INTEL D865GBF Board

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If only it were that simple. The D865GBF uses Intel's proprietary BIOS format. It's actually an AMI BIOS file wrapped inside Intel's .BIO format. No 3rd party utility will be able to flash that. There's a utility called BIO2AMI that allows you to "unwrap" the .BIO file to get the standard AMI ROM file out of it and then push it back into the .BIO file after you modified it. But I believe the .BIO format has its own checksum(s) and the BIO2AMI utility does not take this into account. If you modify even 1 byte (I've tried this) in the unwrapped ROM file and even if you correct the standard BIOS checksum, then push the file back into the .BIO, Intel's IFLASH will refuse to write the file to your BIOS. I'm not too knowledgeable in this area, but even I figured out that we probably won't be flashing this board with a modified BIOS file any time soon, unless someone figures out a way to correct the .BIO checksum (not likely) or we find some tool that will flash the .BIO file despite the incorrect checksum (even less likely). We'll probably have to resort to a loader, which I really don't wan to do.

PS. - I even tried removing the BIOS jumper to do a BIOS recovery, but even that rejects a modified BIOS file.

 

The bios are modded ok, as I said (cant speak to the HP one), but the flash is the problem. The checks have not been found yet, and I have no time to get into this now, at least for a couple more months..Some boards are ok and some are not. You just have to pick and choose. I do not know if a programmer will flash the bios correctly with SLIC or not, but it is another option..

 

He's talking about a BIOS chip programmer. I see two big problems with this. The first is the fact that most Intel BIOS chips are soldered to the motherboard. It would be pretty tricky to unsolder it, reprogram it, then solder it back without damaging your motherboard. The other problem is that, trying to program one of these chips would most likely render it useless. They're non standard chips as far as I can tell. When you try to flash your BIOS with a modded file, it's not the IFLASH program that rejects them but the BIOS itself. This is why the recovery process (without any program like IFLASH) doesn't allow you to flash a modded BIOS either.

I've been looking into this a little more. Most of the modules inside the .BIO file are signed and the signature is verified before a re-flash is allowed by the BIOS. This is why modifying any of those modules in any way will cause the BIOS to refuse flashing. There is a bright spot in all this though, as not all of the code in the .BIO file is signed. If we only modify the unsigned portion and then fix the checksum, in theory it should allow us to flash the BIOS. I am still in the process of testing this, so I can't make any promises whether it will work or not.

 

Maybe you should try download and extract this Express BIOS Update [BF86510A.86A.0077.P25.EB.EXE] from
Intel site. Replace the Intel Bios file with modded Bios file and run setup with it. Hopefully it works for you.

 

You have to downgrade to the P24 BIOS version first, because the header of the modified BIOS says P25, which is what you already have. This is why the BIOS update tool gives you that message. Once you downgrade to P24, the IFLASH utility will attempt to flash your BIOS with the modified file, but it will be rejected. You're welcome to try the Express BIOS update method suggested above, but I would be very surprised if it worked. The flashing software is not the problem, it is the BIOS (hardware) itself that rejects the modified file. As I said before, even doing the BIOS recovery method, which is the last resort when your BIOS is messed up, still rejects any modified files.

Also, this particular motherboard's BIOS is completely locked down by Intel. Some other Intel motherboards allow the modifying of the OEM logo within the BIOS. But since the D865GBF is not an OEM motherboard, Intel does not even allow you to do that. The ITK (Intel Tool Kit) specifically tells you that this board is not supported and does not allow any modification (or even information retrieval) to the BIOS. I am now convinced that the .BIO wrapper has its own checksums (or possibly signature) and will absolutely not allow you to make any changes to the BIOS file within it. If you do make any changes, the BIOS will refuse to flash it.

Here are some things I've tried.

I pulled the .ROM file out of the P24 and P25 .BIO files. Then pushed the P24 .ROM file into the P25 .BIO file without make any changes to it. I then compared the resulting P25 .BIO file (with the P24 .ROM file inside it) to the unmodified P24 .BIO file. This way I could see the difference between the P24 .BIO wrapper and the P25 .BIO wrapper, since the .ROM inside would be from P24 in both files. Other than the version header (as expected) there are a few bytes of difference. I assume these are the checksums for the differences between the two .ROM file version. Either way, this proves that the .BIO format isn't just an envelope for those ROMs, but has its own integrity checks.

I pulled the .ROM file out of the P25 .BIO file and modified a single byte of the OEMLogo module without correcting the checksum. Then I pushed the .ROM file back into the .BIO file and tried to flash it. I was not expecting this to work due to the incorrect checksum of the .ROM and it didn't.

Then I tried the same thing using MMTool. I extracted the OEMLogo using MMTool, changed a single byte, then injected it back in using MMTool and allowed it to correct the checksum. The OEMLogo module is not protected on other (OEM) Intel boards, but that's not the case here. After modifying a single byte in the OEMLogo and allowing MMTool to correct the checksum, I pushed it back into the .BIO file and tried to flash it. The BIOS still refused to take the file. This again points to the .BIO format having its own checks in place.

At this point I'm out of ideas, as it seems Intel has completely locked down the BIOS for this particular motherboard. The .BIO file protects all portions of the .ROM inside it with checksums/signatures and I would be extremely surprised if anyone found a way around that.

 

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You can't flash a modified P25 BIOS over your existing version if it's also P25. IFLASH will compare the headers (the BIOS modding tools don't change that) and tell you it's the same BIOS you already have. At least this is what happened to me.