Recover Bricked BIOS using FlashRom on a Raspberry Pi

[@jimmihenry]

About 1995 i had the same problem. Well i did have to buy another BIOS eprom. No Raspberry no oscilloscope no multi-meter were available. But didn't need any it was a simple swap. While the computer was running i started the BIOS flash process from a floppy disk again, just before writing to the BIOS chip i swapped the chips and put the bricked one into the socket. It was a hot swap :) the operation was successful. I still have both chips. However it's very cool stuff you are doing, nice to watch. Thumb up!

[@delowerhossain1448]

I've repaired my HP 800 g1 desktop by flashing corrupted BIOS with Raspberry Pi by following your instructions successfully. I'm very grateful to you. Thanks a lot :)

[@yoshi314]

of course you should make more repair tutorials, what kind of question is that?

[@knifekitty_ls]

theres never enough repair tutorials, great vid!

[@kelleysimonds5945]

Ive been looking for this for DAYS and found nothing but battery removal, keyboard shortcuts, etc., etc, etc. OF COURSE you should make more repair videos that go beyond "Catch the rabbit". Thank you a ton!!!!

[@armoni4858]

Damn buddy. Saved the day with that one. Holding on to this bricked HP for 4 months now.

[@reaped999]

man, you saved my day. Just bricked my old asrock p67 pro3 with new bios (3.*) update (it was totally dead,), Flashed old 1.6 bios with raspi and now everything is fine again. ;D. thanks...

[@rienschouten5892]

I know you made this video a while ago but thanks to your tutorial i was able to revive a dead nearly obsolete Asus n53sv laptop. i didn't want to buy a programmer since i will most likely never use it again but i had an old raspberry pi model b lying aroud. worked like a charm. Thanks!

[@SureCanDoComputersServices1]

Fantastic video. 3 Years ago I attempted this and failed many times. I'm going go for it again, thank you again, very helpful!

[@mortenkristensen1669]

NICE Guide.... succeeded on HP 2570p EliteBook BIOS-Chip (Winbond 25Q128BVFG) with your video as a guide.... without desoldering the chip.... 1000 tx

[@petersutton1609]

Your the man! After watching this I got my old bricked laptop out of the loft and it's now working!!! I had to use coreboot ifdtool to get the bios bin from the FD file and solder direct to the chip then reduce the speed to 64, boom 20 mins later it booted !! Freaking superstar! It's alive!! Toshiba satellite c870-1f3

[@Pedro-gf8rx]

Great job, I my self have an Asus GL504 bricked computer that fail updating the bios and this video help me a lot to see what I need to do. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.

[@jessicamoreno7135]

You are a god amongst men, i know nothing about linux or any of this stuff to be honest but you have just helped me unbrick my laptop, i love you dearly ❤️

[@myyoutubewatchmail]

this could be the best video that ive watched in a while

[@folgee7368]

i cant believe this actually worked!! thank you my good man

[@golf-n-guns]

That was MacGyver level sh!t. Good job!

[@user-eq2fp6jw4g]

Very professional guide. You rock!

[@EnnTomi1]

super useful. never know pi can do this !!

[@MaciekSomski]

Thanks to you I have revived my mobo. It's a great tutorial

[@tubeDude48]

I've NEVER used a grounding strap, and I'm a 70 year old network Engineer! LOL

[@lupinedreamexpress]

:^)

[@pela2600]

Your perseverance is comandable

[@jakebradminster709]

This helped me unbrick a laptop.

[@MichaelPeters-01]

Subscribed !! Amazing video, very thorough and professional !!

[@vellagaetano6843]

thx. i got so 8th and 9gen cpus working on my old z170 mainboard with flashing the bios with the raspi :D

[@alfblack2]

I've always wonder if that was possible. Thanks for sharing your experience!

[@ForsakenSon87]

Excellent video, Just subbed, would like to see more like this.

[@UpgrayeDDDDDD]

Why didn't you put a 1k resistor between Hold and VCC / WP and VCC (like in the original diagram @4:09)

[@rdagger]

In the first attempt, the motherboard already had the resistors in place. In the 2nd attempt I just pulled the pins high. Clearly programming worked without the resistors. For quick programming it probably doesn't matter but I still think it's prudent to use resistors. Good catch!

[@scolic03]

This video was EXTREMELY USEFUL! Especially the experience of the loaded clock line, I never would've fount that out. I have a question though: How do you repair bricked Android phones? Do they have SPI/I2C interfaces or something else? Thank you for this video, this was enlightening.

[@rdagger]

My only experience with flashing phones is a rooted iPhone, but I just used software tools that are freely available online. The same tools can usually be used to recover bricked phones. I use the term bricked loosely. If your phone is freezing at the boot screen then it should be fairly easy to fix. Most phones have some type of bootloader or recovery mode that will allow you to restore a factory image. If you push the power button and nothing happens then it’s less hopeful. There are USB Jigs available that supposedly can recover truly bricked phones. In theory you could desolder the flash chip from a phone but they are often tiny BGA packages which would be challenging. You would definitely want to check that FlashRom has write support for the chip before you desolder anything. Also, newer phones implement encryption that could thwart such hardware mods.

[@blameburr8722]

@@rdagger Long time no see, I saw you years ago when asking for help with an LCD and yes it is BGA I was watching someone make an iPhone and upgrade the ram and they had to remove the chips reprogram them and then resolder the BGA chips. Not worth it tbh. Was curious if it'd work with a truly bricked psp 3000 which cant be fixed with a Pandora's battery

[@blameburr8722]

@@rdagger Also the PSP battery is interesting. PSP 2000 Batteries have a wire trace labeled 19, severing the connection changes the eeprom value and makes it a Pandora's battery which I may look into. I've done it before but I am curious as to how it works

[@rdagger]

I don't know but I suspect Sony used encryption to dissuade piracy. I vaguely recall Sony deploying countermeasures in the 00's in response to hackers. However, since they're so popular I'm sure someone has a clever solution.

[@CodeAsm]

@@blameburr8722 Lifting the pin on a psp battery eeprom indeed made it so the psp saw only zero's (or ones, not sure wich) but that way the bootloader "thinks" its in the factory and loads a IPL file from the Memorystick, it does need to be a MagicGate memorycard (the bootloader probably only wants to load the IPL from such cards). the custom IPL isnt checked if its from Sony, so the homebrew scene wrote one themselves. There are even tricks to use a pandora to boot a IPL that will check if the system is hacked, if not, loads the hacking tool, else it boots the normal way (asuming your shell is hacked). but many people just bought or hacked a battery with a switch or use anotehr battery. Ive installed a switch on my eeprom, so I switch it into working state or off (pandora state)

[@stompreaper]

Nice quick video, I liked it. Thanks!

[@chlupatazarovka8201]

Superb! You teached me a lot of things.

[@OntarioMiner]

I have an asus Prime B550M-K board with no post, video. Only the fans spin up. Flash chip is a Winbond 25Q256JWEQ and runs at 1.7V to 1.95V. No spy header. I have a CH341A programmer with Test clip to directly clip onto the chip. I worry about the voltage at 3.3V from the RPI. Could you recommend some information or do a quick video on dealing with 1.7 to 1.94V bios chips with the rpi? Your Videos are wonderful and worth every second. keep up the great work. Much appreciated.

[@MrDekonu]

Very fun and amazing tutorial, good job man i will keep this video save for the future, you may neven know when you will face a bricked BIOS.

[@thewingcommander]

Very informative and detailed, enjoyed that :)

[@Ubiquities]

Great video, thanks for posting

[@joshuasox]

i have frequently extracted files i needed from useless .exe wrapped files from the temp folder, kudos!

[@afevans2]

just fixed my Asrock Z77 Extreme6 motherboard with my raspberry pi 4, a breadboard and some jumperwires!!

[@CodeAsm]

Yes, there is a way you could try to read flashroms in circuit. If there are resistors on the bus, put your reading device on the side of the eeprom, and so the motherboard controller or main ic that interfaces with the eeprom is on the other side of the resistors. this way, your in controll of the eeprom, not any original master ic thats on the other side (and gets powered by your reader, and so blocking reads.) lifting the WP or CS pin from the board and connecting to it yourself might also do the trick. But if desoldering was easier, or faster, go for it. I got a lenovo E530, and I cant read or write to it onboard, no mater how i put my reader on the bus or lift pins. basically I have to lift em all. Also, some motherboards, like min, have the actualy firmware spread accross 2 eeproms, the update file is also split in two, but not for the both eeproms, its basicly getting copied into ram, the two files and the embedded controller will make it 1 image and programms them into 1 go, the actual code responsible for writing splits it again but at a whole diferent place. Thus, combine using cat and split using coreboots ifdtool. you can even clear the ME rom part (it wont leave it empty, but the ME engine cant boot. but it wont reset your system either, as it does check its firmware, wich this tool makes correct but empty). Coreboot is a intresting thing, even if we dont use it :D

[@PeteTum]

Very good tutorial. Thank you for sharing this info. Please do make more tutorials :)

[@josepedrocarmo5885]

Nice video! A word of caution, though: RPI I/Os are 3.3V and some EEPROMs (like Winbond W25Q128FW found in MSI B450 Gaming Plus) are 1.8V! In this case, you may blow the EEPROM, the RPI I/Os or both!

[@rdagger]

Great point! In this case you could theoretically use a BSS138 based logic level shifter and lower the SPI speed to around 1 MHz. Both Adafruit and SparkFun sell inexpensive shifters. I’ll make a note on my site.

[@mortenkristensen1669]

I have just succeded With 3,3V on a Hp EliteBook 2570p with a W25Q128BVFG chip...

[@josepedrocarmo5885]

@@mortenkristensen1669 Cool, it makes sense: that is a 3V part.

[@GrahamAtDesk]

That was ace. Really nicely done.

[@manuelrivera6778]

Would you be able to use the Raspberry Pi Pico as a ch341a programmer to flash a bios to a laptop? Would you be able to make a video about this if it’s even at all possible??

[@stanburton6224]

Since you unsoldered the chip anyway, you could have used a TL-866 programmer and stuck to a windows GUI instead of resorting to a command prompt on a raspberry pi.

[@rdagger]

You don’t have to remove a chip to use a TL-866 because it has an in-circuit serial programming port. I chose FlashRom on the Pi because I wanted to show people how to program chips without having to buy a dedicated programmer. I have another video where I demonstrate the TL-866.

[@rednammoc]

Some of us find the command prompt on RPi far more useful and convenient than trying to find a working Windows installation, so this video has plenty of merit.

[@adelarzadon1576]

Absolutely Amaziiiiiiiiiiiing

[@mtechzervis5071]

how about flashing the kbc ec sio kb9052 series, how do you flash it with a raspberry pi, please help

[@gustavrider5561]

This is really practical. Is it possible to access to the motherboard system module management with this method?

[@Veso266]

How do theese manufacterer flashers that are run from windows or dos work Is there an open source alternative so I can see?

[@Pendleton115]

I’ve been doing this on a 2009 MacBook, but there’s a bunch of garble on screen when I erase and write to the Eprom, is this normal?

[@rdagger]

I don't recall ever seeing garble. I'd try lowering the speed and check your wiring. Try to use good quality jumpers and keep the wire length as short as possible.

[@Pendleton115]

rdagger68 It turned out I was selecting the wrong chip definition, and that was why it wasn’t working correctly, although there was still garble when writing and erasing the chip, I’d imagine it’s showing the data it’s currently transferring.

[@layton3503]

Great Video - will bookmark for future use!

[@joserosario9794]

Great video, any ideas where I can find a bios bin file for a GA-7PESH2 server board?

[@Arnyek19]

hi, can you help me with an ASRock B550 EXTREME4 bios flash,is it possible with an arduino or raspberry pi ?

[@mtarquinio]

Awesome, thanks for sharing it!

[@igrewold]

innoextract is a nice tool solder sucker or wick is also nice SOIC8 Clip makes program bios chip onboard no need for removal (used with CH341A programmer or other)

[@piratescove4301]

Kudos, I flashed the bios. However still wont post. dell Inspiron 3650 i5-6400 turns on white light then amber, after 5 seconds of amber it blinks twice then repeats. Led diagnostics code suggests can't detect memory, tried few ddr3's but no avail.

[@danielwait8555]

Hey man, I have an STM32F334R8 MCU which I'd lie to use to flash my motherboard's BIOS. I have a USB-UART communication already set up. But i'd like to know how I can use that to send the file from my PC via the STM32 and onto the BIOS. So far as I understand, the raspberry pi supports these things so much better. I'm not familiar with BIOS and I've got time to kill with this corona lock-down.

[@quantumfluctuations1]

Great tut mate thx.

[@almostasaxplayer]

At 10:28 you connected the GND pin of the Pi to the GND rail of the breadboard, but it's the one that you didn't use! You didn't connect the left side GND rail with the right side GND rail with a jumper wire like you did with the 3.3V rail. You're lucky that you got a response with the GND pin of the EEPROM chip floating. ;)

[@rdagger]

Great catch!

[@misonimisoni7818]

Need firmware for hard disk ST350413AS JC66 firmware as bios ic is corrupted

[@ResistCircuitResist]

Great video man. Forgot about finding decompressed .exe files that way.

[@KylesDigitalLab]

Will this let me flash libreboot (custom BIOS) on a ThinkPad T400 laptop?

[@rdagger]

I haven’t tried, but I would guess yes.

[@rampifreestyler4935]

I did it and in 13:58 byt i have " Error. Image size (5711668 B) doesnt match the flash chips size (8388608 B)! . I dont understand that clear. Have you got an idea?

[@rampifreestyler4935]

i solved the problem. Btw my mobo was dead anyway

[@eggnogg8086]

I've tried it and it read the chip once, but after that it wouldn't read it anymore I've already soldered the chip off the motherboard, and it only appears to get warm. I've tried this before with 3 other chips with similar results, is my pi broken or is there something I'm doing wrong?

[@rdagger]

Heat is a bad sign. What is the brand and model of the chip?

[@eggnogg8086]

@@rdagger it's an MX25L3206E

[@rdagger]

That chip should be fully supported by Flashrom. When you read the chip did Flashrom correctly identify it? You should receive a message: Found Macronix flash chip "MX25L3206E/MX25L3208E" Are you sure your wiring matches the video and you are using the BCM numbering?

[@eggnogg8086]

The wiring is correct, though there were times where it wasn't and other pins were shorted to ground. imgur com/a/Cvhqvtu This is how it looks thanks for the help btw, really like your videos Also I'm not getting notified of replies to comments which is why I take too long to reply

[@rdagger]

It looks like you have the CS and ground wires crossed. Also the adapter board looks cooked. The pin headers are melted and the PCB is discolored and delaminating. This is probably the result of too much heat during soldering.

[@user4gent416]

Gigsbyte motherboard bios have much size then what flash chip can take. Flashrom fails to flash it due to file size. What should I do please some help? Already tried to unpad with dd but still no post. Note: Downloaded bios software from Gigabyte's website for B550M DS3H model. Contains a lot of 0xFF's and even not sure if they made for writing directly to the motberboard

[@rdagger]

Newer boards use UEFI. I have another video on UEFI for an Asus board: kzbin.info/www/bejne/raaVgYquf5p8i5I However, your best bet is to post your question to either the Win-Raid forum or the BIOS-mods forum because different brands require different approaches: winraid.level1techs.com/c/bios-uefi-modding/7/all www.bios-mods.com/forum/

[@jepetam]

Incrível! Você me fez economizar bastante.

[@YoshiFan190]

Well done. Really great video

[@davidts3511]

hi my motherboard in flash bios has 9 pins instead of 10 how can i know the equivalence of the pins

[@rdagger]

You can use a multimeter set to continuity mode to tone out the pins from the chip.

[@piratescove4301]

seems like this is the only way Im going to be able to try and read/flash a dell inspiron 3650 bios. Couldn't get the bios out of the dell.exe but was able to write rom file. time to get out my pi3 b+ and download ubuntu..

[@arijeetsarkar1512]

So much learnt 😲

[@tedmosby9409]

No EEPROM found , make smaller lead around 30 cm as far as i can recall

[@luigiprovencher]

Now do this with a raspberry pi and GPIO jumpers to a soic test clip.

[@androidman2183]

Very helpful , thank you

[@jackyli6716]

well done! that's really cool!

[@TheSik91]

Wooot! This was exciting

[@zanthiel2009]

Wow, you sir are good!

[@oscarsalgado189]

Hello, i have and Alienware x51 from early 2012 or 2013 cant remember, and mi bios chip is bricked due to a bad flash, i have opened the MOBO but the bios chip does not have any label on it so i dont know the bios branch so i dont know where to find the schematics, can you help me???

[@rdagger]

I Googled it. Looks like a MX25L12873F. www.dell.com/community/Alienware-General-Read-Only/Area-51-R2-Bios-chip/m-p/5599083/highlight/true#M100674

[@danielwilson2086]

@@rdagger That's an Area 51 not a x51. Might be similar.

[@rdagger]

@Oscar Salgado It is probably an 8 or 16 pin SOIC. Look for chips labelled Winbond, MXIC or MX. It might be socketed so also look for socketed chips. Start searching near the BIOS battery, but it could be anywhere even on the other side of the motherboard.

[@danielwilson2086]

I was able to repair a bricked Alienware x51 with this tutorial :) I had to look up the manufacturers' pin layout for the chip, then use a multimeter to test which the spi spin layout. (which was a strange one btw!) Among other things, the Vcc and Gnd were reversed. nc Gnd CS S0 nc D nc SCLK S1 Vcc D= dummy pin

[@tedmosby9409]

all iv ever ran into with flashrom was No EEPROM found i made a shorter lead to fit specs and boom Reading flash ........... , i was watching dave eevlog on power loss in cables which gave me the idea that my lead maybe too long

[@javeshbhardwaj]

i am trying to flash w25q128fv but the firmware file is larger than chip size what am i doing wrong. pls help.

[@rdagger]

Sounds like you have the incorrect firmware file.

[@javeshbhardwaj]

@@rdagger nope i have double checked its H170 Pro gaming and i downloaded it from the below link. www.asus.com/in/Motherboards/H170-PRO-GAMING/HelpDesk_BIOS/

[@rdagger]

That capsule file contains several regions in addition to the BIOS such as GbE and ME. I think you need to use a tool like UEFITool to extract the BIOS region. github.com/LongSoft/UEFITool

[@Jarni1979]

what about 1.8V chips?

[@rdagger]

See the note on my website regarding 1.8 V chips.

[@Klukwiesau]

you are my hero!

[@euphoricmonkey8409]

Nice video thanks

[@Deathless2288]

That was great!

[@skytop5334]

If I ever do that and succeed, the next day I would apply to NASA.

[@dvgog]

If i could i would like your video thrice!

[@thormanfield1305]

I have a DA0NZ2MB6A0 motherboard, but can't locate bios chip. 🤦‍♂️

[@rdagger]

I’m not sure about that particular HP motherboard but it is probably an 8 or 16 pin SOIC. Look for chips labelled Winbond, MXIC or MX. Start searching near the BIOS battery.

[@thormanfield1305]

@@rdagger Yup, it was a Windbond bios chip. I was hoping to find it on the side of the motherboard near the CMOS battery, but no luck! Then, I took a look on the other side of the motherboard and there it was.

[@mikepeck9260]

No matter what I do it can’t see the chip. From a video card chip.

[@rdagger]

Who makes the chip? What is the model #?

[@mikepeck9260]

Wait... I am not home I will check but I did not hook 3.3v to the WP and HOLD as well. Ive only tried hooking it up to WP

[@mikepeck9260]

I also tried an MX25L2005ZNI-12G I also didn’t wire in the WP and HOLD, this one I think it read it twice intermittently. The other one I’m getting nothing off of is also from an NVIDIA mxm card

[@rdagger]

The MX25L2005 is supported by FlashRom, but make sure the other chip is supported too: flashrom.org/Supported_hardware

[@mikepeck9260]

Other one pm25lv010 even with all wires connected I get no eeprom

[@Olie956]

rdagger68... I fucking love you....

[@VICTORYOVERNEPTUNE]

cool

[@tedmosby9409]

i have a better method to unpack the windows.exe but i cant share on here since i will be breaking the guide lines

[@OG-Cousin_Dennie]

very much appreciated! Clear, concise, informative troubleshooting walk through but most importantly (in my case anyways) is the confidence I've got now in a similar task I'll be undertaking. Thank You. I shall return with my hails to victory before weeks end. OR If I brick the board I promise my rich dads team of lawyers will descend upon you like biblical fire and brimstone and liquidate your unborn grand-kids future assets! If I was a spoiled cunt whom had a rich dad with a team of lawyers ;,,( CHEERS!

[@mfThump]

[@malcolmcherrie1617]

Excellent work! Great video!

[@tedmosby9409]

No EEPROM found , make smaller lead around 30 cm as far as i can recall

[@advaithmadhukar2609]

I tried using this method to get the bin file for the dell inspiron 3420. This does not work. could you help me debug this?

[@rdagger]

I examined the bios executable file and there are several optional switches: factory, forceit, forcetype, nopause, noreboot, wipeall, wipeclean, writehdrfile, rom=, debug, writeromfile You can run the .exe file with the /writeromfile to extract the rom or /writehdrfile to extract the header.

[@advaithmadhukar2609]

@@rdagger when i try to use -writeromfile i get error unknown command

[@rdagger]

@@advaithmadhukar2609 Make sure you use a -dash- slash and not an em dash.

[@advaithmadhukar2609]

@@rdagger i used a - no change

[@rdagger]

@@advaithmadhukar2609 I just tested it and it works. You need to use a slash. For example: 3420A13.exe /writeromfile

[@tedmosby9409]

i have a better method to unpack the windows.exe but i cant share on here since i will be breaking the guide lines