Hi guys! My question may seem strange, but I need to demodify BIOS in my Panasonic Toughbook CF XZ6. Some already know that Panasonic equiped their products with custom BIOSes. Because of this reason, the laptop’s BIOS cannot be updated by using updates from the Panasonic’s website. Paradox, isn’t it? My machine’s batteries are draining if laptop powered off. Moreover, this is not self-discharge from degradation, but an internal consumer (checked by disassembling the laptop and disconnecting the battery). Apparently, the company is aware of this problem and has released several versions for BIOS and Embedded controller firmware. But users like me have no chances to install it because laptop’s BIOS is customed. In my particular case laptop has BIOS V1.02L17A M11. If I run the installer from the Panasonic website i got Error 209. Description says: “Unit was installed with Custom BIOS, it cannot be update to Standard BIOS. Please contact support team.” Trying to solve my problem, I found posts from other users on the Internet who said that M11 in BIOS version should be changed to M00. But how to do that not answered. Win-Raid Community help is very appreciated.
2 options, blind flash the whole spi with Intel FPT tool (Unpredictable results and bios regions must be unlocked to write) or CH341A programmer.
EDIT: Panasonic BIOS Package Extractor platomav/BIOSUtilities: Various BIOS Utilities for Modding/Research (github.com)
EDIT: What gives you the temps folder upon exe execution?
BLOCK “040904b0”
{
VALUE “CompanyName”, “Panasonic Corporation”
VALUE “FileDescription”, “BIOS Update”
VALUE “FileVersion”, “2.3.1000.0”
VALUE “InternalName”, “BiosUpdate”
VALUE “LegalCopyright”, “(C) Panasonic Corporation 2012-2018”
VALUE “OriginalFilename”, “BiosUpdate.exe”
VALUE “ProductName”, “BIOS Update”
VALUE “ProductVersion”, “V2.03L10 M00”
4Mb but doesn’t seem a ready programmer file, its more an update
For me It is not possible to extract BIOS from downloaded file from Panasonic support’s page. Need help of community.
BiosUpdate_R23-5370_64.zip (4.0 MB) P.S. Already try that tool. For me not works.
P.P.S. Laptop has AmiBios inside by AptioV. But Amitools can not realize BIOS version edition (or i don’t know how to do it).
I’ve try HEX editor - it shows BIOS version as is in two places. So, it is possibly to change M11 to M00 and upload it. Plan to try it. But it will not solve the problem with embedded controller firmware. As you can see it has M11 too, but i have not found any mentions of it.
Temp folder contents only *.ini file with Error report. Here is dumped bios by AFUWIN from my machine
CFXZ6.zip (3.6 MB)