[Guide] Unlock Intel Flash Descriptor Read/Write Access Permissions for SPI Servicing

@MeatWar
Thank you very much for having detected this bad game played by a person using the usernames jeremiahsears and metaverse with different IP addresses.
I just have deleted them both and blocked the related IP addresses.

@plutomaniac
Since you have started this thread, I want to let you know about the recent trouble with a certain Forum member. It is up to you to “clean” the last posts.
Thanks!

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Thanks everyone (@lfb6, @MeatWar, @chinobino, @Fernando)! I think the offending posts (and equivalent users) have been dealt with, so I’m good with leaving the rest in place. Keep up the good work! :slight_smile:

The serial is 54577157 0014074
I also uploaded a pic on the drive. Got so busy with other things so it took me a while to reply.

Thanks! You may want to try this firmware, bios region has the machine specific information, ME region is re- confugured, that should solve these problems.

Good luck!

outimage.zip (2.9 MB)

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No man, Thank you!! I just re flashed your image and everything is fixed. I am now able to login to the bios no problems.

If you don’t mind me asking, I just wanted to know how were you able to do do it. So far the things I will try when I get a free time is the procedure of cleaning the ME region. Not that I want to encounter this issue in the future again but just want to learn a few things.

Once again thank you, your awesome!! :+1:

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Your welcome. Those old bioses are quite predictable and good documented.

Use the guide to reconfigure / clean the ME and take the stock NVRAM volume, that’s all.

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Nice thanks. :+1::+1:

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Can anyone help me how to downgrade csme 12 to 11.8?

You can’t downgrade to a different SKU platform, only inside the same v12 in your case.

EDIT: Should be an issue from the image/dump you’re working on, from a ME FW_region only dump or from SPI full dump.
I’m not the most experienced here about ME FW issues, sorry.
You can wait for another user pov.

Thank you MeatWar for your response. This is a amazing forum with so much detail. Unfortunately for me, there is much information on here, my mind is going wild as I have adhd lol. Can you tell me one last thing, when i create the image in fit.exe and it gives me outimage.bin, the problem i have is it comes up with error internal structure corrupted when using fwupdate. I have tried pluto’s tip on editing the hxd and fix this extra padding, but doesn’t seem to resolve it. Can you help me figure this out if you have time? Thank you. Charlie

Okay, i will await. Thank you!

I don’t think this has to do woth FD servicing?

What is it you want to achieve? Which command did you use to produce the error message and which ME update file did you use for it? Attach this file.

A pic of the command windows or screen with visible command and complete output would be best!

Hello lfb6! Thank you for responding. I am looking to achieve a clean me region or try my best to come close to disabling intel me due to my privacy concerns over it. I have the correct system tools repo and I have done a spi.bin dump and placed that into the ME anaylser to ensure i have the correct flash tool kit version, and I also make sure the PMC and FW versions are matching aswell.

So when i create an outimage.bin using the fit tool, and as i select the FW extracted version from repo + the pmc version from the repo aswell, and i press no for build immediate files, it builds the image for me called outimage.bin. Then i use that image it produces assuming it has the clean version and having settings that kind of disables intel me, it comes up with an error when i flash with the command : “FWUpdLcl.exe -f outimage.bin” I have also done what pluto said to another person on a different thread which was to remove the extra padding, and i did that in hxd to make sure they match file size, but still even with the extra padding remove no luck.

Ah OK. Then I’m sorry, I don’t have any experience with clean MEs in the meaning of ‘disabled’- here the term ‘clean’ stands pretty much for reconfigured / reinitialized according to plutomaniacs guide:

thank you anyways :slight_smile:

Could you help me find where in my bios dump would i need to edit to have write access to resolve this error: Error 238: The host CPU does not have write access to the target flash area.To enable write access for this operation you must modify the descriptor
settings to give host access to this region.FPT Operation Failed.
The zip has my bios, if you or anyone can help, I would greatly appreciate it.
biosbin.zip (3.8 MB)

Did you read post # 1 in this thread?

By the way - the attached file seems to have your bios region, not a complete firmware! FD, ME missing.

Hi lfb6. Firstly thank you for response. The problem im facing is i have the outimage.bin which is about 16,415KB. That contains the clean ME. I have my FD unlocked because I can do a full SPI dump. However, since my board is AMI, i cannot find a way to do a full flash. So even though my outimage.bin contains the full firmware, I always encounter the error, the cpu doesnt have write access to the region for me. So i was thinking perhaps somewhere in my biosregion.bin i can edit it with hex to give write acess to the me region, then i can use fptw to do a flash. I hope that explains my situation and i hope you can help me

@charliemorgan
Only CH341 can help you. Only hardware programmer. Believe me, please.

If you can’t write to the ME region because of the settings in the FD- what makes you think that this is an unlocked FD? Can you write to the FD?

For example dump the FD
fpt(w(64)) -DESC -d fd.bin

and write it back unchanged?
fpt(w(64)) -DESC -f fd.bin

No. These settings are in the flash descriptor and you have to change the flash descriptor to change them. Regarding your questions and your project there’s anyway a higher probability that you might end with a brick so I concur with Michael_Code.

(Be careful with fpt, it writes what it’s given almost always without warning. Only warnings fpt gives I know about is size mismatch)