Hi, I’m new to mod BIOS. I’m trying modding my laptop’s BIOS to support NVME bootable.
At first, I followed a guide on the old forum
fptw64.exe -d backup.bin
but as you can expect, it has some error regarding read/write protection. However, I figured out that I can get a dump BIOS by using Flash Programming Tools/Intel ME by the command:
fptw64.exe -bios -d backup.bin
From what I understand, the command will create an image of BIOS region. So I think that I can add “NvmExpressDxe_5.ffs” to undermost DXE Drivers section and then replacing the mod version by the command:
fptw64.exe -bios -f backup_mod.bin
I understand that I still need to unlock Intel Flash Descriptor somehow but theoretically it should work or correct me if I’m wrong.
Thanks in advance!
My BIOS doesn’t have “CSMCORE” section. Is there any instruction for inserting NVMe module using AMI MMTool in this case?
The bios is attached for your reference! backup.zip (3.5 MB)
As shown in the screenshot, the DxeIpl belongs to PEI module, meanwhile it should be DXE Driver based on your tutorial.
The reason I want to use MMTool because the BIOS has some padding files and I don’t want to mess them up.
This is an insertion of a DXE driver, nothing to do with PEI volumes. What is mentioned in guide is concerning to volume with DXE drivers.
Try volume 5 or 6 (MMtool 5.x)… how did you got this backup, this is a Dell NUC based machine? With RSA and Bootguard, have you flash any mod before on this system with success?
EDIT: Ok… you have notion that operation may fail and the system wont boot? And need to be recovered by another method…or HW SPI programmer. Just to warn you…
Thanks for your reply.
As I mentioned, when I followed the guide of MMTool to find the DXE driver volume, and then make a double check by UEFITool, it’s not DXE Driver volume but PEI module volume. That’s why I confused.
For the backup, I got it by reading the bios region using Intel FD:
fptw64.exe -bios -d backup.bin
This is my laptop and for now I haven’t flash any mod BIOS yet.
I figured out how I can flash a bios but I haven’t done it yet. Will share the result if it’s successful!
Hi, sorry for taking too long to reply.
I have figured out how to unlock Intel FD by pinmod method and then loading the mod bios. Here is the result on cmd:
Then I restart the laptop and it didn’t load up. It doesn’t show up anything. Power LED lights up but screen remains in the black. So I guess it has been stuck somewhere in the BIOS.
What I will to do is to remove the CMOS battery to reset BIOS cuz the laptop is shipped with vPro chip. I have made a double check before, it does have 2 BIOS chips as follow:
C:\Users\Test\Desktop\Intel ME System Tools v10.0 r8\Flash Programming Tool\WIN64>fptw64.exe -i
Intel (R) Flash Programming Tool. Version: 10.0.60.3000
Copyright (c) 2007 - 2017, Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.
Platform: Intel(R) Premium Express Chipset
Reading HSFSTS register... Flash Descriptor: Valid
--- Flash Devices Found ---
W25Q64BV ID:0xEF4017 Size: 8192KB (65536Kb)
W25Q32BV ID:0xEF4016 Size: 4096KB (32768Kb)
--- Flash Image Information --
Signature: VALID
Number of Flash Components: 2
Component 1 - 8192KB (65536Kb)
Component 2 - 4096KB (32768Kb)
Regions:
Descriptor - Base: 0x000000, Limit: 0x000FFF
BIOS - Base: 0x600000, Limit: 0xBFFFFF
ME - Base: 0x005000, Limit: 0x5FFFFF
GbE - Base: 0x001000, Limit: 0x004FFF
PDR - Not present
Master Region Access:
CPU/BIOS - ID: 0x0000, Read: 0x0B, Write: 0x0A
ME - ID: 0x0000, Read: 0x0D, Write: 0x0C
GbE - ID: 0x0118, Read: 0x08, Write: 0x08
Based on the Host Region FRACC the Host/CPU/BIOS has ( 0x00004A4B ) :
Read Write
Desc : Yes No
Host : Yes Yes
ME : No No
GbE : Yes Yes
PDR : No No
Total Accessable SPI Memory: 12288KB, Total Installed SPI Memory : 12288KB
FPT Operation Passed
Hi, I’m replying to Koekieezz regarding his help which is to mod my BIOS. I just want to report that I have flashed the mod version successfully but somehow the laptop is bricked. I’m asking should I reset BIOS by remove CMOS battery or order CH341a set kit (which could take a long time)?
resetting the bios wont do anything usually unless you have your own backup and flash it direcly to the chips
since there is 2 DXE Section i inserted it on the 2nd one, but you could try this one (inserted in the first section, under the DXE driver with empty name) modded2.rar (3.4 MB)
@jimmyl
Since your problem to get the BIOS of your Dell Latitude laptop properly modified and flashed has not much to do with >this< thread, I have moved the related contributions into a separate thread.
So I will briefly talk about what I have done. Before flashing the mod version, I made a full backup of the bios, using cmd:
fptw64.exe -d full_backup.bin
This gave me a .bin file of 12MB.
I also have a backup of the bios, using cmd:
fptw64.exe -bios -d backup.bin
which saves bios region only to a file of 6MB.
Now, the problem is my laptop doesn’t boot up. Thanks to @Koekieezz, I know that I need to get a clean bios then flashing it to bios chip directly (through CH341a - I suppose), and then re-flash full_backup.bin so all settings will be restored. That’s in theory.
The problem is there are 2 bios chips, 8MB (W25Q64FV) and 4MB (W25Q32FV) on the motherboard so I don’t know what I should do to recover my laptop. I have downloaded .exe bios from Dell website and then extracted it by Dell PFS Extract which gave me 10 separated .bin files.
Thanks for your notice. It’s my backup laptop so I take the risks.
As you can expect, the system doesn’t boot up after flashing modded bios version. Basically it doesn’t show anything although the power led is ON. Now I’m ordering a CH341a kit to recover the bios.
May I ask what should I do to get rid of trouble if I still want to flash the mod bios version?
Edit: I found the answer for myself!
I have done a research regarding Intel BootGuard and then compared to information extracted previously using “MEInfoWin64.exe -verbose” cmd:
According to Lost_N_BIOS, when “Measured + Verified Boot both enabled on left/FPF side” then “there is nothing you can do except replace PCH with one that is clean and does not have burned in signature to FPF fuses”.
I also made a double check by UEFITool NE which shows up that the Volume containing DXE driver is marked in Yellow and every section in the Volume are marked in Cyan, meaning “every byte is covered by one of vendor’s chain-of-trust code entry”. Basically, the BIOS cannot be edited in any way.
I think that’s the end of my modding bios project. I wish I could dig deeper before flashing the mod version.
Now I focus on recovering my bios. Again, thanks for your warning!
