extract the phlash16.exe program from there and use it to flash the BIOS from (free)DOS. You can also search his posts on how to make a bootable USB dos drive and use phlash16.exe if you are not familiar with installing or running (free)DOS.
If you overide the checks as above by using phlash16.exe directly the onus is on you to know what you're doing.
Also I would flash the EC firmware (the *.fl2 file) first -- that is the post by RBS.