I have exactly the same problem. Anyone able to help?

Consider yourself lucky!

I ran the BIOS update at 10:30 last night right before bed. All seemed to be going smoothly, white Dell screen with "BIOS update" utility running; then a nasty shut down, followed by the inability to restart. The BIOS seems to be installed (says version A09 when booting), but I get a blue screen of death with a "critical process/thread terminated" message. Dell states we might be able to fix once I get my OS disc, but likely will need to do a factory reset. ICK!

This is with Windows Vista, incidentally. I'm peeved.

Beware! This is a new laptop with nothing screwy installed on it-- mostly just windows apps, etc. Used to run great.

ARKed and responders - glad I found your posts.  I had the same problem with installing the file.  After what I have been reading, I'm glad I haven't tried to install it again.  I've posted my problem to this page, but no one is answering.  I also posted it on the Virus page since my TREND tried to block it.  No one answered that post either.  I've had excellent help from the DELL liason people in the past with a variety of problems.  I'm wondering if this isn't a new issue.  I'm not sure if this problem is one that Dell Tech support will help with without charging.  I'll post anything I learn regarding the issue.

 

Oceandreamer

Laptop 1530 XPS - Vista Home Premium

Laptop Inspiron 8600 - XP Pro

Desktop Gateway XP Home (and a new Dell 420 that should be here by Wednesday)

 

 

Mine seems to be same thing as with Obenjammin.  Did you get yours fixed?  This really stinks worked perfect before the "upgrade"!!!!!

 

XPS1530 Vista Home Premium SP1 upgraded from A08 to A09.  Updated seemed to go ok, but on later boot, fails.  Gets by the Dell screen and just past the windows green bars, but then immediately fails and does memory dump.  Windows Startup Repair launches automatically.  No luck with fixing (only thing I saw is try is a system restore).  Still won't boot.  No hardware or software changes other than BIOS. 

 

*** STOP: 0x000000F4 (0x0000003, 0x0904d3320, 0x904d346C, 0x81e84400)

Hi pempey,

Nope. Had to do a factory image restore. I'm not sure if this is ultimately a Windows Vista issue or a Dell issue (or both), but it stinks.

 

Thanks for responding.  I gave up on mine too.  Dell didn't think it was directly related to bios as could get beyond Dell screen and windows green bars before doing a memory dump reporting a 0x000000f4 error.  Couldn't even boot to safe mode.  System restore failed.  chkdsk /f reported no errors, but sfc /scannow reported a bunch of corrupt files that it could not repair.  Did a full Dell diagnostic on hard drive and found not errors at all. Who knows.

 

Gave up.  Just pulled my data off drive with an external enclosure and going to do a CLEAN install of vista.  What a waist of several hours.