Dell - Phoenix/EFI Manual Mod Thread

Discussion in 'BIOS Mod Requests. Post Requests Only' started by ssvetec, Jul 31, 2009.

  1. TAZMANUK

    TAZMANUK MDL Novice

    Mar 11, 2008
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    anyone modded the dell 521?

    please dont mistake them for dell 520 as they are different systems one has intel cpu and other has amd hence the model difference

    dell e520 has bios 2.4.0

    dell e521 has bios 1.1.1.11
     
  2. rtfm

    rtfm MDL Novice

    May 29, 2007
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    My progress in understanding how to mod Dell exe file to contain new modified hdr file :)

    Summary:

    Look at the last 4 bytes of exe to find offset where hdr file in gz format info begins.

    GZ file always starts with 1F 8B 08. To extract gz hdr, copy block starting with these bytes to the end but exclude 4 offset description bytes at the very end. This is hdr file in gz format. Its size is usually written (but not in Dell 9200 for example where it is a bit further up) in four bytes about 8 bytes before 1F 8B sequence. After these 4 bytes, comes 4 bytes that has size of extracted hdr file! All sizes in hex and of course lower than higher byte format.

    I believe if we change these 8 bytes to correspond to the newly inserted gz file, procedure should work!!

    RTFM ;)
     
  3. MarcJ

    MarcJ MDL Novice

    May 26, 2007
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    Ok, let me know if you come up with something else and I'll test it. Looking forward to getting it working on the Optiplex 320.
     
  4. macgyver007

    macgyver007 MDL Novice

    Aug 5, 2009
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    Dell 745 - No change

    My Dell Optiplex 745 is currently running Win 7 RTM - the Dell 745 SLIC 2.1 fix doesnt seem to take. When i look at the table using RW it still shows B8K. I ran the prog as admin and it went through the motions and rebooted but still not showing having updated the bios.

    Until I update the slic to 2.1 i cant activate, right?
     
  5. shakeyplace

    shakeyplace MDL Addicted

    May 5, 2007
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    Did you run the flasher with administrator rights? Others have reported that working
     
  6. macgyver007

    macgyver007 MDL Novice

    Aug 5, 2009
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    Yeah. Interestingly enough I just attemped this on my 755 with success. What I did notice is that the 745 isnt going through the BIOS update flash process upon reboot like the 755 did.
     
  7. jordan.turner1974

    jordan.turner1974 MDL Novice

    Jul 30, 2009
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    Precision 390

    What do you mean with "awhile?":D Thanks!
     
  8. luv2chill

    luv2chill MDL Novice

    Jan 2, 2008
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    Couple of things to try:

    1. Make sure you don't have a BIOS password set. If it is there, remove it. Maybe reset your BIOS to defaults too as a safeguard.

    2. If it's still not flashing, try to download a previous BIOS update from Dell. Go to support.dell.com, drivers and downloads, put in your model # and go to BIOS sections. If you click to go to the BIOS section there should be a link that says "Previous Versions". Download one of those and flash it. Then try to flash to the modded BIOS again. Maybe it's not flashing because it thinks that you already have that version installed. If in fact you do have an older version installed then try the opposite--download the latest unmodded Dell BIOS and flash that first. Then try the modded BIOS.
     
  9. shakeyplace

    shakeyplace MDL Addicted

    May 5, 2007
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    Well said, I will post that in post 2, assuming you don't mind
     
  10. shakeyplace

    shakeyplace MDL Addicted

    May 5, 2007
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    I am a bit familiar with asset.com but how does the "manufacturing mode" work exactly
    Thanks, shakey
     
  11. Vercetti

    Vercetti MDL Junior Member

    Mar 21, 2008
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    I'm about to install W7 using a DELL XPS m1530, bios is avaliable in this topic at first post

    but i've a question?

    what windows 7 version and Certs should i use for thad bios mod?