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    Modding Phoenix SecureCore Tiano Bios

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by nextor, Dec 24, 2011.

  1. nextor

    nextor Newbie

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    Hi everyone!

    I saw the great work you did modding the Insyde BIOS and I'm really interested in doing the same with the SecureCore Tiano BIOS my Dell Laptop has. (It's a Vostro 3750).
    I just figured out that it can't boot GPT disks, and also there is no option in the BIOS to enable EFI boot mode. So the first goal could be enabling this. I'd also love to have a working EFI shell.
    I have some knowledge in modding and reverse engineering, but I'm not really an expert in it.
    So is there any one else interested in this project? Can anyone help me?
     
  2. nextor

    nextor Newbie

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    I'll just write down what I have so far:
    I've unpacked the newest official Dell BIOS available for my laptop (here it is: Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States]).
    Seems like the BIOS/UEFI is made of 4 files: BIOS1.WPH, FvRecovery.fd, OemSlp20.efi, Slp20.pfae.
    I assume that the WPH file is the main part of the BIOS, but I found no way to unpack/disassemble it.
    Also, this is not the newest version. My laptop's BIOS version is A06 and the downloaded is A05.
    So I created a backup of the current BIOS with the Universal BIOS Backup ToolKit, resulting DellInc.A06.rom. It seems to be the raw rom file, but I'm not sure that it's the whole one.
     
  3. Khenglish

    Khenglish Notebook Deity

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    I know that my latitude E6520 BIOS is incomplete from universal BIOS backup toolkit, but I believe that I have a different type of BIOS than you. When disassembling the BIOS in Phoenixtool 1.92, I get that around 80% of the file is "buffer space" :(
     
  4. seeratlas

    seeratlas Notebook Deity

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    As far as I can find, as of this date, no one NOT a bios engineer employed by PHoenix, etc. has yet managed to unlock a phoenix secure core tiano bios.
    seer