[jmholla]

> But very few modern systems will tolerate a power cut in the middle of a firmware update very well, and even if it does, it's often in a "Well, now, create this particular USB stick with exactly this filename on a FAT16 partition, boot it with it plugged into this particular USB port, and it might recover things" sort of method.

I recently did this with one of my Thinkpads, doing it during a battery firmware update among others. I wasn't successful in finding such a solution though. Where have you had success in finding some of the more obscure repair techniques?

[Syonyk]

It'll usually be listed in the BIOS upgrade guide. I've only ever seen the "weird recovery methods" on more performance-oriented mainboards - your RGB-heavy "gamer" boards tend to have some sort of recovery method. I don't know of any major OEMs who have such a thing. For a Thinkpad, though, I would wager good money that someone has directions out there for how to do it with a SPI flash clip - BIOS modding Thinkpads is pretty common, and most of the more intensive mods can't be done without an external writer.

[aspenmayer]

Thinkpads have a utility to make a BIOS recovery USB drive, which usually involves getting the BIOS update .exe file, possibly renaming it, then holding a certain key or key combination while turning the laptop on. You may need to use a special tool to format your USB drive to prepare it if it’s an older IBM Thinkpad. Sevenforums/Tenforums are decent message boards to learn about this kind of thing, as they usually have decent vetted tutorials with screenshots.