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

[kasar]

thx! ^_^

[jkbuha]

thx! ^_^

Hey kasar

Any luck with the recovery.fd image? Let me know if you need any help!

I'm planning to work on the unlocking of the BIOS options over the weekend, at the moment I'm waiting for Ahmed to finish his exams, so would be good to hear if there's a successful method to recover the bios using that flashfile

Cheers
jkbuha

[kasar]

sadly nope
i was talking by pm with the guy, and told him to do several things but he didnt had any luck, after talk with him for a while, I didnt got response from him in some days.

it seems like he had no success unlocking the bios, at least for the moment.

i also noticed the "diagnosis tool" I got working by pressing FN + B at the l502X, also works without any kind of usb or cd rom plugged in, wich means it is some extra tool already in the bios.

weird as [censored] :O

[jkbuha]

sadly nope
i was talking by pm with the guy, and told him to do several things but he didnt had any luck, after talk with him for a while, I didnt got response from him in some days.

it seems like he had no success unlocking the bios, at least for the moment.

i also noticed the "diagnosis tool" I got working by pressing FN + B at the l502X, also works without any kind of usb or cd rom plugged in, wich means it is some extra tool already in the bios.

weird as [censored] :O

Sorry to hear that kasar.

Out of interest, could you send me the complete usb flash you made for your friend's 15z, so that I could try it out on mine?

Cheers
jkbuha

[kasar]

ok, I created an image from it using "usb image tool",download it to restore it : )

about the image itself, here it is download

I didnt got it working anyway :/

also never tried any usb image tool till today, so I dont know if the restored img will be even bootable, give feedback plz ^^

note: (I noticed the backup image I did was from my laptop, you will need to replace the bios.wph with yours, also you will need to replace all the .fd files by yours and renaming them like I did with mine)

[jkbuha]

Didn't work for me either. I also tried another method - to format the usb stick as fat, put the bios.wph, minidos.sys and phlash16.exe and press fn+f3 - nada. I did get to see the diagnostic screen - pretty interesting wonder what else is hidden in the initial boot.

Out of interest - how did you create your usb image - i couldn't find all the fd files that were referenced in your compressed image?

Cheers
jkbuha

[kasar]

I created the usb with the tools mentionated at the other topic

here is the DL link

http://op4gunners.com/redirect/tools/ksr..._L502X.rar

I also tried to pick the recovery fd file found in the dell's flashing folder for the l502X
so I copied it to the usb disk tooo, and renamed it to several names I read it may works on another forums, however no luck

I also created the usb backup .img file using the app mentionated in my previus post, I also got a new MP from the user asking help for the BIOS recovery.

I got some bad news, he gave up with the recovery trying and contacted dell for a motherboard replacement since the laptop still covered by guarantee.

I guess we are just lucky we went so far without a single brick o.O

[Yaks]

I've been following the thread here and on the other forums where you have been posting about bios modding-well done with all the progress specially the voltage for the vbios.

Would the text for the recovery be in the bios file? That way we could search for the string for example "dell bios recovery" in the bios rom and look for any clues regarding key combinations?

[jkbuha]

Thanks kasar - I'll give it a go (when I get round to finding a 32-bit windows somewhere) and keep you posted!

I've been following the thread here and on the other forums where you have been posting about bios modding-well done with all the progress specially the voltage for the vbios.

Would the text for the recovery be in the bios file? That way we could search for the string for example "dell bios recovery" in the bios rom and look for any clues regarding key combinations?

Yes - actually I did this on my L511z bios just now.
Recovery is present in these two roms on my bios:

1) ED2DE537-7823-4CB1-B687-85BA9BBEF0B4_1_591.ROM - this is interesting because reading the text it seems that it might actually create a recovery disk itself.

2) C6602CDF-E16A-4147-9B9A-0B399498722A_1_1259.ROM - SystemCrisisRecoveryPei.efi

What Dell do you have?

[Yaks]

I don't actually have a dell yet, but going to buy an L502x very soon. I have really enjoyed reading your, kasar's and Ahmed hosam's posts, and am impressed by how far you got from sharing ideas.

I wonder if there's a locked bios menu to let you create the recovery disk/USB?