amibios 5.12 modding help

[osku81]

Hi.

I have ami bios v5.12 - all good- except that it's efi/uefi portion doesn't hold EFI shell at all. Bios though, does support shell.efi from file system; this just brings a minor cosmetic problem, I don't want my boot drive's root to hold shell.efi - it's ok to hold it in, for example, /EFI/tools/shellx64.efi - but it is found only if located in root of drive. I was wondering if it's possible to change it's location.

With UEFI Tool (yes, whilst computer that I am editing holds Linux, I do most of my work on Mac - and I do not have currently any computer running windows, sorry..) - I can do a search, for shell.efi - and hooray, it finds it from 2 places. Problem is that when I view the data, in hex editor, search the offset mentioned from search, I see that it seems that if I touch there, I will break it. So, I could extract body..... And maybe edit it with something else?

Any ideas would be welcome.

[meganlambert]

Hi.

I have ami bios v5.12 - all good- except that it's efi/uefi portion doesn't hold EFI shell at all. Bios though, does support shell.efi from file system; this just brings a minor cosmetic problem, I don't want my boot drive's root to hold shell.efi - it's ok to hold it in, for example, /EFI/tools/shellx64.efi - but it is found only if located in root of drive. I was wondering if it's possible to change it's location.

With UEFI Tool (yes, whilst computer that I am editing holds Linux, I do most of my work on Mac - and I do not have currently any computer running windows, sorry..) - I can do a search, for shell.efi - and hooray, it finds it from 2 places. Problem is that when I view the data, in hex editor, search the offset mentioned from search, I see that it seems that if I touch there, I will break it. So, I could extract body..... And maybe edit it with something else?

Any ideas would be welcome.

Hi, you can change the location of the EFI shell executable (shellx64.efi) within the EFI system partition (ESP) on your boot drive. However, it is not a straightforward process and requires some technical knowledge and caution.

One way to achieve this is to use the AMI Firmware Update (AFU) tool to modify the BIOS firmware image. You can extract the BIOS firmware image from your motherboard using the AFU tool, then modify the firmware image to change the path of the EFI shell executable. Once you have modified the firmware image, you can re-flash it onto your motherboard.

However, modifying the BIOS firmware image can be risky and may cause permanent damage to your motherboard if not done correctly. I recommend that you have a backup of your existing BIOS firmware before attempting any modifications, and that you follow the manufacturer's instructions for modifying and flashing the BIOS firmware.

If you choose to modify the firmware image, you can use a hex editor to search for the path to the EFI shell executable within the firmware image, and modify it to the desired path (e.g. /EFI/tools/shellx64.efi). You will then need to rebuild the firmware image and flash it onto your motherboard. bloxd io
Alternatively, you can leave the EFI shell executable in the root directory of your boot drive and create a boot entry in the EFI boot manager to launch it from a different location within the EFI system partition. To do this, you can use a tool like "efibootmgr" in Linux to create a new boot entry with the desired path to the EFI shell executable. This will allow you to launch the shell from the desired location without having to modify the BIOS firmware.

[osku81]

I have been provided with BIOS image by manufacturer. AFU tool.. Currently I do already have setup with REFind that allows me to execute shellx64.efi, but I would love to get native way to work as well. I am familiar already with minor modifications of BIOS image; when I purchased my device, I was given option to customise BIOS with desired boot display; unfortunately they forgot to do it, so they gave me bios image... Well anyway; even though I managed to do that, I wouldn't want to tamper it too much..

My previous work I've successfully done with UEFITool as I don't have Windows machines and UEFITool worked succesfully with Apple.. Anyway, point is that I don't know where to exactly look for information where it is detailed where it should search for shellx64.efi and wouldn't want to start guessing due to risks; so I though that maybe I could get some pointers on where to look for it?

[vernakuhlman]

Adjusting the BIOS firmware image using the AMI Firmware Update (AFU) utility is one approach accomplish this. It is possible to edit the firmware image to change the path of the EFI shell executable after extracting it from the motherboard using the AFU tool. After making changes to the firmware image, flashing it back onto the motherboard is the next step.

[osku81]

Adjusting the BIOS firmware image using the AMI Firmware Update (AFU) utility is one approach accomplish this. It is possible to edit the firmware image to change the path of the EFI shell executable after extracting it from the motherboard using the AFU tool. After making changes to the firmware image, flashing it back onto the motherboard is the next step.

All above is perfectly clear to me. But where in the extracted image is it located, I can't just extract every piece of it, there are ~thousands of entries.