After BIOS upgrade went bad looking for a original Sony Vaio BIOS [SOLVED]

BIOS/UEFI Modding BIOS modules (PCI ROM, EFI and others)
1

Hi everybody,

I’m new in this forum and I’ve reached it looking for improve my laptop. This is my first post on the forum.

I’m the owner of a ultrabook Sony Vaio SVP1322C5E and recently I was thinking of expand the ssd, I opened the back cover and saw that was a SSD M.2 2280.

So I bought a SSD Crucial P3 1 Tb to install, it but it didn’t work, so I started to search internet for if there was something that I could did, I found this forum that had people with the same problem and I’ve started to read.

I found the following thread that was similar to my needs: thread.

And this is what I did:

  • Installed the AMI Aptio software.
  • Used the AMI ADFUWINGUI to save my ROM file.
  • Modified the ROM with MMTool as the thread.
  • Created a FreeDOS USB bootable drive and boot the Sony with.
  • Make a new copy (again) of the BIOS with the AFUDOS software.
  • Write the modified ROM to BIOS with the software AFUDOS.EXE.

And after that the system doesn’t enter to BIOS getting a black screen.

As I think the modified ROM I’ve written is corrupted (but not sure), I think my laptop is bricked and I cannot enter to write the original ROM I saved before programming.

So, I’ve commanded a CH341A programmer to write the original BIOS I’ve saved but as I’m going to get it on Monday, I cannot test anything right now.

Looking at the forum I saw the following thread, where a user posts that a copy of his ROM had the ME region empty, and I have read the original copy made with the two software AMI (Windows and FreeDOS) and I have the same problem.

So preparing tools for Monday if writing my original ROM (both copies I saved) doesn’t work I would like to write the original Sony BIOS for this model of ultrabook; but my problem is that Sony removed all links for their software on Mars and I haven’t been able to find a ROM for my ultrabook, so

Someone has a copy of the original ROM that can send me to be able to write it next week?

Please, do not hesitate to ask me if you have advices or need more info about, I would like to bring back my laptop.

And sorry for my english.

Best regards and thank you,
Juan.

2

Dump your own firmware / chip content (and attach/post it) before writing anything to the chip! It contains all you need!

You should anyway get some good reads/ dumps to confirm proper contact of the clamp before writing.

So get at least two a 100% identical dumps from your bricked firmware which have a recognizable structure in UEFIToolNE, then exchange the bios region in the brick with the bios region from your backup.

That should give you a working firmware again.

(Your M2 SSD problem sounds a little bit like the ‘classic’ SATA misunderstanding?? Are you really sure that this machine supports NVME? What exact type of SSD was there originally?)

3

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

I saved two times my BIOS (one with the Windows AMI program, one with the DOS AMI program) and they are identical, so I think I have how my BIOS was before.

For programming, I’ve to wait until Monday.

I’ve looked inside the dump files and I’ve seen something that could led to my problem. The original file (got with the afudos and afuwin program) has some ‘registers’ when opened in the UEFITool NE that the modified file when insert the NVME driver has not. Not sure why, I will look in the forum about it

image
image1706×1007 88.1 KB

As we can see in the picture, left is the modified ROM with the NvmExpressDxe_5.ffs driver inserted and right is the original ROM, it seems I’ve replaced some stuff that should have not to do when inserting the NVME driver.

So Monday I will try to write the original ROM to test.

Regarding the SSD, I’ve not found info (or I’ve not able to find) about if my system supports NVME drives, but in one of the posts the system was similar to mine (same chipset, same model). The original SSD that came with the laptop is the Samsung MZHPU256HCGL-00000, I know that this SSD is SATA and not NVME.

Thanks in advance for the answers,
Juan.

4

Yes, the picture explains it, there’s definitely not so much irrellevant stuff in a bios region. But you’re not the first one…

This is another subtype of your machine (V8EBI), you might be tempted to use files from this thread, but I’d recommend staying with your own firmware, ME configuration for example might be different, subtype might even have slightly different bios region. And of course machine specific information (serial, Windows code) are different.
.

You have the bios region (and maybe FD) but you still need a 100% good dump of the ME- region!

5

Hi everybody,

As I found using the MMTool.exe that some items are replaced, I’ve used the UEFITool.exe program to insert the NVME driver in the ROM file.

But as I can’t program the file in the BIOS I will do on Monday and I’ll post the results.

Here is a picture of how is now the file.

image
image1365×709 29.3 KB

Regarding the ME region, how can I get this dump? As far as I know I’ve written the contents of the BIOS and I don’t know what is inside.

Thanks in advance for your answers,
Juan.

6

Hi lfb6,

Thank you very much for your answers!

I will try the procedure on Monday from your post Bios mod for Sony ….

And I will keep you informed.

Best regars,
Juan.

7

You can’t program parts of a SPI chip, you have to stitch a complete firmware image.

As already written:

  • Read the complete SPI chip
    Get at least 2 a 100% identical dumps which have a recognizable structure in UEFIToolNE

  • Exchange the bios region either with the modded one you now created or with the original backup

  • Flash the created firmware image back into the chip.

If unsure post/attach the files here berfore flashing back!

8

Hi,

ok, I’ll do as you say.

Have a nice weekend.

Juan.

9

Hi @lfb6 ,

I’ve found a CAP file that seems it is a BIOS file from Sony for my laptop, as it was stored in a folder and dates from 2014, could be the original BIOS for my laptop.

Do you think that the best is to flash this file on Monday (after dump of the actual content of the chip) and test if it works?

And after I can add the nvme driver to this file and test it to see if the new disk works.

What do you think?

Best regards,
Juan.

10

Hi,

This is what I’m going to do on Monday:

  • With the CH341A programmer dump the actual content of the BIOS.
  • Read with the UEFITool the content trying to check it to understand what went bad.
  • Make a BIOS file using the CAP file from Sony and the original dump (incomplete) that I dumped last time (if needed, if not, using the available data).
  • Write the new BIOS file.

If someone thinks I should do anything different, please do not hesitate to tell me.

Regards,
Juan.

11

Hi everybody,

I’ve received the CH341A programmer and I have done the following:

  • Read twice the chip from my laptop with different software and save each file on disk.
  • Compare with HxD both files and check than they where identical.
  • Extract with UEFITool the ME region from the file dumped.
  • Open with UEFITool the file I dumped with the AFUDOS.
  • Replace the ME region on the file dumped with AFUDOS with the ME region dumped today.
  • Add the NVME driver to the new file with the UEFITool (not MMTool).
  • Write the file to the BIOS.

My Sony laptop came to life.

My SSD Crucial P3 is working and Linux Manjaro is installed and working well.

I think all my problems have been solved.

Special thanks to @lfb6 who has provided a lot of help to get my laptop to life.

If someone has questions about my little knowledge, do not hesitate to ask.

Best regards,
Juan.

1 Like
12

:+1: Thanks for the feedback!