1 hour ago
Yesterday, I made an attempt to enable the Debug tab in my Toughbook CF-30 MK3's BIOS. I tracked down a copy of AMIBCP (4.53, if I recall correctly), and in the root folder I set the access level for the Debug entry to USER, hoping that it would now be visible in the setup utility. After some hesitation, I used AFUDOS on a FreeDOS USB drive to flash my first image. Thankfully, the Toughbook booted after that, but when I went into Setup, I did not see a Debug tab.
The reason I wanted to do this was to gain access to a hidden SATA controller setting that selects what mode the controller is placed in during POST (either AHCI, RAID, or IDE). I had noticed that Panasonic didn't make this option available in the setup menus, which prevents me from running certain operating systems that require legacy IDE. As far as I can tell, the onboard Intel SATA controller should support the legacy IDE mode.
I'd like to request that my original BIOS image (see below) have the Debug menu unlocked (if possible). That and perhaps also debug my modifications that had no effect.
I have attached a ZIP file with two ROM images, both are Aptio 1.x (I forgot what version exactly), are non-UEFI, and are from 2009:
The reason I wanted to do this was to gain access to a hidden SATA controller setting that selects what mode the controller is placed in during POST (either AHCI, RAID, or IDE). I had noticed that Panasonic didn't make this option available in the setup menus, which prevents me from running certain operating systems that require legacy IDE. As far as I can tell, the onboard Intel SATA controller should support the legacy IDE mode.
I'd like to request that my original BIOS image (see below) have the Debug menu unlocked (if possible). That and perhaps also debug my modifications that had no effect.
I have attached a ZIP file with two ROM images, both are Aptio 1.x (I forgot what version exactly), are non-UEFI, and are from 2009:
- The first one, DINGUS.ROM, is a dump I made of the original BIOS with AFUDOS, right before I flashed my initial mod.
- The second image, included for comparison, is the one currently flashed on the Toughbook; it is a second modification which set the access level of the SATA submenu within the Debug tab to USER in attempt to get it to appear.







