The disassembled code makes now sense (even to me). Trying to convert compressed data into code was no good idea...... An expert for compression is apokrif. He developed a compressor / decompressor for Dell bioses. It seems difficult to figure the decompression and write a compressor. The decompression routine is found at every bios.
Mod date Hi, Now that there is amod for slic 2.1 I want to try to flash a "correct" bios for my 6820s. apart from changing the slic I want to modify the date. The date of the bios is 11/04/08, so I hexedited the date to 11/04/10. I have decompressed the resultant bios and the only diff is the date in 19_FFF65366_ROMBLOCK_ROM.bin file. So it seems to be doable, what scared me is the name of the file... I'm afraid of modifying the romblock. As I might get a non recoverable laptop, has someone tried it? thanks
The first MOV, which reads 9Ch bytes from 0FFFF1300h basically doesn't need to be patched. It's the public key data of the SLIC. It's at HPQ-SLIC 2.0 AND 2.1 the same. Only B6h need to be read from the non protected area to update the SLIC. Don't know if that fact makes it easier to patch....
Thanks for the response, though I have found 3 dates only one is the BIOS date: I have found the video bios date, the bios date and network bios date. In which modules have you find the compressed dates? The november one (11/04/08) is only once, or I have searched in a wrong way... Thank you again
You'd use ADDCCV3 to decompress the bios, find the dates, then alter the matching byte in the compressed bios, decompress to ensure you only hit your target date bytes and then do a checksum correction using the "wake on lan" string. A lot of work for a cosmetic change. Not worth it imho.
For the slic change, we don't correct the checksum. Why is it necesary in this one? Also is not for cosmetic change, it is safe to say that if some bios has slic 2.1 but is really prior (2 years) to windows 7 release, it is a non genuine bios... I want to be in the safest posible bios mod. I have edited the compressed bin. the only date which I can't change is the one whith the version... (I have found them in 09_F000_000F0000_ROM, don't know why i didn't find them earlier...) Thanks
I would like to mod my nw8240 mobile workstation bios to add SLIC table. I have made an Uniflash copy of my bios and RW report. Could anyone help to insert the SLIC table?
I have fiddled with that..no chance for me as well (so far).. But you can patch the previous version sp36583 F.07 (16 Jul 2007) Offset 13111h FFh-->FEh.
Yes and no. Yes, it can be done, BUT ONLY if one is on same or LOWER BIOS (and it works absolutely fine, 6715b WITH SLIC 2.1) Once F.0E is installed HPQFlash (even the "adjusted" one) will not allow downgrade 09/15/2010 20:30:56.693 CConfirmFlashPage: DllhpqValidateROMCABImage failed 09/15/2010 20:30:56.708 CConfirmFlashPage: dwRetCode == DOWNGRADE_BLOCKED_BY_BIOS I can cheat by changing ver.txt & it seems to go OK, till the actual flash is supposed to happen, then: 09/15/2010 20:41:16.664 FlashRomImage(): Write Block #1, Attempt #1 09/15/2010 20:41:16.679 Start Write Flash Rom Image Block 09/15/2010 20:41:16.789 End Write Flash Rom Image Block 09/15/2010 20:41:16.789 FlashRomImage(): Write Block #1, Attempt #1 FAILED, error code = 0x15 09/15/2010 20:41:16.804 Cannot flash block #1 because it is blocked by BIOS. dwErrCode = 0x15 09/15/2010 20:41:16.804 FlashRomImage: Failed to write block #1 to Flash ROM. dwErrCode = 0x15 09/15/2010 20:41:16.804 Flash Image failed: lBytesLeft = 1048576, dwOffsetLocation= 0, bStatus = 0 09/15/2010 20:41:16.804 Start Clear Flash-In-Progress 09/15/2010 20:41:16.914 ClearFlashInProgress(): passed. hr = 0x0, dwRetCode = 0x0 09/15/2010 20:41:16.929 End Clear Flash-In-Progress 09/15/2010 20:41:16.929 End Flash Rom Image (Write), bStatus = 0 09/15/2010 20:41:16.929 End flashing (Write) Attempt #1 09/15/2010 20:41:16.929 Flash Rom: Cannot downgrade, BIOS blocks it - Error code = 0x15 09/15/2010 20:41:16.945 ***** END FLASHING PROCESS ***** 09/15/2010 20:41:16.945 Exit hpqFlashRom, bStatus = 0, dwErrorCode = 0x0015 09/15/2010 20:41:16.945 FlashRom returns bStatus = 0, dwErrorCode = 0x0015 09/15/2010 20:41:16.945 FlashRom in active mode failed, dwErrorCode = 0x0015 sebus
Even floppy recovery does not write older BIOS over the newer one! Nor does the patched Rompaq... True, probably not worth it, especially that ie 6715B has seen better days, ATI x1200 is not really the most Win 7 friendly sebus