I've managed to do something really dumb and in trying to load Windows7 using an external CD drive, I was turning off and on various bios settings because windows7 wanted to load drivers and could not get past one of the first install screens. As such, I somehow turned off USB and have no USB or Mouse support to be able to go back and enter bios settings. What are the alternatives? Find pins or solder points that reset bios by shorting- No pins or reset exists in this Intel Architecture. This is not a design choice by UDOO to omit, this is just how Intel designed the architecture. Somehow use a flash drive so that it reads alternate source? - Covered in Tutorial linked Flash bios over so that new bios defaults with USB enabled? - Covered in Tutorial linked Here is the post that contains all the links and files required with a copy of the UEFI/BIOS and Flashing utilities, plus my own way of making a bootable drive and having the firmware flash automatically happen with no user interaction. Note, the latest version is here http://www.udoo.org/docs-x86/Advanced_Topics/UEFI_update.html This is the post on the details and instructions. http://www.udoo.org/forum/threads/reset-bios-jumper-or-pins.6674/#post-25338 Also, the settings that caused me to not be able to get back into BIOS and the specific USB setting for Windows 7 that does need enabled are here in this post http://www.udoo.org/forum/threads/reset-bios-jumper-or-pins.6674/#post-25339 In addition, Laura was kind enough to post these specific details to help with getting the drivers embedded into the Win7 boot image. http://www.udoo.org/forum/threads/reset-bios-jumper-or-pins.6674/#post-25285
Windows 7 does not contain the drivers for USB 3.0. You need to follow a three step process to create Windows 7 media containing the drivers. I wrote it down somewhere. Will look for it and post an @ mention reply.
@Jetguy I've not tested the following, though it should work. Each linked page contains instructions for that stage - 1) Download the official Windows ISO from Microsoft - https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows7 2) Create boot media using the following tool from Microsoft - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool 3) Run this tool from Intel - https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25476/Windows-7-USB-3-0-Creator-Utility (this tool is for the Intel NUC, but it should fix the same issue with the USB 3.0 ports not being support by Windows 7)
If USB has been disabled, I am not sure how to proceed. Sorry! Will look for a solution, though in the mean time, please raise a support ticket - http://www.udoo.org/customer-care/
The UDOO community is always willing to help collectively though people have only just started receiving the UDOO X86, which is the reason why you've not had a good answer here so far, as no one knows enough about the board yet! I'm waiting for the board too, so was not aware you could disable the USB ports in the UEFI firmware settings Hence my first reply being about installing Windows 7 with the drivers compiled in (not sure how I misread your post though, as you were very clear on it being caused by changing the firmware settings!) The reason I suggested raising a support ticket, is because your ticket will most likely be assigned to the UEFI firmware engineer.
At this point to re-utilize this board, my suggestion is to connect a HDD/SSD with Windows 10 installed and RDP enabled so that you can manage it remotely and hopefully you can enter UEFI interface. And lucky someone give you BIOS file to flash under win environment. That is what I though if I had faced similar problem.
Hi @Jetguy, the documentation is a work-in-progress as we declared when we released it: certainly is not complete, and we're working to make it clearer and add more information. Now I don't want to rub it in, but if you had followed the guide step by step you wouldn't have any problem at the moment: consider that you are the only one with this problem. Anyway, as you can see, my colleagues are helping you in the customer care and offering you an RMA if you don't wait to wait for a solution from us. Now, I don't know what you were waiting for in terms of speed, but we are a small team and apart from special occasions we don't have developers out of the working hours, and during the night we use to sleep . Finally, I want to thank you for your criticism, because that always helps.
So are you saying that you consider it OK that UDOO X86 can get bricked if one doesn't follow guides exactly?
Do you have any other microcontrollers? (excluding the one embedded on the UDOO X86). Might be possible to simulate a serial keyboard and wire it into the UART pinout on the UDOO X86 header, but then you also need to be mindful of I/O voltages, so you could make things worse. I'd prefer to have tested this theory in more details before even suggesting, but like I said, I do not have the board myself. Edited to add: The I/O voltage of the UDOO X86 main processor is 1.8V. Read the following page, which links to a level shifting guide: https://udooboard.github.io/X86-Docs/Hardware_Reference/Pinout_Braswell.html
Best option is to accept the RMA offered by UDOO. Not even sure if the board firmware will read a simulated keyboard via UART, or even if such a connection is even possible. The other suggestion I was going to make, was to write a startup shell script (startup.nsh) and put it on a SD card that was formatted for EFI Shell. But not even sure this will auto execute with your current settings.
I'm not saying that UDOO X86 can be bricked if you don't follow the guide. I'm saying that if you do something completely out of the standard procedure, then you may disable important functions for the setup and make the setup phase much more complicated. I'm not talking about the standard procedure for UDOO X86, I'm talking about the standard procedure for a computer with a preinstalled OS. Let's be clear: this may happen also with a commercial PC without a preinstalled OS. In this specific case @Jetguy has disabled the USB ports during the setup. This procedure is not suggested by our guide, but overall, it is not the standard procedure, in any guide. No guide suggests you to disable the USB ports while installing the OS. But it's worth mention that the board is not bricked. Instead, the hardware works, but USB ports are disabled. In fact, if the board had an OS installed, it would have been possible to solve the problem reflashing the BIOS remotely, even with disabled USB ports, but of course this situation makes it more complicated. I am sorry that you consider the offer of an RMA an insult, but I don't want you to think that we don't care - in the meanwhile in fact we are of course working on a solution that we are going to release ASAP. In the meanwhile at this link you can download the update tool for the UEFI firmware which contains tools to update from Linux, Windows and DOS. It also contains the updated binary of the BIOS and a guide for any OS. Finally, I'm not trying to win some points, I'm sorry I gave you that impression.
Of course offering an RMA is an insult for a simple task of resetting to factory settings. (And this should be simple task, not requiring wasting time with RMA.)
We actually offered two options: RMA, or waiting for a solution from us. Honestly I assumed that Jetguy would have rather had the board RMAed than waiting for a solution, but clearly I was wrong. Nobody meant to offend by proposing the RMA.
So it's going to take a long time until you create a solution if you consider RMA to be better option? I would've expected recovering from bad settings to be basic thing, already in place before first units were received. (I havn't needed to reset BIOS for years so I wasn't aware that UEFI can't be reset by just removing battery - but if there is no way to reset it then I consider that to be extremely bad design.)
@Markus Laire: we are not considering RMA to be the fastest option. We just thought that asking a backer who's just received the product to make some testing could have been bothersome for the backer. That's why we offered the RMA alternative. Regarding the bad design thing, the way to roll back actually exists but you need the boot utility that I posted before, i.e.: http://download.udoo.org/files/UDOO_X86/UEFI_update/UDOOX86_B02-Bios_Update_rel101.zip Unfortunately this does not work in this specific case, that is, in case USB ports are disabled. @Jetguy: I'd like to apologize for what I said. I did not mean to imply that you made something stupid. There was indeed no warning in the documentation, and the documentation does not provide a roll back procedure yet - and that is our fault. Turning back to the issue, we can offer this solution. We will release an image for micro SD with a pre-installed light OS with a script that starts automatically at boot to update the firmware and roll back the standard configuration. As you said before, this works if the settings that allow a new boot option to boot as the default boot option have not been disabled.
I'm watching the advanced Bios setup of my X86 this very moment. I see only 2 advanced options that you could relate to the USB, one under Chipset Configuration and the other under Other Configuration. Under Chipset Configuration I found USB Configuration I think Jetguy checked USB BIOS Support Under Other Configuration I found this setting Sorry for the long post.
To understand this further: If USB is disabled AND boot options have been changed - would recovering then be completely impossible?
That's a big problem with the insyde bios on these tiny pc, (not just udoo x86) that dissable usb is an option. This bios is used in a lot of Windows tablets and tiny pc. I've backed up my wintel pc bios of said option. Can't wait for my x86 to ship.
So here are the steps I used to recover. I needed the following things- another computer, a SATA hard drive of any size, either the UDOO X86 SATA cable set, or in this case, I had an ICY DOCK branded external USB and ESATA drive carrier and you need to download the following. http://www.udoo.org/docs-x86/Advanced_Topics/UEFI_update.html -This is the bios and flashing tools- always grab the latest posted on this page. http://download.cnet.com/HP-USB-Disk-Storage-Format-Tool/3000-2094_4-10974082.html -This is the tool to make a disk bootable using a set of specific files (in this case, a win98 boot disk). http://www.sevenforums.com/attachments/tutorials/42023d1260810265-ms-dos-bootable-flash-drive-create-win98boot.zip - The Windows98 boot files. So the first step is making the SATA drive bootable with a win98 boot disk image. I unzipped the win 98 boot files into a folder, and then ran the HP formatting tool and made a boot disk following this guide http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-1869892/making-bootable-dos-usb-drive.html This is pretty easy, and again, just a matter of following that guide. Then that will make the SATA disk bootable. Next, I copied the bios file by itself "0B020000.101" from the "BIOS" folder after unzipping the supplied UDOO zip. Then I copied all the files in the "Dos" folder also to the SATA drive last, I added one text file AUTEXEC.BAT and made the only line in that file say "update.bat 0B020000.101" That makes it autorun the update.bat file, and calls the bios file by name. Plug it in using the SATA cable, and again, for ease since I did not have the UDOO power cable and SATA cable combo, I used my ICY DOCK USB and ESATA external drive enclosure/adapter. This way, it was power via the USB port from UDOO X86, but the actual data connection was SATA using an ESATA to SATA cable (ESATA at the ICY DOCK and SATA at the UDOO X86). The board boots up, shows the WIN98 logo for a several seconds, then jumped right into the update file and began flashing the system. When all done, it asked to reboot, so I simply powered off and disconnected. This is what my SATA disk looked like after the above process to create all the files to auto flash the system.
This is the mistake I made, I stupidly disabled the XHCI controller thinking that if I left the "USB BIOS Support" enabled, I'd still be able to get into BIOS. Whatever you do, do not disable that!!! This is the setting I found required to be enabled to install windows 7 and without it, you will not get a mouse or keyboard during the install portion of windows 7 and will just sit there. "Win7 Keyboard/Mouse Support" must be enabled
