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Inspirion 17R (N7110) - UEFI (Phoenix SecureCore Tiano) firmware alway boots in BIOS Mode
Hi,
I was wondering if anyone has managed to boot a GPT partitioned drive with
the Dell Phoenix SecureCore Tiano firmware? This firmware seems to be
used on most recent Dell laptops. I've tried everything I can think
of. It seems that Dell has configured the firmware to allways boot in
BIOS mode (the buildin diagnostic tool seems to suggest that this mode
is locked by saying that boot path is MBR). Which is rather
unfortunate as this means I can't load a UEFI (Shell) extension or
boot a GPT partition. I've tried forcing the system to boot into UEFI
mode by using the rEFInd bootable CD but it just skips over it (works
on other UEFI systems).
If anyone has any insight that would be most appreciated.
Many thanks,
Marcel
DELL-Saurabh A
710 Posts
2
June 11th, 2012 13:00
Hi marcelvdh,
Welcome to the community.
Understand the inconvenience you may have experienced.
The currently shipping in BIOS in Inspiron 7110 does not support this feature at this time. It may be added with a BIOS upgrade in the future.
Thank You,
Saurabh
Social Outreach Professional
You can reach us at http://en.community.dell.com
marcelvdh
2 Posts
0
June 11th, 2012 14:00
Hi Saurabh,
Thanks for your answer, I suspected as much.
I have to say I'm a bit disappointed. Every new Dell laptop implements a full version of the Phoenix SecureCore Tiano firmware but its locked down so nobody can access the EFI Shell or alter the boot path to GPT. Yet the functionality is there but just disabled. Whilst I can understand why Dell would do this from a support perspective it's a shame you take this functionality away from your users.
Thank you,
Marcel
msemenov
2 Posts
0
September 14th, 2012 00:00
Hi
I managed to boot my Phoenix Tiano Secures Core into EFI Shell but I modified three (3) nodules in Phoenix UEFI. Now I can enable “UEFI boot” and boot from GPT partition and run UefiShell.efi booting from USB using shell file “UefiShell.efi” as “BOOTX64.EFI” in” /EFI/BOOT/ BOOTX64.EFI” boot path. I couldn’t boot from internal shell it looks like internal shell is missing. It is very hard to fix since I don’t know GUIDs of the shell file module and Sell protocol. Farther more I’ve got access to extra HW settings.
Regards
Mikhail
jkbuha
2 Posts
0
September 18th, 2012 11:00
Hi Mikhail
I think we could be able to combine forces to enable GPT booting. I have also interests in booting a GPT drive through Dell UEFI and have successfully managed to mod (part of) the Del UEFI bios. Dropped you a PM to discuss further as it is a bit OT to this thread. We will revert with the full BIOS when finished!
Thanks
Julian
jbaribeault
1 Message
0
September 19th, 2012 17:00
Which modules did you modify, and with what tools? I really need to enable GPT boot and would love to use my laptop to do EFI research.
msemenov
2 Posts
0
September 26th, 2012 02:00
Hi Julian
Sorry for late response.
First of all my notebook is not L502x, but it doesn't really matter since Phoenix UEFIs are similar even on different laptop brands, I did my home work.
My story is special - I didn't have "UEFI Boot" in Advanced form-set(OilSetupAdvancedDxe.efi), since it was OEM form-set, and I replaced it with original one (PlatformSetupAdvancedDxe.efi) since it was in Firmware volume. It was done by modifying one item in GUIDs array of "SystemFormBrowser2Dxe.efi" module to load new formset.
Tools used:
• phoenixtool.
• manual IFR form decoding
• EDK_TOOLS
• dumpbin (vs2010)
• AID
My motivation was - native UEFI boot of MAC OS X, I'm still working on it
Regards
Mikhail
jkbuha
2 Posts
0
September 26th, 2012 06:00
Thanks msemenov. Sent you a PM as this is slightly offtopic - and I want to make sure we don't violate any board rules.