Can we make a virtual machine that works with a USER specific Bios's mainboard??

[thuvn205]

We try to mod a real BIOS and sometimes makes very dangerous so I hope we will test to mod the BIOS on the Virtual Machine first, this will require to install the current real BIOS on virtual machine and after it's works ..moding and test. :)

[Chriss71]

Dear thuvn205!

With VMWare its not possible. There is no flashing tool in the VMWare's BIOS!

Bye

[reginakampher]

VMware's BIOS is a Phoenix BIOS and it can be modded. You don't flash the VMware's BIOS like you would normally do on a physical computer, but rather modify the BIOS and have VMware load it at startup of the virtual machine.

My interpretation of thuvn205's post was that he/she was asking if it was possible to test a modded BIOS designed for other computers on a VMware or Virtual PC 2007 virtual machine. That, of course, is not possible since the BIOS is designed for each specific machine, virtual or not.

[Chriss71]

Dear reginakampher!

You wrote that is possible to mod a VMWare BIOS!
Can you tell me how?????

The VMWare is not a real computer (so the BIOS is also not real)!
I hope you get my clue!

Bye

PS: If its your real photo, you look nice!

[thuvn205]

VMware's BIOS is a Phoenix BIOS and it can be modded. You don't flash the VMware's BIOS like you would normally do on a physical computer, but rather modify the BIOS and have VMware load it at startup of the virtual machine.

My interpretation of thuvn205's post was that he/she was asking if it was possible to test a modded BIOS designed for other computers on a VMware or Virtual PC 2007 virtual machine. That, of course, is not possible since the BIOS is designed for each specific machine, virtual or not.

That's very nice, what I want to do is to Mod my real computer and bring in to virtual machine to load it and test if it works...seem not easy :D .

Pls show your way of loading the modded bios in vmware, I don't think we can do that.

[petar]

That's very nice, what I want to do is to Mod my real computer and bring in to virtual machine to load it and test if it works...seem not easy :D .

Pls show your way of loading the modded bios in vmware, I don't think we can do that.

I think for you to be able to do this, you will have to have an option in VM to choose your own specific hardware, like CPU, GPU e.c.t. and most important you will have to select you EEPROM.

For this to be reality VM programers will have to do a dayly updates to their software so they can folow the new hardware that is emerging every day.

[Yen]

Dear reginakampher!

You wrote that is possible to mod a VMWare BIOS!
Can you tell me how?????

The VMWare is not a real computer (so the BIOS is also not real)!
I hope you get my clue!

Bye

PS: If its your real photo, you look nice!

Here are the gathered info:

1. Extracting BIOS module from VMWare program

1) Find "vmware-vmx.exe" at "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation\bin",
and copy it to a temp folder.
2) Start ResourceHacker and open the copied "vmware-vmx.exe"
3) Place mouse cursor on "BINRES" and right click on it. Then select "Save [BINRES] resources",
and save the resources by any given name
4) In your temp folder, you will find many "Data_*.bin" files and, among them, locate
the file of 512 KB in size (most likely Data_4.bin or Data_5.bin).
5) That is the BIOS module file of VMWare, and rename it as "VM-BIOS.rom" or whatever you like,
but the extension must be ".rom"

2. Modification:

2.1 for SLP1.0:

First of all, start Phoenix BIOS Editor, and open "VM-BIOS.rom", then take your course in the followings:

A. Elementary course (To place SLP String in DMI area, used for LENOVO, Hewlett, Compaq, TOSHIBA, AcerSystem)

1) Follow the menu "Windows" ==> "DMI Editor" (Or simply press CTRL+D)
2) In the "DMI String" window, you will find the "Description" and "String" info
3) Double click on a "String" column, and change a string to SLP String as below:

[Example] 'IBM Corporation' (Place single quotation mark (') at head and tail.)

* You can select any Description item, except for "UUID", and change a default string
to your favorite SLP string, but the string must correspond to OEMBIOS file set !
* Do not input the strings for DELL, Sony, ASUS, LG, Samsung and etc., whose strings must
be placed in other areas (of BIOS main module).　

4) Follow the menu "File" ==> "Build BIOS", and, if no problems, the message "Build is OK" will show up,
and save the modded BIOS as "VM-BIOS_Mod.rom" or whatever you like.

B. Advanced course (To place SLP String in BIOS main module, used for ASUS_FLASH, Dell System, Sony Corporation)

1) With PBE being opend, go to the folder: C:\Program Files\Phoenix Technologies Ltd\BIOS Editor\TEMP,
and find "BIOSCOD2.ROM"
2) This file is the BIOS main module, and you can mod it by hex-editor.
But, before working on modding, you need to fully grasp the memory map and understand
where to place SLP string in a safe way.　Need to know the relationship between physical
memory addresses and offset addresses of this file.
3) After modding, save the BIOS. (Be sure to change something in DMI string, otherwise "Build BIOS"
remains grey-out.)　

2.2 for Vista (insert SLIC)

-Open bios.wph or bios.rom with Phoenix BIOS Editor
The bios will be decompressed, all parts are in Phoenix BIOS Editor\TEMP folder now. You can open them with winhex to edit.

-Search for "SLIC" to find a already present SLIC tabe. If found DO NOT modify try to activate first. If it doesn't activate check Everest. No SLIC present at Everest, modify bios

-Copy file with slic table into Phoenix BIOS Editor\TEMP and rename it to the next higher ACPIn.ROM. (n ist the next higher acpi number).

-Open rom.scr with notepad and add a line "ACPI ACPIn.ROM -X", save it.

-Search for "RSDT" and if present "XSDT" string.
Overwrite string next to "RSDT" and "XSDT" with your OEM table and OEM table ID you want.
They are usually found at BIOSCOD1.ROM file. Save changes.

-To enable save button (now is gray) change something random in Phoenix BIOS Editor and restore its original value

-Save bios and check log for errors


3. Starting VMWare by using modded BIOS

1) Copy your modded BIOS file to the folder where VMWare's definition file (*.vmx) is located.
2) Open the definition file (*.vmx) by Notepad, and insert a line as follows, and then save it.

bios440.filename="VM-BIOS_Mod.rom" 　("VM-BIOS_Mod.rom" is YOUR modded BIOS file name.)

3) Start VMWare and enjoy it!



The instructions are written by Pajero and me.;) There are modified virtual bioses available already. Always the same V-bios, done with different OEMs to activate it.

@thuvn205:
To emulate / integrate any other bios is not possible, since it initialises the (virtual) hardware, which is specific at every single machine. This would have been saved some already bricked boards!!! So you have to flash your mod onto the real chip..............

[ricktendo64]

Here are ALL the VMware bioses that should work for 95% of you, I made some .RES (Resource) files with them so that you can EASILY patch vmware-vmx.exe with Resource Hacker (http://angusj.com/resourcehacker/) and not have to edit the *.vmx each and every time you create a new VM

Read Instructions.htm for how to patch your bios

DOWNLOAD: http://rapidshare.com/files/118081785/VMware_bios_patches.7z

I know its not what you are asking for but I put them to show Chris71 that you can flash (sort of) the VMware bios

[Chriss71]

Dear Yen and all the others!

THANKS for your description!:D
So, we can try out if Phoenix BIOS are working or not!

Bye

[thuvn205]

Dear all,

Much much appreciated your works, this will help me to try to test my Acer latop's Bios in virtual machine before test it in real machine cuz my Acer3620 laptop after flashing, it dies with the Acer logo screen at the start up. I try send to Acer Local and they ask me to replace the mainboarb.

I get back the laptop and send to a laptop repair shop, they use a "Bios machine- it's a tool box uses to flash BIOS to the Bios chip directly" to copy BIOS from one another origin Acer3620 and flash to my Laptop and it works again.

Hi Yen, would you pls re-mod my Acer 3620 Laptop bios? cuz the one is modded by BigErnM is not worked in my real laptop before so I hope to have a new moded one to test in vertual machine first.

Thanks for all.


Here below is my reference before:

Hello,

Please Mod my Acer Laptop Bios to have SLIC Acer, I don't know if I can have both SLIC1 & SLIC2 for dual OS of XP and Vista, appreciated your works.


Motherboard : Acer 3620
-Bios revision: v1.06
-Bios Type: Phoenix
-Bios Link: ftp://ftp.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_3620/bios/v1.06.zip

Thanks.

Try this SLP 1.0 and 2.0 = ACER

http://rapidshare.com/files/114195655/v1.06.zip.html


Hello BigErnM, Just tried and it did not work, after flash in Windows & reboot and see in EVEREST, nothing happen as below.

Please help to mod again, thank you alot.

I had used the .wph file and it flash successful in DOS but when reboot my laptop it apears big Acer Logo & Intel below and at the bottom line is: press F2 ton enter setup. My Laptop hangs, even try to press F2 and it said "Entering setup..." and continue to hang.

Iam using my Desktop here now, please help me. Thanks

For the USB it will make a new entry HDD,FDD,DVD/CD, (Whatever the name of your USB drive is). At least that's what my bios does. Try flashing the .rom file instead. Be sure to clear your CMOS before and after flashing, that can help. To clear CMOS add the following flash command /pf=cmos. Phlash using those commands before but also add the new command so: phlash16 /x /s /c /mode=3 /BBL /pf=cmos AG1A-106.ROM or phlash16.exe /x /s /pf=cmos AG1A-106.ROM. Those are my last ideas. Good luck. If none of that works please see the techniques in the bios recovery sticky thread here: http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showthread.php?t=2105

He can also save the files needed for the flash on his hard drive and boot from CD/DVD with SATA support, as described in the link you have provided.

Thanks alot for the help, my big problem now is how to restore my BIOS because when I turn on the laptop it appears the Acer logo and stop forever, nothing else happen but only Acer Logo screen.

I don't have a USB FDD, My Laptop does't allow to boot from USB in BIOS so what I can do is to put all recovery files in a Bootable DVD (to boot from this DVD) and try the tricks but no success till now. Fn+B, Fn+ESC, Win+B, Win+ECS are all tried but don't see it works for me. :(

Does anyone have an idea?? Pls help,thks.

[reginakampher]

Dear all,

Much much appreciated your works, this will help me to try to test my Acer latop's Bios in virtual machine before test it in real machine cuz my Acer3620 laptop after flashing, it dies with the Acer logo screen at the start up. I try send to Acer Local and they ask me to replace the mainboarb.

I get back the laptop and send to a laptop repair shop, they use a "Bios machine- it's a tool box uses to flash BIOS to the Bios chip directly" to copy BIOS from one another origin Acer3620 and flash to my Laptop and it works again.

Hi Yen, would you pls re-mod my Acer 3620 Laptop bios? cuz the one is modded by BigErnM is not worked in my real laptop before so I hope to have a new moded one to test in vertual machine first.

Thanks for all.


Here below is my reference before:

First of all, it is NOT possible to test your Acer laptop's BIOS in a virtual machine.

Secondly, I don't think there is anything wrong with BigErnM's mod. You should try flashing the .rom file from DOS using Phlash16 or flash the .rom file from Windows using WinPhlash v2.0.2.9 and as always FLASH AT YOUR OWN RISK.

It is only a suggestion and you should choose wisely as it may brick your laptop again.
Post your results.

[thuvn205]

First of all, it is NOT possible to test your Acer laptop's BIOS in a virtual machine.

Secondly, I don't think there is anything wrong with BigErnM's mod. You should try flashing the .rom file from DOS using Phlash16 or flash the .rom file from Windows using WinPhlash v2.0.2.9 and as always FLASH AT YOUR OWN RISK.

It is only a suggestion and you should choose wisely as it may brick your laptop again.
Post your results.

Thanks for info more but I will never flash again without notice of dead screen before. I think we got matters with Acer Laptop Bios mod but believing of alot of Acer laptop users are looking for the solutions as we all know Acer is good at price but not their after sales services & repair. I hate them and never get back with them again in my life. :D

[The_ROCK]

Firstly this is a very informative thread on modifying the VMWare BIOS(s).

I have got the Phoenix Editor and downloaded the sample BIOS's, however I require to change the BIOS Manufacturer which is currently "VMware". I cannot find this field or option to change it anywhere using the BIOS editor. Does anyone have an idea how to do this, or if it's even possible?

The reason I want to do this, is because I have a "certain application" which is designed to not be supported in a VMware virtualized environment. They do this because they promote their own hardware. I would like to virtualize the application purely for testing purposes, however the vendor is not interested in helping. So it seems there VMware detection method is by inspecting the BIOS. So after importing the "HP" BIOS, which is a supported platform for this application, it still detects the BIOS manufacturer as VMware. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.:confused: