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From: allegro on 18 Dec 2009 20:08
Hi,

Dell users were allways unlucky regarding biosmods, because the Dell
bioses are compressed in an unknown format. In the past, someone
developed a program called DellDeco, which decompressed these bioses.

Due too pressure by Dell, he was forced to remove it, and no one has
been able to find it since.

It would be great if someone here would have saved a copy, or knows
where to download.

They are trying to mod the bios, enable features, add modules..
Maybe getting it to activate Windows 7?

If someone could help us out in any way, that would be great.
Info on creating our own version of DellDeco would do also.

Thanks,

Allegro.

If you have the tool, or any info send it to my email or post in this
group. (Or another..)
From: Gary Baldi on 19 Dec 2009 12:25
On Dec 19, 1:08 am, allegro <allegr...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Dell users were allways unlucky regarding biosmods, because the Dell
> bioses are compressed in an unknown format. In the past, someone
> developed a program called DellDeco, which decompressed these bioses.
>
> Due too pressure by Dell, he was forced to remove it, and no one has
> been able to find it since.
>
> It would be great if someone here would have saved a copy, or knows
> where to download.
>
> They are trying to mod the bios, enable features, add modules..
> Maybe getting it to activate Windows 7?
>
> If someone could help us out in any way, that would be great.
> Info on creating our own version of DellDeco would do also.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Allegro.
>
> If you have the tool, or any info send it to my email or post in this
> group. (Or another..)

Anton Borisov's email address is out there; Google is your friend and
it isn't difficult to use either..........
From: allegro on 19 Dec 2009 13:26

> Anton Borisov's email address is out there; Google is your friend and
> it isn't difficult to use either..........

Thanks,

Yes i know, but he hasn't replied yet.
According to other sources, he isn't willing to supply a copy any way,
so..

That's why i'm hoping someone saved it somewhere or knows where to
download..
Or maybe just the things we need to create a new tool.

Thanks,

Allegro.
From: Gary Baldi on 19 Dec 2009 13:45
On Dec 19, 6:26 pm, allegro <allegr...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > Anton Borisov's email address is out there; Google is your friend and
> > it isn't difficult to use either..........
>
> Thanks,
>
> Yes i know, but he hasn't replied yet.
> According to other sources, he isn't willing to supply a copy any way,
> so..
>
> That's why i'm hoping someone saved it somewhere or knows where to
> download..
> Or maybe just the things we need to create a new tool.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Allegro.

I imagine Dell's legal bods leaned on him and, in true American
fashion (for he is apparently a Yank despite his Soviet-esqe name), he
rolled over and let them tickle his tummy.

Torrents are your best bet, failing that write a tool from scratch?
From: William R. Walsh on 22 Dec 2009 17:03
Hi!

> That's why i'm hoping someone saved it somewhere or knows
> where to download..

I'm sure someone has. It may take all the popular search engines a
while to notice, however.

Of course, I never knew such a tool existed or I would have downloaded
it long ago (and kept it handy for just this reason).

> Or maybe just the things we need to create a new tool.

***WARNING: The following information concerns using aftermarket tools
and utilities for BIOS flashing that are absolutely NOT recommended by
Dell (or anyone else for that matter). The risk of damaging your
system beyond economical repair is very, very real. Therefore, do NOT
attempt any of this unless you know what you are doing and are willing
to accept all of the responsibility for any results, good or bad.
You've got to be careful, otherwise you can really ruin your day.***

I'm making the assumption that the Dell BIOS is not compressed when it
has been stored to the onboard flash ROM. If that is true, a utility
like UniFlash should be able to read it out and back it up. (And it
did, in the case of an OptiPlex GX400. The resulting binary file was
very obviously not compressed.)

I made a little change (changing the www.dell.com banner to "dull" if
anyone cares), corrected the checksum and flashed it back no problem.

I really thought there was a way to scrape up the BIOS using DEBUG,
and I'd swear someone told me as much. But I can't find it now...

A person might also be able to reverse-engineer the Dell BIOS flash
tool. If the BIOS image included with the flash tool is what's
compressed, the flash utility must therefore "know" how to decompress
it.

Curiously, Dell has also had the workings of the (custom) SMsC LPCIOs
they use on all modern systems placed under an NDA. So there's no way
to get a datasheet and study how they did the fan speed monitoring (or
control, in the few systems that support it).

Makes you wonder what they're hiding. <g>

William
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