How to Flash Acer AO 721 from Windows 7

This is an update re: my previous blog on flashing an AO721.

This morning I was proudly telling my boyfriend that I have successfully recovered and flashed my laptop's BIOS. He asked if I had flashed it from Windows. I said 'no, I followed the instructions that was on the manual which said to flash from the USB drive similar to the recovery procedure. We had a bit of a light argument because he insisted that I do it right then from Windows while I insisted I have already done it.

To prove my point that my BIOS has updated to the latest version, I opened my system information (Run> msinfo32.exe) to show the BIOS version that I have. I was surprised to see that I still had the original version 1.06 and not 1.18 as I had expected. I gave up, admitted defeat, and followed his orders.

I tried to flash from Windows but failed after several attempts. Here are the steps to flashing BIOS from Windows.

OS: Windows 7 Home Basic

1. Make sure your battery is attached and full or at least 50% charged. My first attempts failed because I only had the AC adapter plugged and the battery was not attached. Another important thing is if you attached the battery while the power cord is plugged, reboot your system so it will work. I had to do this because I had another failed attempt after attaching the battery while the laptop is running.
2. Close all running programs. Yes, another failed attempt. My boyfriend asked if I had any programs running, and I said yes. He then advised me to close all programs that are running even those that are on the system tray (this includes AV and everything).
3. Open the BIOS_Acer_1.18 folder. Run the BIOS.BAT file as Administrator. Do not click on the JVI0N118.exe file inside the Winflash folder it won't work. I have tried it, it failed.
4. Wait. Wait for the update to finish its work and reboot. In my case, it rebooted and went back to what I thought was the black screen problem I had previously. I left it alone uninterrupted (it is important that you do not interrupt with the process while it's ongoing as it may be fatal to your computer) thinking it would boot up after a few minutes. I got worried thinking I had to redo a recovery. After about 30 minutes, I decided it's time I can turn it off safely because flashing usually only takes around 7 minutes or so. So I turned it off then turned it on again hoping the screen would fire up. IT DID!!! (Phew!!) That was a great relief.

I checked my BIOS version by running msinfo32.exe again with my fingers crossed. I was glad and relieved to see that the BIOS my computer has now is 1.18.

If you have done the flashing following the one on the manual, check if your BIOS has updated. If not, follow the steps above. Better yet, if you have an Acer laptop and haven't flashed your laptop's BIOS, do it now. Make sure you have the latest version of the BIOS for your computer so you won't have to go through the same headache that I did, TWICE, because apparently, the black screen problem is common in Acer laptops.