Anyone know how to extract a Dell bios from the ****.exe?? How to modify the ROM?

bbsc,

if you have time, could you please post step by step guide on how you successfully moded your bios so that we can all benefit and learn from it? I know it's based on shakeyplace's and Yen's ideas but a nice guide would be very useful since you were successful in your mod. Please include all files that you used such as original bios, final bios, steps and commands in between, such as how did you know from where to where is bios inside hdr file? I looked at it and starting from offset 54h for 100000h (1MB) doesn't seem obvious why it ends there and where checksums are etc...What did you change once you extracted bios, did you edit hdr file directly etc...Every detail matters

I know this is probably scattered all over the thread but having it in one post would be great!

Thanks!!

 

rtfm, I'm not very fluent in guidewriting, so I can only tell what I did.
In my D630's bios I replaced SLIC marker with the one from Latitude E5500 and corrected OEM Table ID. That's all.
You'll need winhex to do all the operations.
1. Take bios A11 from E5500. Extract .hdr and open it in winhex.
2. Go to offset 85092 (all numbers will be hex). Mark a block 85092 - 8513F and save it in a new bin file. Close E5500 bios file.
3. Take .hdr bios file from your dell. Open it in winhex.
4. Find SLIC marker block, mark it and delete including leading 4 bytes of length. Insert the bin file you saved in the second step here.
5. Go to offsets near 100000 (you'll see many ff's) and delete there one byte.
6. Find "DELL M08" in your bios file and replace with "DELL M09".
7. Mark block 54-200053 and calculate crc32 of it. Paste the result into windows 7 calculator, "programmer mode", hex view and press "NOT". Write down the four bytes in reverse order to offsets 200054-200057. Now mark offset 200057 as the end of the block and calculate crc32. If everything's right it must be ffffffff.
8. Check crc32 of the whole file. It must be ffffffff.
9. Save the file as bios.hdr. Gzip it to bios.gz.
10. Flash the file on your own risk.

Good luck and feel free to ask any questions

 

Bbsc,

thanks for this info! It's very helpful, I am still trying to replicate what you did to your bios and then I will try to do mine. One thing you said is still not clear to me

"Find SLIC marker block, mark it and delete including leading 4 bytes of length."

How do I do this? How to recognize the marker, or maybe you can give the offset and also which ones are the leading 4 bytes of length?

Thanks!!

 

which dell model are you trying to mod?

 

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I always try a search for the string WINDOWS to find the SLIC marker block, looking at his original and modded files, and his instructions that have you select in the e5500 hdr file....

Code:

Offset      0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7   8  9  A  B  C  D  E  F

00085090         AA 00 00 00 40 01  00 00 00 B6 02 03 E0 01     ª...@....¶..à.
000850A0   B0 02 00 44 45 4C 4C 20  20 4D 30 39 20 E0 02 90   °..DELL  M09 à..
000850B0   00 57 49 4E 44 4F 57 53  20 01 02 19 E0 0F F0 71   .WINDOWS ...à.ðq
000850C0   6E EF 2F 10 A5 23 4C 3A  45 03 F4 B6 9F CB E6 C8   nï/.¥#L:E.ô¶ŸËæÈ
000850D0   07 17 97 F7 24 FC EA 12  CD 73 C8 AE 7E E4 2F 7A   ..—÷$üê.ÍsÈ®~ä/z
000850E0   65 50 11 53 0D 97 58 47  CD 1F F0 27 1E D6 30 CD   eP.S.—XGÍ.ð'.Ö0Í
000850F0   0C DB 01 D5 43 24 12 70  CA 24 F4 DF A7 49 B2 98   .Û.ÕC$.pÊ$ôߧI²˜
00085100   1D 99 01 3C ED FC 13 0D  37 C6 DA 59 05 BF 70 93   .™.<íü..7ÆÚY.¿p“
00085110   78 45 E2 10 5D D7 DA 6F  6A EE 44 BB A4 E1 C5 E3   xEâ.]×ÚojîD»¤áÅã
00085120   E9 A8 7D 98 10 14 CA C7  3A 36 7F 92 41 AD 6F 36   é¨}˜..ÊÇ:6.’A*o6
00085130   EB 33 6E C9 75 05 21 F5  25 EB E6 71 E5 D3 60 9C   ë3nÉu.!õ%ëæqåÓ`œ

So in my Dell 6400/e1505 A17 bios I selected the corresponding block

Code:

Offset      0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7   8  9  A  B  C  D  E  F

0006DD50                                        A9 00 00 00               ©...
0006DD60   40 01 00 00 00 B6 02 03  E0 01 B0 02 00 44 45 4C   @....¶..à.°..DEL
0006DD70   4C 20 20 4D 30 37 20 E0  02 80 00 57 49 4E 44 4F   L  M07 à.€.WINDO
0006DD80   57 53 20 04 1C E0 0E F0  71 51 E9 A5 CD 35 30 91   WS ..à.ðqQé¥Í50‘
0006DD90   B0 9B C0 CE 05 FA 26 B5  43 29 40 1C 13 16 EF E3   °›ÀÎ.ú&µC)@...ïã
0006DDA0   BF 17 2F BD 3B 99 B5 6E  23 49 F7 97 BC ED FF C9   ¿./½;™µn#I÷—¼íÿÉ
0006DDB0   4A 95 F4 A5 CD 33 0B 40  2E C8 E1 8B E6 8F B6 74   J•ô¥Í3.@.Èá‹æ.¶t
0006DDC0   8E 94 43 E0 2F B6 CE 53  F0 09 3D B4 18 0F 44 23   Ž”Cà/¶ÎSð.=´..D#
0006DDD0   10 64 F3 74 06 2E 1D 00  71 13 6A C7 C9 9E 82 CB   .dót....q.jÇÉž‚Ë
0006DDE0   71 09 B1 9E 42 5A 7D F3  F8 CC D1 FD 22 90 BF 37   q.±žBZ}óøÌÑý".¿7
0006DDF0   3E 2C 68 BB 30 FF 84 0F  B5 2B B3 C0 7A 71 44 C5   >,h»0ÿ„.µ+³ÀzqDÅ
0006DE00   EB 13 15 C3 CA 66 1B 80  2E                        ë..ÃÊf.€.

Note the block ends with the same values as shown in the SLIC table and is 1 byte longer in the e5500 string due to the slic version string, that is why you have to correct the length of the rom further down in the instructions. In the case of my e1505/6400 A17 bios I chose to correct it by deleting 1 byte between CF1A7h and E4054h as that was my next large block of FF's, you can find the large block by just searching for the hex value ffffffffffffffffffffff from the point where you edited the hdr file, don't search from the start of the file the size must be corrected after the edit point. This was the method of correcting the rom file size that worked for me in my first mod attempt.

On line 6 of bbsc's instructions search for whatever string is on your RSDT table, mine is DELL M07

For lines 7 and 8 of bbsc's instructions, if your hdr file contains a keyboard rom follow instructions in post #105 in this thread

Hope that helps, looks very promising bbsc, great work

 

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So i will only be able to activate with a retail key... i won't be able to get it activated with a OEM key?

Also, anyone here would like to try to update my XPS 420 BIOS to 2.1? Please let me know and i'll post the proper info!! Thanks in advance!

 

I could but be warned this is very risky, we have not heard back from any other mod attempts using bbsc's instructions. Who knows, this may be the mod we have all been looking for or it may only work on the one model, If it works please let us know. If it doesn't it will likely brick your motherboard unless you can recover your bios. That said....
Can you provide me with a rweverything report or at least SLIC tables for your XPS420 (so I can reference) and I can mod as per Bbsc's instructions....

 

I installed and activated W7 with the OEM key on a Dell Latitude D630, so IT WORKS!!!!!!!

 

Anything working yet for Dell M1530 XPS systems?

 

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I'm not djesteban, but I'm very interested in the XPS 420 Here's my RWeverything report for the latest BIOS (A07).

Thanks for looking at it!
-JT

 

so what ur saying here is i can mod my bios of dell optiplex 745 if i get hdr file, as the rom file couldnot open in pheonix editor.? using winhex....?

 

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So, Bbsc. that looks great for those two bioses. I was looking at the XPS420 bios and the 4 bytes don't match up. the length is the same. Any ideas?

Code:

Offset      0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7   8  9  A  B  C  D  E  F

00079C40            A9 00 00 00 2A  40 01 00 00 00 B6 02 03      ©...*@....¶..
00079C50   E0 01 B0 02 00 44 45 4C  4C 20 20 42 39 4B 20 E0   à.°..DELL  B9K à
00079C60   02 80 00 57 49 4E 44 4F  57 53 20 04 1C E0 0E F0   .€.WINDOWS ..à.ð
00079C70   71 62 A5 B6 4D A1 2E 95  EB 99 27 91 5A DE 34 B1   qb¥¶M¡.•ë™'‘ZÞ4±
00079C80   23 59 11 F2 3B AB 8B AE  68 13 52 BF C7 59 10 B2   #Y.ò;«‹®h.R¿ÇY.²
00079C90   50 5F 95 2A 5E AB 9D 77  C5 83 02 37 94 3A 06 B6   P_•*^«.wŃ.7”:.¶
00079CA0   35 F6 44 EE 0A 6D F4 6F  96 11 33 27 4C A0 B1 08   5öDî.môo–.3'L ±.
00079CB0   B1 01 C2 82 33 09 94 68  89 15 57 EB A4 FC 16 F7   ±.‚3.”h‰.Wë¤ü.÷
00079CC0   29 63 64 C6 3B A3 FB 03  66 CC 5F 33 B0 60 70 B9   )cdÆ;£û.fÌ_3°`p¹
00079CD0   25 9F 37 68 DC FC E9 6B  50 B9 41 84 16 86 46 B1   %Ÿ7hÜüékP¹A„.†F±
00079CE0   80 9B 81 47 36 51 96 69  7C 1B C9 16 E8 7C 4C F4   €›.G6Q–i|.É.è|Lô
00079CF0   39                                                 9

 

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