Tools to flash and recover BIOS on ASUS P8xxx boards (FD44Editor, FTK)

Thomas, thank you for support and BIOS backup.
Your post made me think about starting to make cheap USB programmers and sell them on EBay for 25-30€.
I have made an opensource and openhardware SPI programmer 3 month ago, and first 10 pcs. are sold to Russian BIOS enthusiasts from overclockers.ru, but I don't know if it worth trying to make and sell in in Europe or America.
The benefits of that programmer are:
Not a chinese crap with 2 weeks of shipping, buggy software and slow flashing.
Open hardware with schematics and board designs.
Additional features like USB-TTL converter to repair routers and hard drives.
Direct support to my other projects like FTK or PMPatch.
Is anyone interested in that? If so, I will make a bit more then 10 pcs. of next RushSPI revision and try to sell it. Let's see how it will work.
 
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New version of FD44Editor: 0.8.5
Changes are minor, P8H67-V and P8Z77-I Deluxe are added to database.
Thanks to Thomas for BIOS backup.
 
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cisco guy and CodeRush,

Thanks again for all your help.... With your tools and guidance, I was able to easily flash back from bios 3602 to bios 2001 and all went great....:D.

The hardest part was renaming the bios....:) Sorry about my confusion as I thought that I had to make sure too copy all data and info from original bios to the backflash bios....

I will guide other folks with the same problem that I had directly to this Page

Thanks you guys are great....

Ron
 
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Thats right
Its incredibly simple
And there is no longer a need to make backup since the newer CodeRush modded FTK now inputs all your current individual mobo info - like an automated FD44editor.
Once you have your FTK stick made all you do at any time from then on is add a renamed bios and 2 min later its over
Idiot proof and works 100% - none of the ASUS bios flashing protocols to trip you up.
I have seen X79 mobo with borked bios (ME) that wont even fix with flashback module. Thats why ASUS came out with ME FW separate updater. A "succeessful" flash on a mobo with corrupted ME will prob still have a corrupted ME.
And the particular bios for a particular mobo that is the one that updates the ME from 7 to 8 is the KILLER!!
With FTK there is no "upgrade" it just puts it in as is.
The only way it could be simpler is if CodeRush came to your house and did it for you.
The end of worrying about ASUS mobo bios flashing up or down.
As a matter of fact, guys here should use it anyway for current in use bios just to make sure yours is 100%, not 99%
 
Well, I advised another poster on another forum to use this link/method, and he reported back, and said he did everything exactly as recommended here and couldnt boot to FTK USB.

***sigh***

So I had him explain exactly step by step what he did and it was correct except for one teensy weensy step, that is missing from instructs here. Since no one has mentioned having a "no boot problem" with stick booting in this thread, I assumed everyone knew about the UEFI/MBR issue when using USB devices.

Since the FTK tool (in DOS mode) is using the DOS from Win Milenium, it obviously has no ability to boot in UEFI mode. FAT32 USB is seen as UEFI in bios because the efi.sys boot primary is FAT32. However, just like the Win 7 DVD X64, the bios always then gives both a UEFI and MBR selection choice for booting with exact same device/DVD just because of that situation to give you a choice.

And you aint booting to Win Millenium DOS in UEFI mode, thats for sure. So the solution is to put in stick, boot to bios and go to boot page/boot overrides and click on the MBR mode USB booter. Thats the only way it will boot, and you can prove it to yourself by clicking on the UEFI USB option. It will just blink and do absolutely nothing.

(And fwiw DOS 6.22 or lower does not support FAT32 - only FAT12/16)

http://i.imgur.com/RTSI6h6.jpg
 
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Thx, will be addressed in next revision. I think that guide must be reorganized to two separate post, one with step-by-step instructions and other with explanations, BIOS structures, region locks and FD44 module format. The text is too confusing for normal users and too long for everyone.
I don't have any time until 5. Feb, but then I promise to rework this guide completely.
 
cisco guy,

You are correct about the UEFI/MBR ...What I did was to use the F8 key which in my case gave me the option of selecting the uefi/usb or the usb itself.. So I just selected the usb drive and F10 then the sytem selected the correct drive and posted..

Ron
 
Time for some interesting observations: ASUS M5A9x and similar ROG and Sabertooth boards are having FD44 module too. More to say, the BIOSes can be opened by FD44Editor and the data can be copied with FD44Copier, which is something I haven't expected at all. :)
Now I need BIOS backups from this boards to make my tools compatible with them. FPT woll not work on AMD boards, I think, so I have to use AFU or flashrom for making "FTK for AMD" package.
More work to do. :)
 
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CodeRush, you are my hero.

I thought I was going to have to RMA my board. Last time I RMA'd something with ASUS I was without for over a month.

Big thanks to cisco guy for a little hand holding while I wussed my way through this. ;) :D
 
I have an Asus 1015PE netbook, Asus 1015PX netbook and an Asus 1025C netbook. Does FTK work on Asus netbooks? How do I get the model of the motherboard to determine if it is a P motherboard?

I tried FTK using an SD card with the write protection on because of BIOS rootkit. Regarding Asus 1025C netbook, Error message 201: FPT.exe cannot be run on the current platform. Please contact your vendor." Does platform refer to motherboard or SD card?

Error messages using AfuDOS. I don't know whether I used the wrong version of AfuDOS or whether the BIOS rootkit is preventing flashing with AfuDOS. How do I find out what version of AfuDos to use? First two netbooks have a legacy BIOS. 1025C has an EFI BIOS. Thank you.
 
This toolkit is not meant to use on notebooks and will not work in 95% chance.
Ask for apropritate tools on mydigitallife of bios-mods forums. Sorry.
 
Hi,

I've a P8Z77-V + 3770k and i had OC probs like multiplier stuck at 42x. I try clrcmos, reflash, etc and it works, but if i start to try new OC values it happens again after a X number of configs.

In other words, i can have a stable oc config, but if a change values many times to try different configs, multiplier stucks.

Do you think if i try FTK to reflash bios i will solve my problems?

I already do a backup and ME version is 8. To update BIOS i used EZ and asus update with CAP files of asus.com.


Thanks :)
 
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Unfortunately we have a new problem with Z77 mobo with 1708 and 1805 bios. In other words even if the bios is flashed perfectly, the bios itself is flawed - not coded properly. 1708 started exhibiting strange behavior, and 1805 has it plus several other flaws. Best to use manual only CPU Vcore, not offset mode.
So the answer is to use FTK to downflash to 1616, or even better, 1504.
1504 is fully Win 8 compliant, so you lose nothing by using it.

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...id=1&model=P8Z77-V+PRO&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...1&model=P8Z77-V+DELUXE&page=1&SLanguage=en-us
 
My ideia was that oldest bios versions didnt have this problems, but googling i dont found anything about this. Now you confirm what i suspect :)

Im using W7 so 1616 is better?

I have to rename .cap file to bios.bin, correct? (and FTK knows that file is .cap and remove the cap header, blabla) and after run reflash command

Thanks
 
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1504 is best 1616 is second best, Win 7 or Win 8
1708 sucks, 1805 sucks worse.
Yes, you just rename the cap bios to bios.bin - thats it - mentioned 20 times in this thread
reflash cmd, then poweroff cmd (must shutdown PC for a few minutes after complete reflash, best to even unplug PSU)
 
Hello all.

In the past days I configured an USB-Stick with many tools for emergency repair and setup.
While testing on my PC (MoBo ASUS P8H67-V) I experienced this:

1. boot (warm boot) from USB-Stick via F8 (change boot device)
2. boot FreeDos from Stick
3. read the full content (dump) of BIOS chip with FPT, save to USB-Stick file (command: FPT -d P8H67-V.bin)
4. shut down PC (power off)

The next "normal" boot (cold boot) get an error message "no boot device".

Getting into BIOS setup I can't see my System SSD (Crucial M4 64 GB FW 000F).
And I recognised an change in the BIOS setting I had never done: OC is enabled (has changed from "auto" to "manual")

Changed back to "auto" and boot again (warm boot): no change, SSD is not present.
Made an cold boot (about 5 min full power off): SSD is present and boot normal.

So as I do NO OC (i5 2500, non K type) I can't explain why the OC is enabled in the BIOS.

Is there an explanation what's going on there?
Is it only the read access via FPT??!



BTW and FYI:

I have an HP Elitebook (Probook) 8560p (i5 and QM67).
On this NB is an descriptor lock and so you can't access the whole BIOS chip.
But there is an "hotkey" to remove the lock:

1. Set boot device to USB (and have an USB-Stick with the tools plugged in)
2. Shut down NB. For save work use both line power and battery
3. press the WIN | left arrow | right arrow button (all three together and hold them)
4. power on the NB
5. on the first message on the display release the buttons.

You see then an new message on the first line:
HDA_SDO. To lock SPI, do global reset or remove AC & DC then boot after updating SPI.

Well, thats it: full dump of BIOS chip is possible, FPT reported no error..
I have not tested full access to flash it ;) (don't want to brick my NB)
 
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Thomas, interesting behavior on H67-V. Dunno what it was. :) Another example of "good" code quality of UEFI, I think.
Thank you for lock removal instructions, will repost it in my PMPatch topic.
 
So I try to do a complete reflash of my BIOS, since it won't apply my overclocking anymore (-> see this)

MoBo is a P8P67 Rev 3.1, BIOS will be 3602 (or better 3510?).

To be clear and 100% sure:

1. make a bootable USB stick to boot DOS
2. download the desired BIOS from ASUS page and rename it simply to 'bios.bin' (even tho it is a *.ROM file?)
3. boot from the stick and perform a 'reflash', followed by 'poweroff'. unplug PSU for 5 minutes or so to be save.
4. ???
5. profit

I read, that some information will be lost or changed, like S/N or MAC address. Is this irrelevant or will I face problems anytime?


Thanks. :)
 
d,N,x, a bit correcter way:
1. make DOS-bootable USB-stick with FTK
2. download the desired BIOS from ASUS page and rename it simply to 'bios.bin' (even if it's .ROM or .CAP file).
3. boot from the stick and perform a 'biosrefl' (faster) or "reflash" (ME and GbE will be updated too), then "poweroff". No need to do anything with PSU.
4. ???
5. profit

The version of BIOS is up to you, try them all and choose the best.
 
FTK 0.9.5 is out.
Changes:
- FD44Copier updated to 0.6.8
- empty FD44 module in bios backup doesn't block flashing process anymore, making data restoration step optional.
- biosrefl command tries to make BIOS region backup only, so it will work on boards with locked Me and/or GbE regions (B75 and Q77 ones, for example)
- restore command can restore the whole BIOS from backup.bin or BIOS region only from biosbck.bin
- added spiinfo command (fpt -i internally) which is used for acquiring SPI chip information (chip model, capacity, count, lock settings and so on)

I will completely rewrite the guide ASAP, because not all things that are there are true now and some operations are made simpler.
 
Thanks for your support, guys.

I don't know how to begin this rework. Text seems soooo long and boring. :)
I think I must split this guide for 4 separate guides: "Solving problems by reflashing BIOS, ME, GbE", "Using FD44Editor to restore lost data", "Unlocking locked BIOS regions" and "Structures, formats and other interesting things for power users". As far as data restoration step is optional now, and reflashing BIOS step can be used for flashing modified BIOSes (here is a simple guide for PMPatch users), this guides must be separated to make them less confusing. No one want to read wall of text full of terminology and without any pictures.
 
Set up a vidcam to PC screen and just do a step by step (with audio), upload to youtube
 
I wish I have English good enough for doing that. :)
It's hard to write good guide without instruments like [multistring_spoiler] tag and so on, so I will probably post the new guide somewhere else and post a link it the first post. Probably. Anyway, I don;t have time for reworking the guide now.
 
CodeRush: Sorry for going bit ot here. When last I was using my p8z68 I remember reading your posts about this. I then bricked it and was using another board. I eventually got fed up with it so Im back on a new asus p8z68-v pro gen3. Whats the best bios for this board? Iirc you mentioned that one of the earlier ones is the best one and I cant for the life of me find that again. Which is it? Im on 0402 now.
 
Conditioned, try 3402 and return to 0402 if it will be worse. This two versions are good. Don't try the latest 36xx - it is buggy and we are waiting for another update to come.
 
AFAIK there will be no further P67 Z68 mobo bios - discontinued (except for coupla high end models)
 
cisco_guy, then it's up to us to make one "semi-perfect" version from 34xx line fro every P67/Z68 board used, with all possible modules updated and all visible bugs described.
There is almost no difference in P67/Z68/Z77 UEFI structure and settings, but updates are only for Z77 now, and in 3 month all forces will be applied to Z86 UEFI debugging. Shame for ASUS BIOS programmers, but they are the best on the market, so others are even worse...
 
Oh wow!
This bios stuff is just crazy.
Why did ASUS change things all of a sudden - perhaps beefing up Win 8 SLIC validation?
I know guys with OEM SLICs (Win 7) who have updated Z77 to latest bios using EZ Flash and have no probs booting.
 
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I have no idea why they did that, because it will have no impact to users of software activators. Maybe they had no free space in volume 01 and decided to replace big MSOA module with small DummyMSOA, I don't know. All I know is that I must add pubkey and marker modules to volume 01 and the deed is done.
All Intel tools bundled in FTK are not modified at all. All ASUS-specific things are performed by FD44Copier utility, that transfers all user data from BIOS backup made a second ago to supplied "bios.bin" file.
I have removed the post, if you have any SLIC-related questions - ask me via PM.
 
Updated FTK to 0.9.6.1, solved bug with missalligned SLIC modules introduced in 0.9.6.
 
SLIC changes "was merely a setback".
In the latest Z77 and X79 BIOSes ASUS introduced new type of BIOS region protection, that prevents FPT from writing to BIOS region.
The main problem is that other regions are not protected, and therefore reflash only fails after erasing descriptor and ME regions. If no restore is done, motherboard will be bricked after the reboot.
Do not try to use reflash command on the latest BIOSes, try biosrefl first and see if it works!
 
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Hmm to darn bad that i didn't notice this thread before i purchased my ASUS P8Z77-V PRO

Don't know why, but my board had the latest bios already when i got it brand new. Never happen before wich feels kind of weird.

I have two problems with my board, or atleast one since it's one and the same problem.
When i launched my rig for the first time everything worked fine as it should. After some tweaking and installation of all the drivers i went back to the bios to change some minor stuff (mem freq, turbo ratio etc)
After that my Turbo ratio wont even work anymore. It's at the maximum turbo ratio all the time, even if i clear the cmos "have tried both jumper and battery"
I've tried to OC and the settings works and stay there, but i have to run at stock untill i recieve my new cooler.

Another problem i noticed yesterday is if i use XMP and set Turbo ratio to 3900MHz and fire up Windows, then i have 4100MHz suddenly.

Will this fix help me?
And what exactly is it doing?
Which step should i use. Only 5-5 or something else?
And if i download the bios from Asus it comes as .cap. How should i make it to a .bin file? With programs like Magic iso or just rename it?
 
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