On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 11:36, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006@gmx.net wrote:
On 08.07.2010 09:44, Mattias Mattsson wrote:
On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 08:55, Michael Karcher flashrom@mkarcher.dialup.fu-berlin.de wrote:
The important part of flashrom output is
BIOS Lock Enable: enabled, BIOS Write Enable: disabled, BIOS_CNTL is 0x2 tried to set 0xdc to 0x3 on ICH6/ICH6R failed (WARNING ONLY) FAILED!
This means that the BIOS configured the chipset in a way that makes probing/erasing/writing of the flash chip impossible for code running normally on the system. The only way to reconfigure that would be from the system management mode of the processor, a special mode that executes BIOS code in a environment that is protected from the OS. The only way of updating your BIOS in the current configuration would be cooperating with the system management code through some vendor-specific interface and have the system management code access the flash.
This kind of BIOS update is not what the flashrom project currently supports, so on your system it seems you need the vendor tools, which seems quite common on HP/Compaq systems. It might also be that there is a "enable BIOS updates" option in your BIOS setup which is disabled. In this case, please retry with that option enabled.
OK. Thanks for the info!
I did not find a "enable BIOS updates" option in the setup. :-(
Maybe "BIOS write enable", "BIOS virus protection", "Flash update" or something like that?
Nope :-(
Found a HP document with the following text:
"The HP BIOS uses hardware mechanisms on most HP Business Desktops to prevent access to the BIOS flash memory by any software other than the BIOS. This hardware traps any attempts to update the flash memory that do not originate from the BIOS itself. BIOS images that work with HP Windows-based BIOS update tools (flash tools), such as HPQFlash and SSM, contain a digital signature that allows the flash tools to authenticate the BIOS image. This ensures that the image originated from HP and has not been corrupted or tampered with in any way."
Which seems to confirm what Michael stated earlier.
-mattias