Need to backup Windows 10, fully reset BIOS and then restore - Help please

Feek

Feek

Feek

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Hi folks.

I have no idea about Windows backups and things like that these days because it's not something I've needed to deal with for years so I'll try and explain what I want to do and hopefully someone can help.

I've got a PC running Windows 10 (it's a Dell 3050 so can't run Windows 11) which I use for ham radio stuff. I've got a fair bit of software installed on there which has had a lot of tweaking over the last three years or so. To reinstall everything would be a real pain.

It works perfectly well when it boots but it often doesn't boot. I run it headless and access it via RDP so I never see the error. I know it's something to do with the BIOS but I have no idea what. When it fails, I seem to recall lots of scary looking red text and lots of loud beeping. I pull the power, restart it and it's generally fine. Sometimes it takes a couple more attempts to boot.

So what I want to do is somehow make a full backup of this PC, completely blitz the BIOS so it's back to utter default and then if needed, restore the backup. I know there are loads of different modes for the BIOS which I don't really understand and I suspect that if it's all defaulted, it won't even boot from the SSD.

It's got a 128Gb SSD. I have a spare 240Gb SSD and an external caddy.

I suppose the process I need to do is.

1) Full backup
2) Blitz the BIOS/CMOS
3) If it boots, great, if not, somehow I need to restore the backup.

What's the best way to go about this please? I don't know how to backup a running Windows system in a way that will allow me to restore everything back exactly as it was. It's not a simple case of rebuilding the OS and reinstalling the applications, there's far too much on there to do that.

All help appreciated.

Thanks.
 
I had a similar issue, no red text but my machine would refuse to boot sometimes. Turned out to be a duff CMOS battery.

If it’s a BIOS issue I might be tempted to suspend BitLocker (if it’s on), whip the hard drive out (for its own protection) and change the CMOS battery, test it a bit, flash the BIOS (if it’s needed), test it. Only once it’s stable pop the hard drive back in. You’ll get the “no boot drive” error while the drive’s out but that should indicate that the BIOS is decent.

Having said that… I can’t think of a DELL BIOS error that’s red but the beeping does sound POST-ish. If it is OS related I think Acronis was decent for full system backups. At least it was when I last used it c.2005.
 
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I normally run this headless so I don't see the actual errors, I plugged it into a monitor a few days ago.

It's a really weird one, the red text was a bit of a red herring on my part, what I actually get is **** HEADLESS OPERATION ACTIVE **** in cyan, even when it's got a monitor plugged in. This is fine, just a little odd that it does it when it's connected to a monitor.

Then I get "(A7) Me FW Downgrade - Request MeSpiLock Failed" followed a few seconds later by "ME FW Update Failed, please try again!"

And then it boots.

Sometimes it doesn't boot. Sometimes it does this:

V6yk6A6l.jpeg


I restart and it's all OK.

I'm pretty sure the SSD is actually OK.

I've also spent quite a bit of time googling the errors I'm getting and it all seems to point to the BIOS but I've done the jumper off reset thing and it still does it.

It is running the most recent BIOS, if I try and re-apply the BIOS update, it completes and gives an error "ME Firmware Update Failed: Image Loading" and then it says "Firmware Update successful. Rebooting your system".

I tried flashing back to earlier versions of the BIOS, I get the same message and then when I reboot and check, it actually has downgraded it.

I've ended up on the most recent BIOS, I've uninstalled Dell SupportAssist and told the BIOS not to stop on errors.

The CMOS battery isn't something I considered, that's a good shout. I've actually got an i5-7500T on the way to replace the CPU that's in it now, I may well swap the CMOS battery at the same time.

I did a backup to image using this method.
 
Going off the error messages it's something to do with the Intel Management Engine (a kind of security/management chip) so while i can't say exactly why it's not updating the ME firmware when you updated the BIOS or why it only fails to boot sporadically that may help point you in the right direction. It maybe worth trying with secure boot either enabled or disabled in the BIOS (i don't know if the 3050 exposes that setting in the BIOS as i found trying to navigate Dell's site hard going), and checking if you have the "Intel Management Engine Components Installer" (link) installed and updated within Windows.

However that seems unrelated to it failing to boot sporadically as they're things that either work or don't work, they're not really things that sometimes cause problems and other times work fine. When you say you're pretty sure the SSD if fine (the 128GB?) what leads you to believe that as everything is pointing towards that being the problem, the 2000-0141 error code, the intermittent sometimes works sometimes fails, and sometimes having to restart a few times before it's fine all point towards a problem with the drive (most likely the controller on the drive).

Personally if it were me I'd use some disk imagining software like Acronis as cam2002_ suggested or my personal favourite...
www.majorgeeks.com

Download Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - MajorGeeks

With Macrium Reflect Free Edition you'll be able to easily make an accurate and reliable image of your HDD or individual partitions. Using this image you can restore the entire disk, partition or...
www.majorgeeks.com
To make an image of the 128GB drive or better yet add another drive to the machine, boot into Windows, and use Acronis or Macrium Reflect to clone your existing Windows install from the 128GB drive you just booted from to the drive you just added, then shutdown, swap the drives over and see if you can boot into the copy of Windows you just made on the new drive.
 
I've spent some more time on this today. Firstly I used Macrium Reflect to clone the internal SSD to an external SSD and prove that worked. I've also ordered an nvme SSD to replace the internal one, just in case there is a failure on the way. And I replaced the cmos battery.

Going back to the beginning, when I first got this PC, it had Windows Home on it. I struggled to get it to activate using Windows 10 Pro but finally managed it by using an installer which only had Pro.

Up until this point, I didn't get the weird errors or boot. I'm fairly sure they started when I updated the bios but this was a few years ago and I'm not 100% sure. Initially I was using it as a Plex server with a JBOD attached so it didn't bother me. A while after getting it, I changed to a Synology NAS and repurposed the PC for amateur radio software.

I'd like to get rid of these errors. Like you @Murphy, I've got suspicions it's the Intel Manage Engine and even though it all appeared to be up to date and correct, I figured there should be a way to prove this.

So what I've just done now is to install a brand spanking new version of Windows 10 home onto this PC using my spare ssd. I installed Dell SupportAssist and one of the things it then installed was the Intel Management Engine.

PSIfpCZ.jpeg


I rebooted and then ran a bios update again.

No joy.

I got the same two messages: "ME Firmware Update Failed: Image Loading" and then "Firmware Update successful. Rebooting your system". When it reboots, I still get the same two firmware messages as before.

It makes no difference if secure boot is enabled or disabled.

I'm proper stumped.
 
What has me confused is you say sometimes it boots without problems and other times it fails and you need to pull the power and restart, if it was some sort of misconfigured software/BIOS setting you'd expect it to fail on every boot until it was configured properly.

An intermittent failure to boot typically points towards failing hardware, however as it's a Dell there's a possibility it's trying to connect to some sort of remote management or Dell update server (Dell have been known to do unusual things).
 
OK, further investigations.

It's not just Dell. This is reported for multiple PC manufacturers and models.

There is no actual fix, just people posting things that they think fixed it by invoking all sorts of voodoo. Reboot, change this setting, wait for it to boot to the desktop, reboot, change it back, turn around three times, reboot, run the firmware again, take three steps backwards, reboot, go into the bios, change this back, reboot and finally sacrifice two virgin meerkats at dawn.

The crazy thing is that every bios update actually appears to work, despite the failing messages. Each time you do an update, it shows the current version and the new one and I can see that not only has the new firmware applied but the new Manage Engine (VPro) has updated as well.

I did find something on the Dell Firmware page that says "- If your BIOS version is earlier than 1.7.4, you must update the BIOS to version 1.7.4 before upgrading to the latest version."

I rolled back to a version prior to 1.7.4, including the ME version. Then installed 1.7.4 and then the latest version but nothing's changed.

I think this is the point of now giving up and just letting it do whatever it wants and living with those messages that flash up.
 
Feek said:
The SupportAssist screen I posted earlier only happens intermittantly, the ME FW messages appear every time.
Click to expand...
Yea, that's why i said the ME FW issue is probably unrelated to it failing to boot on occasions. By the looks of it you have two issues, the ME FW thing that doesn't seem to be causing problems (other than the error msg) and the occasional 2000-0141 error code that, going on this Dell KB article it's pretty much what SupportAssist screen says, that it failed to detect the HDD/SSD.

The occasional SSD not being detected would be my main concern as like i said that's typical an early sign of the controller on the SDD giving up the ghost. If you've cloned/swapped out the 128GB SSD for another drive and you can still boot off the newly installed/cloned drive then I'd personally just ignore the ME FW error messages.
 
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It's been a decade since I've had to deal with Dells but I recall that you could apply BIOS updates by booting off a floppy drive (!) or a USB stick.
 
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