writing AMIBIOS "modules"

ollopa · Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 1:01 am Post subject: writing AMIBIOS "modules"

Hey everybody, I'm working with an AMI BIOS. I want to add a small routine that initializes some hardware after POST.

I see that I can use mmtool to insert "modules" into the BIOS.

Is this the appropriate way to add my routine? Does anybody know the layout of these modules? They appear to have a common header at the beginning and I am assuming a checksum in the beginning following the F0 F6 50 97 header.

The beginning of the module does not appear to be the entry point for code execution and I have yet to figure out how to determine the location of the entry point. I don't know if the entry point is static or if it is pointed to by a field somewhere in the header of the module file.

Any information at all about these AMI modules would be greatly appreciated, even if its just to tell me you agree with me or not.
Thanks!

maman · Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 2:59 pm Post subject:

AMI BIOS modules are compressed using LZH algorithm, much like Award BIOS modules. However, the header of the modules is in a propietary format. Ofcourse the header is not the same as Award BIOS modules which I explain here.
Reverse engineer the bootblock is you want to know more about it Wink

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ollopa · Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 4:30 pm Post subject:

mmtools has the option of extracting modules uncompessed. Are you saying that even after this the module is compressed? It doesn't seem to be, as there are strings of english text in the uncompressed modules.

I should add that this is for the AMIBIOS8 BIOS.