Clevo W230ST - HDD Failing after BIOS Upgrade

[Arus]

Hello all.

 

I'm new here and looking for some advice!

I have 2 Clevo W230ST laptops having the same issue.

 

Originally one was having an issue where it would take between 10 and 45 minutes to get to the boot screen (Sat on a black screen until the Setup/boot options screen) from initial power on.

I tried a number of things to fix; replaced RAM, replaced CMOS battery, reseat HDD, new fresh Windows build, reset BIOS to factory. Nothing helped.

The other was generally slow to do anything.

 

After trying a number of things, I opted to do a BIOS upgrade.

The original was on:

BIOS: 1.00.03

EC: 1.00.00

 

I upgraded them to:

BIOS: 1.03.08

EC: 1.03.03

 

At first it seemed to work. Now the machine would power on instantly and jump straight into Windows.

 

I then went on to upgrade the BIOS in the other one.

 

While upgrading the 2nd laptop, the first crashed (Blue screen, no code) and rebooted into PXE boot.

I powered off and back on, and after 15 mins in Windows, it did the same. This time I jumped into BIOS and the HDD was gone.

However, it returns with each power cycle.

 

The 2nd laptop got the same symptoms. Windows installation failed, and when attempting to retry, the HDD was gone.

 

Now that I knew it was BIOS related, I began to downgrade the BIOS and EC. Between each downgrade I would test again:

 

BIOS: 1.03.08

EC: 1.03.03

to

BIOS: 1.03.03

EC: 1.03.03

to

BIOS: 1.00.05

EC: 1.00.05

to

BIOS: 1.00.04

EC: 1.00.05

to

BIOS: 1.00.03

EC: 1.00.05

 

The issue still persists. After 15 mins of use, the HDD vanishes.

 

Can anyone help with this? It's driving me mad and I have 2 useless laptops!

 

Thanks in advance!!