I went too far the with 17x R4 blind flashing. I successfully blind flashed from the locked A09 to A05, as described. However, I was then stuck unable to get my WIN 8 boot drive working under that bios version, prob thanks to no UEFI. I tried to create a temp install just so I could flash back up to unlocked A09. I then ran into the installer complaining about GPT partitions no matter what I tried to do with my spare drive. I got really annoyed after a while of this, instead of thinking to perhaps pull out WIN 7 install disc and going that way, I went to try same method as Otsego did to see if I too could successfully brick the same way. Result was indeed total brick. So if anyone thinks total brick via blind flash of later bios after successful A05 downgrade is just bad luck, nope, it a certainty. First time I've ever seen a laptop or PC brick out totally like this. So back to old M14x R1 while the M17x goes back to Dell... That's what perils of being a hackintosh enthusiast on the side- I was that interested in unlocked bios, just for it's ability to switch discrete graphics.