355 replies to this topic

[CodeRush]

What kind of help do you need?
Your modified BIOS is fine, but you must update ME firmware as well.
Use reflash command instead of biosrefl when following the flashing guide from my signature.

[naidb]

I upgraded (ME) firmware to 8.1., According to the manufacturers web.

[Pike R. Alpha]

CodeRush, on 10 May 2013 - 05:55 AM, said:

buoo, this "news" is like a month old.
Yes, ASUS implemented new protection of BIOS region in 19xx BIOS versions on their Z77 BIOSes, but it can be bypassed either by using USB BIOS Flashback to flash older version first (then protection is no more, and you can flash anything you want with FTK/flashrom/DPCIManager/whatever) or just using USB BIOS Flashback to flash modified BIOS file. It can be problematic to deal with this kind of protection on boards without UBF, but no one is interested in cracking this protection, AFAIK, and I don't have a board and free time to do that.

Fact check: The protection scheme is the same that Sam located and e-mailed about with insanelymac.com forum member dgsga. Also. Since there will be no "old" UEFI BIOS versions for the new Asus motherboard... you have to get rid of it or you cannot flash anything. And thus yes. I am very much interested in cracking this protection. Just that people here know what I was trying to address in my blog. Thanks for missing the bigger picture.

[CodeRush]

Pike, can you or anyone else disable this protection? If you can - please share the way to do it. If not - it's nothing to talk about.
I'm not interested in arguing about whether it was Sam who discovered this protection method first, or anyone else. I don't try to have any credit in discovering it or anything.
The point is: can we crack it. If so - it must be published, because for Z86 boards there will be no BIOS without this protection.
If not - we could work together to crack it.
Or just build or buy cheap SPI programmer and finish with it the hardware way. I have done it already.

[MartiniGM]

Hi,
I've got a Asus P8Z77-V pro motherboard and I'm currently using the 1908 bios with 12.6 Intel OROM. When I patch the bios with PMPatch and flash the patched bios
the whole Intel RAID menu disappears from the startup.The disks are working as usual, but suddenly I am unable to configure the raid setup anymore.
When I flash the "normal" (12.6) bios the raid menu reappears.

It the loss of raid menu a part of the patching?

[CodeRush]

No, it's not. I don't know why it can possibly be so. Needs more testing. Thank you for report.

[MartiniGM]

No problem. Hope you will solve the problem.

[LatinMcG]

maybe make a backup of bios while its on raid and mod that ?

[JCsHands]

I saw it mentioned that you can patch the executable provided by Dell. When I tried to path the BIOS for my Vostro 270 I received the following:

./PMPatch Inspiron\ 660\ Vostro\ 270\ A09.exe ~/patched
PMPatch 0.5.11
PowerManagement modules not found.
AMI nest modules not found.
Phoenix nest modules not found.
CpuPei modules not found.

What steps would I need to take to patch the BIOS for this machine?

[CodeRush]

You need to unpack that Dell executable and patch the BIOS file inside. Dell changes file formats often, no wonder that some day direct binary patch won't work anymore.

[kali2000]

Hi friend, thanx in advance for your work.
I want to ask if the patch was successful.
And... Can I flash the generated file with WinFlash Utitlity?
My machine is a Asus K53SC with Bios 221.

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[CodeRush]

Yes, it was successful. Flash it like normal BIOS file.

[kali2000]

CodeRush, on 15 May 2013 - 07:40 AM, said:

Yes, it was successful. Flash it like normal BIOS file.

Thanx for your reply...
I can't flash this file... when I go to flash I have an error, it say: "Date file is old, please press enter for exit".
I use Bios soft and Winflash with same result.
What I can do?

PD. Solved.
I can downgrade my bios with WinFlash.
Command:
WinFlash /nodate

[Pike R. Alpha]

CodeRush, on 10 May 2013 - 06:35 PM, said:

Pike, can you or anyone else disable this protection? If you can - please share the way to do it. If not - it's nothing to talk about. I'm not interested in arguing about whether it was Sam who discovered this protection method first, or anyone else. I don't try to have any credit in discovering it or anything. The point is: can we crack it. If so - it must be published, because for Z86 boards there will be no BIOS without this protection. If not - we could work together to crack it. Or just build or buy cheap SPI programmer and finish with it the hardware way. I have done it already.

I am not concerned about the credits. We've been over that already. It's about getting the job done. Whoever that may be. I don't really care. As long as it works. And when I find something, then I will share it right away. Like I always do. Free of charge.

[MartiniGM]

Patching a backup of

LatinMcG, on 14 May 2013 - 11:34 PM, said:

maybe make a backup of bios while its on raid and mod that ?

Making a backup in RAID mode, patching the backup and reflashing the modded backup did indeed work.

Or at least I think so.. at least ftk flashed the modded 1908 bios (both OROM and PMPatch) with no errors, after flashing the older 1805 version first.

The only problem now is that the installation of mountain lion stops when the first grey screen appears and the pointer is spinning while the machine is constantly ejecting the bluray drive.

I guess it wants the installation DVD, not the Clover/Mount Lion-USB stick I made with BootDiskUtility. But I really haven't had the time to troubleshoot it.

[LatinMcG]

try USB method.. or try making 2 partition in hdd and put lion on small second partition with clover ready to go. ( unplug dvd drive or change sata port of dvd)