it works! thank u so much. i now have the option of dual ssds w trim support! which i actually have, but hopefully this fixes my cache ssd issues
Awesome...very weird that the A12 gave you so much grief. Perhaps there is some bit/byte in the HDR file header that indicates that the ImagDs signature must be validated....
TQHoang I wanted to say a big thank you. I really had no need for a newer bios option rom until my esata cache ssd was giving my data corruption issues. This new integrated raid option rom into my bios has resolved it. Thank you so much, now my RAID 0 ssd cache system is blazing fast.
Hey TQHoang! Is it possible to integrate the new Intel Raid OROM for M6600 its the same model like the Dell m4600 with 17" screen. and also I wanted to ask you how did you manage to extract dell's bios .exe file , been trying to do this for some time and never succeeded. I can't post a link to the bios :\ its in dell's website . Dell M6600 Thanks!
So I've been trying to get Phoenix Recovery going but it's not doing it's magic. It pretends to recover the BIOS, usb is being read for a good 5 minutes, laptop refuses to reboot, pulled the power out after an hour and tadah, original A13 BIOS still there, like the recovery didn't happen. Can Phoenix recovery not downgrade? I'd love to get it working before I'm going to mess around with the BIOS myself. EDIT: Should I try another version of phlash16.exe perhaps? ~Aeny
I think you can downgrade with it and also you can try phlash17. But you must use a Phoenix Crisis Disk. When you boot from the stick it gives a message Phoenix Crisis Disk Recovery and after it reads from the stick it reboots itself after some time (not an hour). Just my 5 cents.
Ohh but you succeeded to make it work for Dell M4600 its the same as M6600 just smaller . They have different bios? Thanks!
Okay, I got the Crisis recovery disk made and tested but before I'm going to start messing with the modules I have some questions for you wise folks. First I'm going to try removing unused modules to see if that does anything, probably not but worth a try. If that doesn't work I'm planning to rip out the Intel IGP vbios, my laptop can't switch between igp and dgpu anyways but still, would this pose a problem since it's on die on my CPU? Third: Removing the HD5450 vbios and booting without screen, ssh'ing in and seeing if the drive is detected then. This is probably the most risky one, I don't know how the laptop will behave with that key vbios missing. Will it still boot into Windows? For more tests I tried installing GRUB(2) Bootloader but that didn't see the drives either. ~Aeny
It's always good to have a crisis recovery disk. First off you can read about option rom and it start with $55, $aa hex and this hex code is find by the bios everywhere hence you can delete, add and swap options rom like you want. That's the theory. For more I can recommend you the flat assembler message board. Second, ripping out the integrated vga bios isn't so a good idea because the bios uses integrated vga to print post screen, splash screen, setup screen. Riping it makes it impossible to boot and I think at least a vga bios must be available. I'm not sure how you can boot a box headless? Third, I don't understand why you want to do this but removing the discrete option rom vga bios can work. I think I did something similar and I also have a switchable video graphics laptop?
Tried this on my m6400 with nvidia fx2700m 512meg laptop and it flashed from A05 to A10 without problems OROM was ver 11 and SLIC was 2.1 with windows activated using 2 160gig HD's in raid 0 however when i replaced the video card with a ATI 7740 1gig, the boot screen would freeze just before displaying the intel raid screen (orom module was not loading?) swapping back the nvidia card allows the raid matrix screen to display. can someone possibly re-examine this? i can post a RW report if nessary. i'm going to be using 2 m4 256gig SSD's and really need trim support
the ATI card came from a seller who was/is selling them on ebay. the card is currently working fine using the dell A12 bios in the m6400 no i don't have access to another m6400. further reading on crisis recovery for this model laptop seems to show that all i need is a fat 16/32 formatted usb key/floppy with the HDR extracted file from the dell executable bios using -writehdrfile option and pressing the END key on powerup is this correct?
Created bootable 16meg usb key with file from sendspace renamed to M64_A12.HDR verified usb key bootable by selecting onetime boot from usb key and it booted with C: dir cmd, showed the M64_A12.HDR am unable to start recovery using the "END" key 1 remove battery from laptop 2. insrt USB key into left side usb port 3. press and hold END key 4. connect power (laptop blinks blue power light then does nothing) 5. release END key nothing happens, however i can start normally with the power button am i missing something here?
will try all 3 usb ports along with the 1 esata port the laptop has. does anyone have a list of known keys for bios recovery? also just to be clear the m6400 was available with either nvidia 2700m 512k/1meg/3700m 1gig or ATI 7740 igig cards. the bios supports either vendor