Hi everyone! Great forum this, I've been reading and reading and reading and I can't believe the amount of good information here! Unfortulately the information I am looking for doesn't seem to exist - yet. I'm trying to activate WS2008 SP1 on a Dell PE 2950 and it just won't work. Foolishly I thought this would be a piece of cake, just loading the Dell key and cert. However, I have so far found one key (the 223PV-...) and two certs (DELL and DELL_FX09) and whichever cert I use I get "Product activation failed". The OEM Table ID in the PE 2950 BIOS reads DELL PE_SC3. Does anyone know if I should be able to use one of those certs? Also, in Everest the SLIC reads as 36 bytes long. Is it possible that the SLIC in the PE BIOS is incomplete and I have to modify it even though it is a Dell machine? Or is 36 bytes ok? Anyway, if anyone can provide some more info I'd be grateful! Rgds, Mans
Hi Regina, thanks for your answer even though it wasn't was I was hoping for. I was kind of hoping it was a bug in Everest or something. Ok, so I guess my only option now is patching the Dell BIOS. Seems to be based on the Phoenix BIOS. Should be fun calling Dell support if I trash the BIOS.. *haha* //Måns
I don't think anyone has been successful patching Dell bioses yet. I tried and failed. If you get any success, please post
colinr 1. Yes, the key and cert were found on official OEM DVD. BTW, I can't imagine any other source of such key... no any real keygenerator yet, sadly... On Dell it's the same cert as for Dell notebooks and desktops. On HP DVD for S2K8St the cert is different from the one for HP notebooks and desktops. 2.and 3. Can't say for sure, but i think Dell was preactivated, because it's working SLIC table was posted on this forum, if you'll find it, you'll see in it the name of the model of this server, fortunately Dell makes unique SLIC for each product. However, it's the usual practics of Dell and HP that SLIC is "cut" if the machine comes from vendor without preinstalles Vista/s2k8. And yes, BIOS updating sofware of these brands is clever enough to distinguish which components of BIOS to update and leaves SLIC as it is.
@ frwil Do you think there would be a way of tricking the BIOS in to updating the SLIC table? Like if you were to use the SLIC emulation method before doing the update.
@ pix I used asset PASS:12/31. I just tested this on a DELL PE1950 II and seems to have worked like a charm. The server actually booted while still in the manufacture mode and had the 374 bytes listed in Everest. After a restart manufacture mode was cleared and once booted again the full SLIC table was still there from 36 bytes before to the 374 bytes after in Everest. It currently has Win2k3 running so I have not tested with Win2k8. What other codes are there?
Whoa! I should have checked back sooner instead of trying to disassemble my BIOS.. My PowerEdge 2950 is now activated with its original unpatched Dell BIOS. The most difficult aspect of this procedure was getting hold of a floppy and a computer with an FDD to unpack the utility! Better keep this file safe somewhere..
Did something change as of the last asset change? I tried both svctag 3.4 and asset 2.0.9 with a pe2900 and my slic table still weighs in at 36 bytes. I have tried changing asset tags and service tags as well as a buch of Alt secret keys to return the bios to defaults and clear the nvram. Anyone have the original asset package before the change?
this is a brand new server that shipped with 2.5.0 for the bios. I even tried back reving to 2.43 and earlier bioses. However, the computer never once went into manufacturing mode. I thought maybe the file was updated once this info was leaked to prohibit the pc from clearing the mask as it did before.
i just try on brand new bios 2.5 on PE2950 III and it's work perfectly ! but i know their is 2 version of asset.exe ... probably this is the problem ?