So I came upon a stack of G1 and G2 HP Zbook laptops. All have the bios locked so for fun I wanted to try and reprogram and rebuild some of these laptops.
I got a Ch341 Black programmer, and a Soic 8 clip
I read on a bunch of forums that I should be able to read and rewrite to the chips without desoldering them. But I also am seeing conflicting information about it working or not.
Also after bricking 2 machines I learned about the serial number information that needs to be retained in the BIOS and using posted BIOS even for the same model wouldn't work.
Even more I bricked another laptop before finding out that these Winbond chips dont all read/write the same based on which software you're using with the CH341.
So I got what I thought was everything sorted out. Correct software, learned how to take multiple reads and used a CRC checker to ensure consistency between reads. Should be good to go right? So I take a functioning laptop, do the reads, verify, then erase the BIOS chip, then write the read right back onto the chip and the laptop is bricked.
I get no errors on the write process. The laptop powers on, but I get the HP 5 blinks on the cap/num lights which means BIOS not found.
I'm also surprised Sure Start doesn't kick in and at least let me recovery the original BIOS
Any help or advice would be appreciated.
I got a Ch341 Black programmer, and a Soic 8 clip
I read on a bunch of forums that I should be able to read and rewrite to the chips without desoldering them. But I also am seeing conflicting information about it working or not.
Also after bricking 2 machines I learned about the serial number information that needs to be retained in the BIOS and using posted BIOS even for the same model wouldn't work.
Even more I bricked another laptop before finding out that these Winbond chips dont all read/write the same based on which software you're using with the CH341.
So I got what I thought was everything sorted out. Correct software, learned how to take multiple reads and used a CRC checker to ensure consistency between reads. Should be good to go right? So I take a functioning laptop, do the reads, verify, then erase the BIOS chip, then write the read right back onto the chip and the laptop is bricked.
I get no errors on the write process. The laptop powers on, but I get the HP 5 blinks on the cap/num lights which means BIOS not found.
I'm also surprised Sure Start doesn't kick in and at least let me recovery the original BIOS
Any help or advice would be appreciated.
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