[flashrom] Support for HP Compaq 6820s laptop

Andrew Goodbody ajg02 at elfringham.co.uk
Sat Jul 10 10:41:58 CEST 2010


On 10/07/2010 01:18, apricot053 at gmail.com wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Just messed up a little bit with the code. Seems that the whole region f0000-
> fffff is write-protected. No idea what is actually stored in it and why it is
> write-protected apart it being rewritten by the HP flash utility when upgrading
> (but not when downgrading). So didn't find out anything, sad :|
>
> Best regards,
> Julius

The top 64KB (or 16KB on older boards) is often used to contain the 
'bootblock' by an OEM BIOS. This contains just enough code to verify the 
rest of the BIOS image and if a problem is detected to launch a means to 
flash in a new image. It is very often protected with a GPIO or jumper 
to control a write protect line to the flash device. When updating an 
OEM BIOS containing a bootblock it would not normally update the 
bootblock ever as that would risk making the recovery mechanism unusable 
so I am surprised when you say that the HP flash utlility updates it on 
an upgrade.

Andrew




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