Hey all,
I’ve recently had the pleasure to brick a friend’s XPS 1340. The notebook presented the notorious blocking problem that the XPS 1340 has and I tried a bios update that froze half way through, rendering the machine inoperable. Here is the recovery procedure.
1. Head to Dell support and download the latest bios. This will be an exe file.
2. Extract the rom image from that file by using the following command line switch: /WriteRomFile (that means run the following command: 1340_A11.exe /WriteRomFile). This results in a file called 1340_A11.ROM being placed in the same folder as the 1340_A11.exe file.
3. Grab a usb stick (try to find an old one that only shows as a single drive) and format it to FAT. Not FAt32, not NTFS just plain old FAT.
4. Rename your ROM file to BIOS.WPH and place it on the usb stick along with PHLASH16.EXE (phoenix flash utility) and MINIDOS.SYS (from minidos).
5. Remove the battery from your Dell and unplug the power chord. Plug the USB stick in a free USB slot. Press the End key, plug the power and release the END key. This will power on the laptop and make it search for a valid PHLASH16.EXE and BIOS.WPH on the usb stick. If your usb stick has a led indicating activity this should be blinking for about 2~3 minutes. Once the led stops blinking the actual flashing will be performed. This will take another 3~4 minutes. Once the flashing is completed the machine will restart and boot.
Took me 4 days to figure this out.
Special thaks go out to Andrew (BULFORCE G M A I L C O M) for the archive he put together. I’m also posting a link to it and I do suggest you use it.
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