[REQUEST] HP Folio 13-1000 Series Whitelist Removal

[Maxinator500]

So it worth trying using the programmer directly and flash the bin file instead like I did with the mod for sp55433 and the original bios while recovering.

As you wish...

sp59761

[fc7]

I flashed with the programmer sp59761 and now it partially works.
The laptop starts, I can access all the menues, the whitelist for wifi+bt is gone.
Problem is, the OS is not booting anymore, neither from USB drive nor the internal SSD drive (same to what I observed previously with modded sp55433).
Both drives are detected fine by the BIOS and so on, but it's not booting from them.

I'm not sure if it's because some BIOS option that is now accesible and I need to change from default (as the CMOS values were reseted) or something else.

But we are almost there, just solving this and I think we are good to go.

[Maxinator500]

Problem is, the OS is not booting anymore, neither from USB drive nor the internal SSD drive (same to what I observed previously with modded sp55433).

I don't know which OS you are currently using, but support for Win 8 and above was only added with the F.09 release.

EDIT: Wait, you already have the latest available version. I do not understand how you made it work, and even more so why the system does not boot.

[fc7]

I'm using Linux, Elementary OS Hera (Ubuntu 18.04).

Regarding the boot issue I was able to isolate the problem.
If any USB drive is plugged in, to any USB port (I tried both ports), the laptop will not boot the OS (tried different known to work USB drives to no avail).
As soon as you remove the USB drive, and reboot, it will boot without any issues from the internal SSD.
Once the OS is booted you can plug-in and access USB drives as usual, without any problems.

I can confirm that the whitelist for WiFi+BT is removed as I was able to install a new WiFi card with BT and used it without any issues.
BIOS menues are also unlocked with many many options.

Only thing that remains to be investigated is why the laptop is not able to boot when a USB drive is plugged in (even if you select to boot from the internal SSD from the boot menu).

I will try to investigate further later on and if I find any solution or any new information that can be useful I will report back.

[fc7]

I did several tests to try to clarify things and the different scenarios.
In every case the starting point is the stock BIOS F09 (sp59761).
As you will see in the table below on first boot after flashing I get a different messages depending on the BIOS flashed.
Stock BIOS shows:

"Flashing Boot Block"

And a progress percentage text for a few seconds. When it reaches 100% it will reboot automatically and everything work as expected afterwards.

On the other hand, the modded BIOS will show:

Your BIOS failed to complete the update. Please ensure
that you follow the correct procedures and try again.
This may require two sequential BIOS updates to complete the process.

For a few seconds and then it turns off the screen and I need to manually reboot (power cycle).

In both cases everything seems to be fine after rebooting, except that with the modded BIOS if there is any USB drive plugged, the boot process gets stuck and it will not continue booting (not even manually selecting the internal SSD from the boot menu -F9-).

Code:

+----------+---------------------+----------------------+---------------------------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Scenario |  Start BIOS Version |   End BIOS version   |           Flash Method          |  Flash Result  |                    First boot message (after flash)                   |                                Working Status                               |
+==========+=====================+======================+=================================+================+=======================================================================+=============================================================================+
|     1    | F09/sp59761 (stock) |  F09/sp59761 (stock) | InsydeFlash v4.19 (Windows 8.1) |       OK       |                          Flashing Boot Block                          |                                      OK                                     |
+----------+---------------------+----------------------+---------------------------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     2    | F09/sp59761 (stock) |  F09/sp59761 (stock) |          SPI Programmer         |       OK       |                          Flashing Boot Block                          |                                      OK                                     |
+----------+---------------------+----------------------+---------------------------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     3    | F09/sp59761 (stock) | F02/sp55433 (modded) | InsydeFlash v4.19 (Windows 8.1) | BIOS corrupted |                                  N/A                                  |                                     N/A                                     |
+----------+---------------------+----------------------+---------------------------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     4    | F09/sp59761 (stock) | F09/sp59761 (modded) | InsydeFlash v4.19 (Windows 8.1) | BIOS corrupted |                                  N/A                                  |                                     N/A                                     |
+----------+---------------------+----------------------+---------------------------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     5    | F09/sp59761 (stock) | F02/sp55433 (modded) |          SPI Programmer         |       OK       | Your BIOS failed to complete the update. Please ensure                | Wifi + BT white-list removed. BIOS menues unlocked                          |
|          |                     |                      |                                 |                | that you follow the correct procedures and try again.                 | OS boot WITH ANY USB DRIVE plugged in: no boot even from internal SSD.      |
|          |                     |                      |                                 |                | This may require two sequential BIOS updates to complete the process. | OS boot WITHOUT any USB drive plugged in: boot from SSD without any issues. |
+----------+---------------------+----------------------+---------------------------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|     6    | F09/sp59761 (stock) | F09/sp59761 (modded) |          SPI Programmer         |       OK       | Your BIOS failed to complete the update. Please ensure                | Wifi + BT white-list removed. BIOS menues unlocked                          |
|          |                     |                      |                                 |                | that you follow the correct procedures and try again.                 | OS boot WITH ANY USB DRIVE plugged in: no boot even from internal SSD.      |
|          |                     |                      |                                 |                | This may require two sequential BIOS updates to complete the process. | OS boot WITHOUT any USB drive plugged in: boot from SSD without any issues. |
+----------+---------------------+----------------------+---------------------------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

I hope this clarify things and gives you a more clear picture.

Also I dumped the BIOS with the SPI programmer after it gets corrupted in scenario 2 and 3 in case you want to have a look at the result of flashing the modded BIOS with InsydeFlash tool.
You can find the files here:

017F8_Modded_F02-Corrupted_Flashed_With_InsydeFlash_v4.19.bin: https://1drv.ms/u/s!As07b4eTbk-drXQ7hpzm...v?e=Gq3Y38
017F8_Modded_F0A-Corrupted_Flashed_With_InsydeFlash_v4.19.bin: https://1drv.ms/u/s!As07b4eTbk-drXUBM-qL...t?e=imfi8W

I would like to ask you a favor if I may.
Can you please share a modded BIOS of F0A/sp59761 but with the minimum patching needed to just remove the WiFi+BT white-list?
I'm not an expert but I would like to rule out that one of the patches to unlock the menues may be creating some trouble. Makes sense?

Once again, thanks a lot for all your help!

[Maxinator500]

I did several tests to try to clarify things and the different scenarios.

It is very strange that flashing through InsydeFlash leads to corrupt. It seems that to install the mod for this platform, it is only possible to use the programmer or iFPT.

Also I dumped the BIOS with the SPI programmer after it gets corrupted in scenario 2 and 3 in case you want to have a look at the result of flashing the modded BIOS with InsydeFlash tool.

Looking at the dumps, I can only confirm that creating a backup using InsydeFlash makes the ME region clean in the output file of the BIOS image. I cannot say anything about why the results of flashing by different methods do not match.

Can you please share a modded BIOS of F0A/sp59761 but with the minimum patching needed to just remove the WiFi+BT white-list?
I'm not an expert but I would like to rule out that one of the patches to unlock the menues may be creating some trouble. Makes sense?

It doesn't makes sense, F0A.zip

[fc7]

Thanks for the new mod.

I just flashed it with the programmer, and the results are exactly the same as in scenario 6 above, except that the menues are locked again as expected.
I get the same "BIOS failed to complete the update" message on first boot after flashing and everything works except for booting with a USB drive plugged in.

One thing I would like to understand is why with the stock BIOS it always flash the boot block the first time it boots after flashing the BIOS while with the modded ones it gives the message that the BIOS failed to complete the update. Maybe this could be related with the "no boot with usb drive plugged in" behavior? No clue.

EDIT: just for the record I'm using AsProgrammer v1.4.1 to flash the BIOS using a CH341A programmer.

[fc7]

Hi again,

I'm still researching and playing around with different tools including (UEFITool 0.28.0) but I don't want to bother you everytime I want to try something out so I would like to be able to do it myself. Eventually if I find anything relevant I can share it back.

I found the EFI module that needs to be patched to remove the whitelist (I want to start with a "small change" so it's more simple to keep track of what I'm modifying): 91472655-50E0-4D81-9AF6-239E6F431B8C - StartUpMenu

My question is: is enough to patch that specific module and save to a new image file so I can test it with the programmer or because of the signing I need to patch other parts/modules of the BIOS as well?
I keep searching for tutorials/guides specific to this type of BIOS (Insyde) but I can't find a lot of information so I'm building my knowledge from pieces I find here and there.....

Thanks!

[Maxinator500]

is enough to patch that specific module and save to a new image file so I can test it with the programmer or because of the signing I need to patch other parts/modules of the BIOS as well?

Hi!
I also made a patch in both copies of the module with GUID 86D70125... to bypass the corruption. It was assumed that the mod could be flashed with InsydeFlash, but it did not help much. You can try leaving the rest unchanged.

[fc7]

This is what I did (always using the programmer):

1- Flashed the BIOS with the stock F0A bin file.
2- Left it to boot, do the "Flashing Boot Block" thing on first boot, and check that everything was working as usual.
3- I took a dump of the BIOS to work on it.
4- Using UEFITool 0.28, I replaced module 91472655-50E0-4D81-9AF6-239E6F431B8C with the patched one I extracted from your previous mod.
5- Saved a new image file and used it to flash the BIOS again.

Result: BIOS corrupted similar (not sure if the same althrough the capslock behavior is the same) as when trying to flash with InsydeFlash.

So I'm thinking:

1- The patch to both copies of module 86D70125-BAA3-4296-A62F-602BEBBB9081 that you mention above is needed (will further look into this)
2- The UEFITool app is modifying the resulting BIOS image in a way that is breaking it (not sure this makes any sense)
3- Something else that needs patching and I still don't know what is it (as you mentioned in a previous post, some other BIOS protection)

EDIT: another very strange thing. If I flash again the unmodified dump I took in step 3 above, the laptop screen is coming up with a blinking cursor in the top left corner, but that's it, it's not booting and I can't access any BIOS menu or anything. There is something really odd to this BIOS.