[GUIDE] Grub Fix Intel FPT Error 280 or 368 - BIOS Lock Asus/Other Mod BIOS Flash



is there a guide on how to recover a BIOS with these tools? My Z390 Aorus Xtreme has two removable socketed BIOS’s and I need to recover both after a bad BIOS flash and BIOS recovery not working.

Edit: Found this. [Guide] Using CH341A-based programmer to flash SPI EEPROM

Would this work with my board?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/CH341A-24-25-Se…cN-tQ:rk:4:pf:0

@KedarWolf - yes that ebay item you linked is what you need, also if BIOS is socketed then you want one of these so less chance to damage the chips when trying to remove them
https://www.ebay.com/itm/123167465408

As far as guides, the one you linked, and also this one with lots of images to get it all setup properly.
[GUIDE] Flash BIOS with CH341A programmer

Can you boot to DOS?



I can’t boot to DOS on the PC with the bad BIOS’s but I’m on my backup PC.

Would my BIOS on the Z390 board be a 25xx chip?

And yes, the BIOS’s are socketed.

I was asking about on the bad BIOS PC, in case you could reflash from DOS. Yes, most all BIOS now are 25xx



No, not on the bad PC.

Edit: I bought a BIOS puller plyers and the programmer etc. from www.amazon.ca just because the shipping is quicker, not much more there.

@Lost_N_BIOS
Hi, I’m in this topic now to follow your advises for flashing a modded bios for my laptop Asus N751JK.

Up to now no more chance: I’m already blocked with a FTPW crash at the bios backup step:
View screenshot

I ran the cmd window in admin mode (ftpw command ended up with an error 366 when launched with user rights).

@Neutral67fr - Are you sure you have the correct FPT per your Intel ME version? Check ME FW Version in main page of BIOS or with HWINFO64 in large window, on left, in motherboard section, expand and see ME Firmware version, then download correct matching package.
And make sure you have correct Intel ME drivers installed as well. Then, are you sure you have done the grub step correctly?

@Lost_N_BIOS


Well it seems I missed that "detail"… Actually I took the version you attached in the topic, which obviously is not the same as y system’s one ^^
So after having found a correct version of the tool (thanks to @plutomaniac Intel ME topic ) I could backup the bios properly.
I have to go ahead now… I wonder what other kind of trap awaits me now…

@Neutral67fr - Do you think I should bold step #7, or make it/some of it red/bold, so that catches peoples attention?

@Lost_N_BIOS As far as I understand about this guide, I assume it addresses to people who already have a certain knowledge of this kind of manipulations. Especially, in the scope of the tutorial, I assume that users already have the Intel ME tools package installed, so this may be confusing only for people in my case :wink:
Else it would be a good idea to add in the “What you need” list to get the correct version of ME tools (maybe link to plutomaniac’s ME guide?)

@Lost_N_BIOS
Well… I completed all the steps according to the tuto and at the end of flash step I get this result:

CMD.EXE window flash result

I’m quite scarred about rebooting my laptop now… Does this error mean something went wrong and that the bios may be corrupted?

Edit: I tried to flash the backup file, I then get no error. I assume it means there is something wrong with the modded file but I don’t know what. I’m sure I have modded it correctly, just as the modded file that @Fernando has validated. The only difference is that the initial file is the actual bios backup and not the original manufacturer file…

@Neutral67fr - Yes, some knowledge is needed, but I tried to make it detailed enough and have enough images, that most people could figure it out once they read the guide over and then did step by step.

ME Guide is not needed for this, only ME drivers, which are listed on motherboard driver pages and included on the driver install CD’s, so most have them installed already, but if not step #7 covers this.

Yes, that is NOT good, do not reboot yet, flash back in your FPTw bios region backup (Then it should be OK to reboot)! Please send me your modified BIOS file I will check it for you.
In the package, tell me what all mods you did, and also include the stock untouched BIOS, and a FPT BIOS region backup that you made before doing the mods

@Lost_N_BIOS
Regarding ME tools (FPT), I first had a search on the e tire system drive, and didn’t find anything. I don’t have any CD for my laptop (as the system image wrapped up in the rescue partition, like it is commonly done since W8 arrival or maybe even earlier). So I search on the Internet to find it, was directed to Intel official page (where I didn’t find a version matching my system), then another URL took me back to this forum in the ME guide topic… Well, no matter.

Now the most important part: Of course I flashed the backup file before shutting down the system yesterday night and this part is fine.
I cannot directly attach a zip file with the different files due to file size limitation. So the zip file can be downloaded HERE.
It includes the original manufacturer bios file (*.205 extension) and the backup and my modded file according Fernando’s guide with UEFI Tool 0.25.1.

Thank you very much for having a look into them to see if you can find where is the trouble
The only thing I noticed when opening the original bios and the backup with UEFITool is that the original file is displayed with a structure header “AMI Aption capsule” whereas the backup structure starts directly with “UEFI image”.

@Neutral67fr - All systems that use Intel ME, have a ME driver package provided by the manufacture, so yours would be on Asus site with all your other drivers (likely beside chipset), or you can download from the ME Driver page here.
I would direct most users right to their system driver download page for the ME driver, less confusing that way. However, due to your concerns about this, I will re-write that step with more detail and make it bold, to avoid any confusion in the future for other users too.

The stock BIOS download is within a security capsule, FPT backup would not have this, that is why the 2KB difference you see.

I see an added Pad-file on your mod BIOS, it’s usually a missing one when it’s messed up, but that is likely the problem. I have replicated the issue with UEFITool 25.0, 25.1 and 26.0 -
This means this BIOS cannot be modified using UEIFTool (at least not for this particular modification, all others need to be watched closely and inspected after too

Pad-File-Added-Issue.png



This BIOS needs NVME inserted via MMTool v4.50.0.23, and due to size restrictions you need to use the small NVME Module (NvmExpressDxe_Small.ffs) and insert as compressed. Rename .fd to .bin when you are done
I tested V5, which usually can do this when 4 wont, and neither version will insert the regular sized NVME Module as-is or compressed, and v4 will not insert the small one either unless you compress the module on insertion
v5 will insert the small one as-is incorrectly (Like UEFITool, creating the added pad-file), but it will insert it correctly when inserting compressed. But since this is Aptio IV BIOS use V4 MMTool for best result

Here is where to insert it (at end of Volume 02:01-00). Once done, mod looks correct. If you need me to send you this mod BIOS file let me know.

InsertNVME.png

@Lost_N_BIOS
Thank you very much for your efforts! Unfortunately, the game is not won… I followed the steps, modded the backup with MMTool (4.50.0.23) following your instructions, but the flash process ends up still with the same mismatch error

Screenshot

I’m getting really desperate
I guess it is still a size problem as you described.

HERE is the modded file.

@Neutral67fr -This is not a BIOS itself/file issue, but either a system instability or physical BIOS chip issue (Bad chip, bad part of the chip, bad solder joint etc), or some other issue like driver causing this.
It’s not saying problem is BIOS file itself, it’s saying problem is after I write data you gave me, it does not match file I used to write from (This is FPT’s thoughts/comment)

You will get same error I suspect if you try to write back original biosreg dump too, but in order to do that in a manner like I mean (Changing the data) we’d have to issue a re-write command which will erase first and we don’t want to do that if the chip is bad at any location.

Try doing it using DOS Version instead. Be sure to have your original backup there too in case you see same error, if so reflash the original again before rebooting.

Other than that, things you can try is first putting the system to sleep for one minute, wake it up and then try the flash. And also make sure “Secure boot” is disabled in BIOS settings.
Remove your overclock if you have one, to ensure instability isn’t part of the issue.

I checked your modified BIOS, it’s correct now and not part of this issue. It may be a partially faulty chip, I’ve seen it before and chip still working and programmable in certain ways, but still causing other similar issues.
It could be due to Win10 or some windows driver, that’s why I say to try in DOS

plutomaniac - have you seen other causes for this? >> FPT Error 204 - data verify mismatch


Inability to properly read/write that chip? Possibly bad chip? Maybe give it another try? Flashrom under Linux?

Thanks plutmaniac, I suspected it was something with the chip, or windows/driver possibly, I’ve not seen this error before but I have seen similar with dying chip (Don’t remember exact error though).
Hopefully DOS FPT will work better, or yes if it comes to that Linux… And I told him “do it this way, it will be easier and you’ll be done in no time”

OK thank you guys but this time it’s over for me, I give up!

Just for notice, I remember to have already used the -rewrite option during my multiple attempts (I saw it in the screenshots of the guide ^^), it had no bad effect when flashing the backup which ended successfully, so in the hypothesis of a bad chip, it is strange that flashing the backup always passes, and with a modded file it always fails…

Now I’m going on with the current SATA SSD, NVMe will be part of my next laptop :wink:

Don’t give up @Neutral67fr - try in DOS, that’s simple to do! I can’t explain how that works OK with stock dump going back in, but not mod, but the error is not related to the mod BIOS contents (FPT doesn’t care what you give it, you can Feed it all blank file/FF"s and it will say OK/flashing/success)