(How) Can I upgrade the RAID Option ROM in my M6400?

Does anyone know if it's possible to flash the RAID Option ROM in my Dell M6400 to the newest OROM version (11.6.0.1702)? If so, where can I find the code to do this? Thanks!

P.S.: I did some research, and it appears that doing this would require some serious BIOS hacking. Nevertheless, if anyone has done this, or knows of someone who has reported successfully updating their BIOS RAID OROM on a Dell M6400 (or similar), I'd like to hear about it. Dell hasn't updated the RAID OROM ever, so I'm still on 8.0.0 (11.6 is current). Of course, the ultimate hope is that I could get RAID TRIM to work with the newest Intel RST drivers in conjunction with the new OROM...

 

I don't think there are any GUI based programs to do this. You'll most likely need to download the update to a USB drive or disc, and then run it via command line.

PC Hardware :: Flash Hd Firmware On Dell Precision M6400

Do you really need to flash it?

 

No, this is not what I was talking about. I want to update the RAID Option ROM (OROM) on my motherboard, the link you gave is for flashing hard drive firmware. That would be easy...

 

Hope this helps
BIOS-Modding: How to update PCI ROM modules of an AMI/Phoenix/Award BIOS - BIOS/BIOS-Modding - Win-Lite Forum

 

Ahah! The post at your link is awesome, it should contain, in principle, all I need. So, I did find a utility to extract the ROM file from Dell's installer, which gave me a file named "M6400A11.rom". I then tried to use the CBROM.EXE given by the author of that post to look at the BIOS, but that doesn't do anything. Looks like I need to do some more research, but that's a good start. Thanks again!

 

@Pirx Welcome. CBrom has no GUI so when I tried to use it at first time I had the same result You need to look at command list with screensots. I saw 2 guides on mydigitallife about removing and placing CPU microcodes part but don't remember exact links.

Try to figure general idea here without screenshots or anything. It is not option ROM but...
How To Update Award CPU Microcode

Why don't you ask someone to do it for you? on MDL or better techinferno?

 

Well, I found a couple of people who say that Dell has modified the format of the original Phoenix BIOS in such a way that CBROM can't read it. They report the exact same observations I made. There are a couple of references of people specifically modifying Dell BIOS', but I have to look into that some more.

But, you're saying there's people out there who could do this for me? What's MDL?

 

Ask him. He should know smth http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/699411-trim-supported.html#post8979125

P.S. MDL = Mydigitallife.

 

Thanks again, I sent him a PM.

 

I think this is the tool you need. Opens the BIOS of my 1564 just fine (look for the DUMP folder).
Tool to Insert/Replace SLIC in Phoenix / Insyde / Dell / EFI BIOSes
Not sure if I'm allowed to post the link here but if I'm not then the mods can remove it

Also, keep us updated on the modding, I'm interested in this myself.

~Aeny

 

More progress! Thanks! And, yeah, I'll keep you posted if I go ahead with this. Obviously, this is touchy, since this is my main workstation, which I'd really, really want to keep using for a couple more years. So I will proceed with extreme caution if at all. Plus, Dell would probably consider my warranty void if I end up bricking the machine...

 

Nah, just tell them truth... that you tried to update BIOS and it is bricked now. What they don't know won't hurt them

 

Have you figured out yet how to get the .wph file out of the .exe or need some help with that too? I'm in the process of doing some vbios mods on mine but I'm stuck 'compiling' the modules back to a flashable bios.wph file ;( The module gets 5bytes bigger than the original one and I'm not sure if that would cause a brick or not.

~Aeny

 

In my case I extracted a .rom file from M6400A11.exe, using the "-writeromfile" option of the exe.
At that point the Phoenix CBROM.EXE can't seem to be able to do anything with this file format.
No idea what a .wph file is...

P.S.: Just to keep you guys posted, I just received a reply from slv7 over at TechInferno. He says the chipset in my M6400 is too old to do this, so that's probably the end of the line for this one.

 

I have an m6400, my journey for trying to inject a new intel raid option rom into the m6400 bios led me only to the slic bios mod's...

I'm trying to do it not just because of ssd, I have two drives in raid 0, but when I try to use a 3rd ssd as a cache (dataplex) via the esata port, I get MAD data corruption. I've tried troubleshooting it, it's certainly the laptop (doesn't happen on the desktop), and only happens when I use the ssd as a cache via the esata port. I'm curious if a new bios option rom would fix the issue.

 

btw the -writeoptionrom or whatever worked great, thanks!

I'm working on getting this done
mmtool 4.x & some instructions
[H]ard|Forum - View Single Post - Official ASUS BIOS and Program Updates

raid option rom 11.5
SATA/RAID Option ROM v.11.5.0.1582, beta or final? Download here!

more roms
http://www.station-drivers.com/page/intel raid.htm

seem mainly dealing with slic modding
How to Use New Phoenix Bios Mod Tool to Modify Phoenix/Dell/Insyde/EFI Bios Files
&
Tool to Insert/Replace SLIC in Phoenix / Insyde / Dell / EFI BIOSes

where there seems to be real instructions
How to update option rom / bios raid drivers. | Geekness in Words
&
BIOS-Modding: How to update PCI ROM modules of an AMI/Phoenix/Award BIOS - BIOS/BIOS-Modding - Win-Lite Forum

I guess I need Pheonix tool
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...tm1VuZkMbgzvun2X6A9nA&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.cGE

Update:
I tried to do the slic mod in hopes of being able to write to a .rom file with this modified slic bios, it says it was successful, but the executable doesn't work... maybe I need to try an older bios...

also, the mmtool will not see the .rom file as extracted from a standard a12 bios.

Further update
hrmm...

I'm able to implement slic into a05 and export it to a .rom file, but still not work with it using mmtool

 

@laferrierejc Mmtool works with only AMI bioses.
You may try to use Andy's Tool which creates folder with modules, then change 1 module and pack it in rom. But ask more on mydigitallife forum.

 

I thought mydigital was mainly for slic modding

I found this post
Dell Inspiron AHCI can't detect hdd
thread 3, that says someone used some software on another thread to do some dell bios modding
Dell bios, how to decompose / mod. - Page 9
&
Dell bios, how to decompose / mod. - Page 27

Update:
Which is ironically mydigitallife... hehe

 

While we're at all this modding BIOS stuff you might read up on coreboot + seabios too, It's a step further than this and from what I understand you get to pick the optionroms freely.

I'll have to read up on those last links.. still very interested in doing this too so keep progress posted. Dell isn't going to fix their mess they call a BIOS on the 1564 which is EOL, so I'll have to do it myself or buy a new laptop

~Aeny

 

I'm following this now on here
pg 73, post #722
Dell bios, how to decompose / mod.

post #723 redirects conversation to here (with (working?) rom).

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/th...ewer-raid-option-rom)-into-a-Dell-Laptop-Bios

 

Whoah, this is bloody awesome! Please keep us posted on how this works out!

 

Great! I hope he may post a how to or a short explanation on how he did that. I hope you don't mind me posting my 1564's problem bios in that thread aswell. I hope all the flashing goes well and your system will run again like a dream.

~Aeny

 

it works! took version a10!

 

I looked at the thread in mydigitallife, and this looks exciting! Just one quick question: The last file that tqhoang has posted looks like a regular Dell BIOS update executable. Is that what it is? So all I need to do is run it and everything will happen automagically? Is that how you installed yours? Everything running fine now?

I am currently running in Matrix-RAID (one RAID0 and one RAID1 volume on two drives), and if I could just upgrade to two SSDs, that would be super-awesome!

Happy New Year!

 

just run the exe, either in windows, or from dos, and it will do the rest.

works great. my data corruption issues are over. Indeed confirmed is a new option in intel raid, an acceleration drive option, although it was grayed out with my ssd, I think it either requires a z68 chipset, or a intel ssd. But... hopefully one can still take advantage of trim commands with ssd's,
if not, I recommend freespacecleaner, which can manually do trim for you