I had this same problem (frozen BIOS v1.15.0 update) today with an OptiPlex 5000 SFF. It was frozen in this state overnight. I left the power connected, but pulled all the other connections off the back of the machine. In my case this was 1 x Ethernet plus 2 x USBs plus 1 x DisplayPort cable. Then I plugged the single DisplayPort cable back in to see if anything was happening. The BIOS update began to run and eventually finished and booted to the Windows 11 desktop. Then I plugged the 3 remaining unplugged cables back in. It seems to be operating OK with the BIOS v1.15.0 update now thankfully completed. Weird! Neil Howard

Unplug all of your USBs if any plugged in. There's a issue with certain usb devices halting bios upgrades.

I just had this same problem on an XPS laptop.  I didn't have my tools to take off the back, so I connected my phone via USB-C and charged it via the Thundberbolt USB-C port on the laptop.  While it was charging I had the flashlight on, and I also had the brightness set to the highest while watching a 2 hour youtube movie.  The laptop shut down in an hour so I saved myself an hour of waiting.  I also only had to wait 10 minutes on the charger before I was able to get it to boot.  It restarted the update and was able to complete saving the manifest right away.  What a pain.

I was having this exact problem and have not been able to figure out what it was. Until today. I ready another post somewhere that said to unplug all non essential periferals. I had a WiFi dongle and blue tooth dongle as our Desktop did not come with this installed(?). As soon as I unpluged these the Flash progress started to move.  Hope this can help other.

In case you're reaching out because of this problem on your laptop, please try performing a Hard Reset: 1. Disconnect any external devices including the AC adapter (and battery if possible) 2. Hold the power button down for 20~30 seconds 3. Bypass any power strips, surge protectors or battery backups 4. Verify the wall outlet is functional 5. Plug only the AC adapter/battery back into the laptop 6. Attempt to power on the system and finish the update. If that does not solved the issue, proceed to the next step. 1. Remove the AC adaptor and wait for the battery to drain completely (it can take minutes or hours depending on the battery level). 2. After the battery drained completely, connect the AC adapter back and press the Power button for 25 to 40 seconds until the battery charging LED blinks twice and then the release power button.  3. Once that is done, check if the update was complete and you have the new BIOS installed.

Remember to check our discord where you can get faster responses! https://discord.gg/EBchq82 I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

Thanks to this forum I was able to resolve the issue.  Dell TS wanted to replace the motherboard, I knew there had to be a better solution.  These are my notes to resolve. Issue: Dell Command Utility could not upgrade BIOS from 2.0.2 to 2.5.0.  Would fail at 0%. Solution: Confirm/turn off Bit Locker (it wasn't on). Remove cable for monitor 2 and 3.  (these are all Display Port Monitors) Set resolution for monitor 1 to 1920x1080. (lowering resolution worked, didn't need to find an old one) Reboot PC > press F12 Bios Setup Secure Boot > disable Advanced Boot Option > Enable Legacy option ROMs Boot Sequence > select Legacy Reboot No boot device found press any key > pressed space > rebooted > no boot device found press any key > no boot device > 3rd time pre-boot performance test (about 3 minutes) > rebooted > no boot device > rebooted > press F12 > select windows boot manager > now I was able to get to a Windows log on.-So you can just F12 and select windows boot manager to get to Windows. Click link to Dell Drivers page > Bios > download and run Bios 2.5.0 updater from windows (didn't need to use a USB drive) > system rebooted to BIOS update progress > yes, it's finally updating (about 5 minutes) > rebooted > no boot device found > I rebooted to confirm 2.5.0 bios version I rebooted again > F12 > Bios Setup Secure Boot > Enable Advanced Boot Option > Uncheck Legacy option ROMs Boot Sequence > change back to EUFI Rebooted > right to windows log on.  Excellent. Ran Dell command update > system up to date Issue resolved.

I had BIOS update freeze at 0% multiple times over many months on my Optiplex 7010 Micro.  Hard reset; download the .rcv version of the BIOS to a Fat32 USB stick; close Windows; unplug all USB devices except USB mouse and keyboard; use the F12 Boot & Diagnostics menu - this process worked for me.  Over the months I experimented with each BIOS update adding one additional USB device at a time until I found that the root cause was a USB Bluetooth device.  If I simply unplug that device I can update the BIOS successfully from the Dell Command|Update app in Windows 11.

I had a USB camera plugged into an HP ML110 that prevented it booting in a similar situation. Took me way too long to figure it out that it was, for some reason, presenting as a small unformatted storage device during BIOS instead of as a camera and it was trying to boot from it, but failing to retun any kind of useful error. Once booted, it presented just as a camera again, no storage available. I think it was just an incompatibility with a weird unbranded usb camera that was misreporting to the bios, but reported fine to the OS.