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

[jakebour]

Thank you Kasar. I wasnt aware you needed IDE mode - and yeah that makes sense if the image was created on an IDE install. I may try that again just for poops and smiles.. Meantime, I did get this to work in the last 2 hours. What I did was created a bootable PE from WAIK on USB (the only other NON dos method I have been using), booted with the BART disk in the cdrom, and from PE ran it command line off the cd rom. I had tried this already with several different versions of phlash/flash but this time successfully flashed back to A12 stock using the files on that BART disc. And yep I noticed those commands in the repair.bat file which I used every other time I tried this and failed. I don't know if I want to go through the hassle of trying my previous methods again to see where/why exactly this failed...but I know one thing is for sure is that the BIOS.CAP file was never in any of the directories I was running winflash from the other attempts at PE+WinPH/Flash. I thought that .CAP file was only used if crisis type boot media was being used in recovery? Or is it needed for general, non crisis mode, downgrading?

BTW, I have been reading through the hundreds of posts on this thread reading ya'lls work. For what its worth from a weekend warrior, you guys are amazing. All the things you had to overcome and fight with so that folks could just flash the end product..I am amazed.

ANyway, hth's other folks. Flashing stock A12 did not help my crash on boot win7 install. It must have been a short after all. Guess the repair cost will be worth it. Or maybe not doing hackintosh correctly is more dangerous than I thought.

@jakebour

to use that windows xp disk, you have to be in recovery mode or set ahci to ide in bios

that will make the xp disk to make it work, after use the disk, leave it back to ahci

about the flashing parameters, I usually use

WinFlash /all /sa /sn /sd /sp /svs /sv /cvar BIOS1.WPH

and can flash back to any version on my xps 15z

[jkbuha]

I'd like to know if someone has modded the logo files for the new XPS - I had done this successfully a few years back for the old XPS13.

Did anyone find a later version of the ME firmware (7.1.70.1198) and has anyone managed to flash this under 8.1?

---

Hey Jake sorry didn't see your post before. Yes as kasar said IDE is key, but I wouldn't bet on having a broken motherboard for now as I had flashed bioses which occasionally gave me blue screens. Your best bet is to boot up a Linux CD such as mint or Ubuntu to verify if all your hardware is working properly and if necessary reinstall Windows. Best of luck!

Oh and thanks for the feedback! It's comments from all the community which keep us going like this

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[kasar]

@jakebour

thank you

yeah, BIOS.cap file is only used for system recovery from usb or cdrom

@jkbuha

I didnt had luck with logo modding yet, previous Brabbelbla posts helped a lot, but still dont know save image files into similar format to replace them.
so help apreciated ^^

[jkbuha]

Here you go kasar - Blast from the past

http://forum.osxlatitude.com/index.php?/...os-rework/

[kasar]

well, I know it can be done, also some people like prema did the same stuff even with custom logos.

that guy said he added some apple icons.

the question is how I can pick a custom Image, and save it in the same format and size from the ones inside the bios, so I can replace the hex part of the image with my own one ^^

[Florin9doi]

you can try this one:

• pick a jpeg image with same resolution
  
• increase the compression until it have a smaller size than original
  
• add some padding until its same size

--------------------------------------------------
LE:
another method:

replace jpeg data (yellow) since FFD8 to FFD9 (the size of file will be changed) and change the jpg size (green) to the new value...

LLE:
If the file size is changed then the header must be also fixed:


useless in this case but i'll post it for the sake of file documentation:
* 18 means JPG
* 16 means RAW (PPM?). Structure: width (word), height (word), RGB for each pixel – http://i.imgur.com/YNuZ4HX.png


both methods are NOT TESTED: probably will brick your notebook

[kasar]

thanks for the info Florin9doi

oh, didnt saw the second method in time as you edited your post after some time.

I followed your first instructions and managed to get identical size images,

added some padding in one of them (replaced stuff with FF)

then I replaced the original image content from the file with the one from my modded images

I attached both modded and unmodded images + final modules.

I will test it in some minutes, if someone want to check if I messed something feel free to do it

the second method seems a little more complex, If first one doenst work, I will try it.

---

nope, the first method didnt worked, after flashing, the system remained with black screen (where it was suposed to show the logos), then it went to the S.O and the resolutione were messed up, like just 1024 x 768, had to reflash my last working bios mod to make logos working back and get the system back to normal.

definitly I did something wrong ...

[marcie]

thanks for the info Florin9doi

oh, didnt saw the second method in time as you edited your post after some time.

I followed your first instructions and managed to get identical size images,

added some padding in one of them (replaced stuff with FF)

then I replaced the original image content from the file with the one from my modded images

I attached both modded and unmodded images + final modules.

I will test it in some minutes, if someone want to check if I messed something feel free to do it

the second method seems a little more complex, If first one doenst work, I will try it.

---

nope, the first method didnt worked, after flashing, the system remained with black screen (where it was suposed to show the logos), then it went to the S.O and the resolutione were messed up, like just 1024 x 768, had to reflash my last working bios mod to make logos working back and get the system back to normal.

definitly I did something wrong ...

Hey Kasar- I used to insert images into Playstation .iso back in the day and recall having a plugin for Photoshop to deal with the specific format. Maybe there is a plugin that allows you to save your logo accurately??? This is an interesting topic , wish I was of more help.

[kasar]

thanks for your help marcie

well, the fact is that there is already some people wich managed to flash custom logos like prema or the guy wich replaced dell logo with apple logo.

the question is what is the exact procedure I should follow ^^

my attempt is on my previous post as attached file, maybe someone can give it a try and tell me what I did wrong

I managed to get my custom images the same size than default ones, however it is not working for me.

I sent an email to Prema, but he did not reply yet , probably busy with his bios modding stuff or getting his laptop back to life ^^

[AlexMode]

Hey guys, I've spend some time on figuring out format of image package and mostly done it! I've wrote a simple packer/unpacker in C that works for me. Sources and .exe in attach