Newbie: Insyde bios question.

Discussion in 'BIOS Mods' started by bodge99, Jan 29, 2016.

  1. bodge99

    bodge99 MDL Novice

    Jan 12, 2016
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    #1 bodge99, Jan 29, 2016
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2016
    Hello All.

    I've recently started looking at modding bios/firmwares again.. Things have certainly changed somewhat since the last time that I dabbled (P3/P4 era)!!

    Anyway, I've got a "bit of a soft spot" for netbooks.. esp. Acer D255, D270 and the HP mini 210-4000 series.
    I've got a few of these from Ebay to experiment with.. I mainly run Linux and wish to see how far I can get with Bios unlocks, modding and eventually coreboot.

    The HP minis are quite locked down.. The bios is Insyde, the system is locked to a 32bit OS only (Intel N2800 64bit CPU).
    The only way that I can backup/flash the bios with anything "non-OEM" is by unsoldering the flash chip and using a SPI programmer.

    I've got a HP mini motherboard on the bench with a soldered SOIC adapter fitted. This allows for easy chip flashing.

    QUERY: The actual binary Bios file appears to be encrypted within the supplied HP self extracting archive.
    I can access any bios file with Phoenixtool 2.66, but I can't see any obvious way of just extracting the unencrypted bios file (for direct use with a hardware programmer).

    Am I just being very "dense" in missing something obvious?? or do I need another tool for this??

    Any pointers would be appreciated.

    Bodge99.
     
  2. Tito

    Tito Super Mod / Adviser
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    Nov 30, 2009
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  3. bodge99

    bodge99 MDL Novice

    Jan 12, 2016
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    Tito:

    Very many thanks for the pointer.. Much appreciated!!

    I've started with SP55712.exe . This is a self extracting archive which contains 0338DF01.bin [2,294,656 bytes]. (yes, I know it's the 1st bios release.. just somewhere to start..)
    I've now found that running Pheonix tools leaves 3 new files in the Bios directory:

    RSA.SIG (decryption key??)
    SLIC.LOG (lots of good stuff)
    0338DF01.bin.DEC [2,097,152 bytes]. I assume that this is the decoded bios?? The size is correct!

    I did a quick binary compare between this file and an earlier flashchip dump. There appears to be some minor differences but some key headers appear at identical addresses.

    Looking good so far..

    If anybody is interested, then I'll update here with progress..

    Again, many thanks.

    Bodge99
     
  4. Tito

    Tito Super Mod / Adviser
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    Welcome & thanks for the feedback. All of your speculations are right.

    :hug2: