Lenovo Legion S5 Gen 8 (14APH8) - Issues with BIOS Flash in Crisis Mode

[scailermeerkat0]

Hello,

My Lenovo Legion Slim 5 Gen 8 was unable to post/boot following a failed BIOS upgrade attempt in Lenovo Vantage. As the upgrade installation assistant was running in Windows, the device blue-screened and has not been able to post since.

I have attempted to restore the device using Crisis Mode by taking the following steps:

1. Identified the crisis recovery file expected name to be macn.bin using this guide
2. Downloaded the MACN24WW BIOS installation package from Lenovo's website --> Extracted the installation package --> Renamed the ".fd" file to macn.bin
3. Placed the macn.bin file on a USB drive formatted to FAT32 in the GPT partition scheme.
4. Powered on the device, pressed FN+R with the USB plugged in, observed the loud beeping for 15-20 minutes.
5. Repeated these steps for MACN35WW (latest BIOS revision).

From the posts I have read on here, many people seem to be having issues with the .bin file being not found by Crisis Mode. However, I am having a different issue.

The firmware file is found and begins flashing. I have a USB drive with an LED light indicator on it so I can tell it's reading data. The device beeps loudly for a 15-20 minute long sequence which is expected. However, after around 20 minutes have passed, the device stops beeping, does not reboot and remains on a black screen.

I have left the device out overnight as I have re-attempted this numerous times and it never reboots, and never ends up posting. Only the keyboard lights up. I can change the keyboard brightness with FN+Space which indicates some functionality, and FN+R triggers Crisis Mode flash when a USB with the macn.bin file is on it.

When pulling the USB, many log files are generated (in the most recent attempt, 121 files were present). An example of one of two of these logs is below:

File: MACN246B.C1S

Find Crisis File [Success]
Crisis Process: [Fail], update address 0xFF8AE000 fail

File: MACN2406.C1S

Find Crisis File [Success]
Crisis Process: [Fail], update address 0xFF949000 fail

This appears to be a pattern for the 121 logs that were present. It indicates the file is found, but failed on flashing for a different address (I do not know what this is indicative of as I am new to this).

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Additionally, I also tried downloading the full BIOS dump that I found in this post. I renamed the dump to macn.bin and re-attempted Crisis Mode. However, doing that throws a different error where the device never starts beeping and indicates in the logs that the macn.bin file was present but could not be validated:

Relevant Logs:

Find Crisis File: [Fail], validate file fail

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Any help / explanation as to why it might be failing to flash at those different addresses or what it means that it appears to be flashing the firmware but then proceeds to never recover would be deeply appreciated

[scailermeerkat0]

I have since re-attempted this on three different USB drives formatted to FAT32 with the GPT partition scheme. All of which have had the same results. I'm at a loss as to what the issue is at this point

[TPe]

Have you removed your M.2/SSD? It needs to be inside so that Crisis bios update will work.

[scailermeerkat0]

Have you removed your M.2/SSD? It needs to be inside so that Crisis bios update will work.

No the M.2 SSD was not removed and it’s still failing

[TPe]

No the M.2 SSD was not removed and it’s still failing

After Lenovo Vantage Bios update, I got posted into "ROM recovery screen", which is part of InsydeH2O BIOS.

Either option did not work, it always returned to this same ROM recovery screen (recovery loop).
I removed M.2 because had to recover files.
After that I did put bios from the Lenovo page into USB drive with named ktcn.bin and booted with Fn+R, I got exactly same error what you describe.
There was no this white recover ROM screen anymore, just beeping continuously with black screen (which is part of normal crisis process) but in the files in USB drive I had this error message:

KTCN49
Find Crisis File: [Success]

Crisis Process: [Fail], update address 0xFE833000 fail

When I placed M.2 drive back with USB drive also connected, white rom recover screen came back and selecting YES to flash rom part, it went to BIOS flash tool screen completing it just fine.
After that laptop booted and is working fine. So I think it did read BIOS from the USB drive, because YES option didn't work when tried it first time.

I don't know if this white "recover ROM" screen is completely different system (or perhaps new updated Crisis system), but clearly that original Crisis system with black screen + beeping cant flash BIOS.

Actually when I now look USB drive, there is this success message

KTCN49
Find Crisis File: [Success], Load backup SBB file successfully

You seem to not have this InsydeH2O recovery screen, but as you get same error, maybe your laptop also have InsydeH2O BIOS?
So, if I were you, I would look for if there is some key combination or trick to launch this recovery screen.