HP dv7t-6100 (sp55068) RSA sig, flashing without Win7

[skidadpa]

Is it possible to get valid RSA sigs for one of these?

• https://www.bios-mods.com/BIOS/index.php...telists%2F&download=sp55068_NWL_ByCamiloml.exe
  
• https://www.bios-mods.com/BIOS/index.php...telists%2F&download=sp55068_NWL_vHARD_ByCamiloml.exe
  

I tried using PhoenixTool to extract 01658.sig for the included 01658.bin. For the first, the generated SIG did not work when I tried to apply it using the 3-in-1 USB booting to UEFI. The tool failed to recognize the BIN file and would not generate a SIG file for the second.

If the answer is YES, then that is probably the fastest route to success. Given what I went through to get to where I am now, I doubt it will be that easy...

Here is the full story:

1. I had bought the HP dv7t-6100 new from HP, but when the disk drive crapped out in less than a year, I bought a MacBook and mounted the drive externally to recover what I could. Meanwhile, I replaced the drive with an SSD, loaded Linux on it, and never looked back. I had tried to generate the backup/recovery disks when I first got the machine, but HP's tools had completely failed to do anything other than waste some writable DVDs. So I have no way to boot the original (Windows 7) OS that came with it. I do have a version of Windows (currently upgraded to Windows 10) running in Parallels as well as a few installation DVDs for Windows 7 Ultimate.
   
2. The first challenge was to install the official BIOS update from HP (sp55068.exe). I was able to extract the files using other OSs, but was unable to run this or the EXE files in it on the HP, even after creating bootable Windows USBs and/or booting to the install disks and entering recovery mode. The closest I got was booting into recovery mode from the Windows 7 32-bit/X86 disk, although it still ran into some DLL failure that I was unable to resolve. (Under Windows 10 or Windows 7 64-bit, it complained that the environment wasn't supported.) However, I was able to create an HP 3-in-1 recovery USB (sp82614.exe) and extract 01658.SIG (PhoenixTool from this website) using virtualized Windows 10. Then using the F2 UEFI diagnostics boot, I was finally able to flash it (having renamed 01658.dec.bin to 01658.bin and rsa.sig to 01658.sig).
   
3. Of course, what I really want to do is to flash a non-whitelist version so that I can install the Intel 6235 that's been sitting on my desk for a few years now. When I tried using the new BIN/SIG that I was able to generate for sp55068_NWL_ByCamiloml, the flasher complained that it did not recognize it. The 3-in-1 Diagnostics USB actually boots FreeDOS, although the only way that I'm able to get the flash updater is to use F2 at startup to boot the diagnostics. I tried stuff like renaming the HP_TOOLS partition, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.
   

Does anyone have better experience with doing this on an HP laptop?

-Jerry