Packard Bell EasyNote ML61

h**ps://hotfile.com/dl/167284806/9dfd09d/Vesuvio_BIOS_P12.rar.htm



This is the BIOS v.P12 flashing ISO for Packard Bell EasyNote ML61.
It appears that the EasyNote SL51/SL81/ML61-Series share the same BIOS, but I have tried this on the ML61 only. The BIOS has been patched with a SLIC 2.1 signature and is otherwise untouched.

Even though the actual BIOS file name on the disc ends with the .P09 extension, it is nevertheless the P12 version. The normal BIOS file is 1024KB (1MB), the additional KBs at the end are not really part of the BIOS but are there to guide the flashing program.

To successfully flash the BIOS the IDE setting in BIOS must not be set to AHCI. If it is, the DOS driver will not recognize the CDROM.

The SLIC 2.1 signature is from Acer (ACRSYSACRPRDCT_V2.1) since there exists no SLIC 2.1 signature for Packard Bell and since Acer seems to own or be support responsible for the PB brand.

The SLP OEM String is set to TOSHIBA, which makes no sense, but that's what it came with from factory.

To sum it up; After flashing the ML61 with this BIOS it will be able to activate Windows 7 with the Acer OEM certificate, and the same goes for Vista. If you really plan on installing Vista, better keep your factory BIOS untouched, since there is already a Packard Bell SLIC 2.0 signature in it.

If you plan on XP, there will have to be a Toshiba OEM installation CD for that. But since there seems to be no XP drivers for the graphics card, that would be pointless.

 

Slight addition...
I thought it would be of some interest to know how I went about doing this.

There was no P12 version of the PB BIOS anywhere on the Internet. PB's own support was confusing and it was apparent they had removed some BIOSes that they previously offered to their customers. I found a P09 BIOS ISO though. The ISO linked to in the above post is wholly built on that P09 version. The laptop in my hands already had the latest, P12 version and I was very reluctant to downgrade. Never surrender, never retreat is my BIOS credo.

My idea was simple, swap the P09 BIOS file in the ISO with the SLIC 2.1 injected P12 version, leave everything else be.
The problem was that the P09 version was an odd size for a BIOS. BIOSes normally come in nice round binary sizes. 256KB, 512KB, 1024KB etc. But the P09 was slightly larger than it should be. I suspected that the overdraft might be some chip description data for the flasher program. If the flashing of the P12 version was to be successful, that same data had to be present there as well. So, after viewing and comparing the P09 and the P12 versions in a HEX editor, both without the extra data, I felt that my suspicion was confirmed.

With the HEX editor I chopped off the extra data of the P09 version and saved it as a separate binary file. In the next step I added that same segment to the already SLIC 2.1 injected P12 version.

I wasn't quite sure how the flasher or batch file would react if I changed the file name of the BIOS file in the ISO from .P09 to .P12, so I didn't. Normally flashing BIOSes doesn't scare me, but here I was on unchartered territory. I had made several educated guesses and assumptions and these same often turn out proud parents of real f*ckups.

Not this time though. Everything went smooth as silk.

Since I had already installed W7 with a modified DVD, one which automatically activates if it finds a SLIC 2.1 signature, the system I found after reboot had turned from "2 days left" to offline activated.

The PB I performed this little piece of surgery was a friend's. He had given me the clearance to do the modification even if it had bricked the laptop. Otherwise, I don't think I'd play with other people's machines in that risky way.

I had prepared a strategy for what to do if the laptop had got bricked, but luckily that wasn't needed.

 

I forgot to mention that I got a binary file of the P12 BIOS by using "Universal BIOS Backup Tool", a program for reading out and saving the BIOS of the computer it is run on.

 

The ISO image is ready to be used as it is. Don't really see what more should be modified. Just burn the image to a CD and flash your BIOS.