Hello everyone, apologies for the tl;dr rant. I’ve stepped into a depressingly common problem with these EliteDesks, but no solutions have been forthcoming, so let's see if we can reach one.
The CMOS battery in one of our dc7800 machines died, so it was replaced. After going into BIOS and fixing the settings, now the PC refuses to boot at all; it freezes with this error:
2215-EIT failure. VA boot record read failure. Ensure drive with VA image in installed.
So begins my journey into the hateful world of HP/Intel desktop security. The first suggestion is to turn off Intel VT in BIOS. I do that. Then the PC freezes with this error:
2223-EIT failure. VT must be enabled to launch VA. Enter F10 Setup and enable Intel Virtualization Technology.
I turn VT back on, and it cycles back to the first error in a ludicrous tail-chasing exercise.
Next, it is suggested by the HP manual that I enter the MEPx menu (ctrl-p) and disable those features. However, I can't enter MEPx because the machine keeps freezing as per the errors above. The only way I can get in is to remove all disks and boot devices. I do so; finally, I get into MEPx and attempt to disable VA in the AMT config (p.5)… BUT THERE IS NO VA CONFIGURATION OPTION!
So I simply disable ME entirely. Problem solved, right?
Wrong. Now at least the machine starts without those errors. But as soon as I plug the HDD back in, guess what... we're back to the error messages. I try combinations of removing/adding different HDDs and bootable USBs. No luck with any of them. Even more perversely, trying to re-enable ME (in case the VA option in AMT has magically appeared) doesn't help because, now there's a disk in place, surprise surprise we're back to the 2215 error.
Even after removing all boot devices once again, no matter how I enable/disable ME (in MEBx), "un-provision" AMT, or otherwise try to turn off this abhorrent feature, I'm in an endless cycle of these stupid errors. I even try clearing the CMOS, and removing the battery overnight. No luck.
Clearly, once VT is enabled, whether unwittingly through BIOS reset or by purposeful user intervention, some security flag in PROM is smashed so that VA must-must-MUST now be installed on all boot devices, or the PC will not boot evermore. Erasing the CMOS does not clear this flag, and even more mockingly, changing the poorly-documented MEPx features doesn't remove this "booting ich verboten" situation.
Now I'm sadly used to PC hardware dying... it's par for the course in the IT industry. But this is the first time I've been locked out of a PC thanks to the most odious BIOS security I've ever seen.
Surely HP must have a fix for this. Surely. </rant>