(UEFI) Dell XPS 15z L511z modded BIOS - and HOWTO

[jkbuha]

Hi both - kasar's settings are correct. Even if the setting was Z80, IDA correctly interprets the code as PE AMD64 (in top window dialog).

FWIW, the correct setting should be Intel 8086 (metapc) or some such; will check exactly when I'm back on terra firma

[kasar]

thx jkbuha

I will wait your return

anyway many people told me about is useless what I'm trying to do with my current proccesor ...

however, I still interested, even it will not work with my CPU, its good to have it unlocked in case I upgreade the CPU again

also I'm pretty sure the people at NBR using my L502X bioses will like it.

[determo13]

Sorry for a delay, had a long backup/restore cycle
I have tested the latest firmware :

- RAID mode works, I was able to create stripe array with 2 disks
- Legacy boot wortks, was able to boot Linux from this disk
- UEFI boot works , was able to boot UEFI Shell from this disk and it's fs was mapped
- TRIM is NOT WORKING , tested by removing file, forcing Linux to trim filesystem and then reading physical sectors of underlying SSD , and there was data,not zeroes as it shold be with trim working

* UPDATE *
as it turned out TRIM should be tested with the latest WINDOWS driver , I will make some addition tests to clarify weather TRIM working or not

To be able to boot from Raid disk it is required to add boot record using bcfg
for the RAID mode device handle is
UnknownDevice ExtendedSCSIPassThru EfiAtaPassThruProtocolGuid UnknownDevice UnknownDevice PCIIO DevicePath(PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1F,0x2))

and there is one small issue - I have 3 ssd drives , one of whitch is replaced stock DVD-Drive , and I can't find a handle of it in RAID mode, may be it was just renamed to something else


so - most features are working with a little bcfg magic , TRIM, unfortunately, not

I will be glad to answer any questiong you have, or make some additional tests if neeeded

BTW: @brabbelbla do you have any other thoughts about TRIM to be enabled ? Can I have a FW with a fancy RAID menus ?

One more thing @brabbelbla - can you please replace SystemIsaFloppyDxe.efi with this one https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1694672/FfsDxe.efi ?

Hi there, I have xps l502x with kasars modified 12A bios with unlocked RAID option seems very similar to your one

I've been reading all your post re RAID and already reached the UEFI shell and tried to add some boot options without success, 
I'm not really experienced with all bios unlocking tools, so can't really do it myself and looking for help.
What I'm really not getting is how did you build a RAID array?
I'm guessing I can't boot into the OS because I'm simple haven't build the array it self but how do I do it? 
I tried to follow that guide

1. Before you start, go to firmware setup and adjust the boot order so the USB and CD/DVD entries are on top. Should anything go wrong you will at least be able to boot an external device. Also enable UEFI boot for the shell.
   
   
2. Fetch yourself a USB flash drive, format it to FAT32, and place the attached file on it as EFI\boot\bootx64.efi.
   
   
3. Boot your machine from the USB drive.
   
   
4. Type "dh -b -p blockio". This should present you with a list of driver handles connected to the protocol BlockIO. You are looking for entries ending with an SCSI adress. Probably it will show ../Pci(0x1F,0x2)/Scsi(0x0,0x0). Take a note of the hexadecimal handle number.
   
   
5. Type "bcfg boot dump -b" and look for the number of boot entries presented. By default there should be 10 (Boot0000 up to Boot0009).
   
   
6. Type "bcfg boot addh (hexadecimal number of boot entries present + 1) (handle number) "Some description"". With only the default boot entries in place and handle number 199, it would be
   Code:
   

I though I can simply add my HDD to the boot list and simple boot with RAID enabled but it's seems I can't find proper boot string or I just need to build RAID before boot.... Please point me to the right direction.

Basically my goal is to enable intel smart response, but for that RAID must be enabled.....

[follow_me]

Hi @determo13

First of all you should enable raid as your SATA operation mode 
then you sould see a Raid Configuration utility banner right after power on 

You should enter config utility by pressing Ctrl+i , and setup your disks to be used as array 

next you shold setup a boot entry for your array 

I'll ease your life , and point couple hints for you -

- if you are using latest firmware you should have a internal shell as boot option , use it 
- internal shell doesn't support boot config , so I've made it as standalone app 
- you should load EnglishDxe from internal shell to use app , it can be done by shell command 
load EnglishDxe.efi 

here some links that should help you with apps 
https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-U...9#pid70519
https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-U...2#pid70742

[determo13]

Hi @determo13

First of all you should enable raid as your SATA operation mode 
then you sould see a Raid Configuration utility banner right after power on 

You should enter config utility by pressing Ctrl+i , and setup your disks to be used as array 

next you shold setup a boot entry for your array 

I'll ease your life , and point couple hints for you -

- if you are using latest firmware you should have a internal shell as boot option , use it 
- internal shell doesn't support boot config , so I've made it as standalone app 
- you should load EnglishDxe from internal shell to use app , it can be done by shell command 
load EnglishDxe.efi 

here some links that should help you with apps 
https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-U...9#pid70519
https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-U...2#pid70742

Ah I see now....
I'm using L502X_A12_generic_Unlocked_Menus_v6 Kasar bios from here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps...re-22.html

here is the exact file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ene2i9mlv7voeh...d.zip?dl=0

First of all you should enable raid as your SATA operation mode 

then you sould see a Raid Configuration utility banner right after power on 

You should enter config utility by pressing Ctrl+i , and setup your disks to be used as array

And there is no such thing as Raid Configuration utility after I change SATA to RAID......
So I tried to press Ctrl+i at power on anyway and nothing showed up.....
I guess I need different l502x bios..... I volunteer to try, if someone can mod my bios with Raid Configuration utility enabled,
I will use windows 7, so maybe even TRIM can be enabled and I can test it with windows drivers......

[determo13]

@kasar

I really appreciate work you do with bioses, but maybe you can check why changing to SATA to RAID there is no Raid Configuration utility on power on? 
I'm using this one bios of yours
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ene2i9mlv7voeh...d.zip?dl=0



maybe you even can add some superb features like from here.
http://www.win-raid.com/t7f13-AHCI-amp-R...dules.html

I suppose this rom should do the trick for l502x

"Universally TRIM modified" Intel RST(e) RAID ROM v12.9.0.2006 with TRIM in RAID0 support

It would be a big help for those who wants enable raid on dell l502x!

[kasar]

@datermo13

allright

here is the L502X A12 BIOS version 7 (beta) I'm using right now

I changed some stuff to let you test.

* since I was using modded voltages for my GPU, I set back to default voltages for both 525m and gt540m (I noticed you are using generic GPU version)
* updated the RAID ROM to the "Universally TRIM modified" Intel RST(e) RAID ROM v12.9.0.2006 with TRIM in RAID0 support (checksum corrected)" from that site.

https://www.mediafire.com/?99ywwh7mds6b3q4

give this a test and let me know if that works, so I can add that module to my next public version relase.

[determo13]

@datermo13

allright

here is the L502X A12 BIOS version 7 (beta) I'm using right now

I changed some stuff to let you test.

* since I was using modded voltages for my GPU, I set back to default voltages for both 525m and gt540m (I noticed you are using generic GPU version)
* updated the RAID ROM to the "Universally TRIM modified" Intel RST(e) RAID ROM v12.9.0.2006 with TRIM in RAID0 support (checksum corrected)" from that site.

https://www.mediafire.com/?99ywwh7mds6b3q4

give this a test and let me know if that works, so I can add that module to my next public version relase.

Wow thanks for a quick reply!

I flashed it and it seemed to work fine, but "Raid Configuration utility" still not there, or maybe I'm missing something....

As @followme stated

First of all you should enable raid as your SATA operation mode 

then you sould see a Raid Configuration utility banner right after power on 

You should enter config utility by pressing Ctrl+i , and setup your disks to be used as array

As much as I know @barabbelbla and @followme used bios from L702X, don't know, but maybe they did some more changes to the bios.....

Anyway thanks for trying. Maybe @barabbelbla or @followme can comment on that, to help out resolving this issue.

[kasar]

I may add the updated raid rom if it doesnt create issues for future versions, but yes, I didnt tested a lot the raid feature or focused it, I basically just picked the changes from this topic and integrated them into the L502X bios.

relating RAID, as for the moment I just modded the advanced settings menu, so it allow that setting to be selected on the BIOS.

not sure if @barabbelbla or @followme tweaked more stuff.

I think they did some extra stuff from the efi shell to make it work, but not sure, lets wait for their input

[Brabbelbla]

@all
Happy new year indeed! Who knows what it may still bring in taming our BIOS'es

@determo
IIRC, the only actual thing required for RAID to be possible was editing the value of an option (/adding an option with value 0x02) for SATA Operation. To make an array bootable you need to follow the procedure as you already found, with bcfg (either using the shell I attached, or the vanilla shell with @follow_me's app version). Kasar's edit seems correct. What may be the issue is the RAID ROM itself. I found that pretty much any if not any other version than the stock one causes issues. I don't know if Kasar has previously updated it, might be the problem.

@follow_me
A while ago, I thought you were trying to find a way for added modules in the BIOS to load, as they don't, grrr. Have you ever succeeded there, or did you achieve some progress? Another thing was the graphics resolution, where I actually discouraged you a bit, but I am curious anyway.

EDIT: about the module loading, I have seen that, according to the UEFI specification, the boot manager should support driver entries as well, for instance from some ESP, although your bcfg app hanged when I tried that before. Maybe it could be a way to go?
EDIT2: about 'my thing', the UEFI RAID driver, I haven't tried anything anymore, but maybe there is a lead. Maybe. A lot of maybe. I found that, according to DXE dependency section of the driver, the UEFI RAID driver publishes some protocol that in the Inspiron 7720, which has the UEFI driver builtin, is present in the module PlatformPciDxe, and not in ours. But then, I do seriously worry about exchanging that module, as it seems to me PlatformPciDxe isn't just some random unimportant module and the Inspiron version comes from a newer codebase, I guess.