[flashrom] Support for HP Compaq 6820s laptop

[Andrew Goodbody]

On 10/07/2010 15:39, apricot053 at gmail.com wrote:
> Hello Andrew,
>
> In my case it contains what seems to be a windows dll (begins with MZ and
> contains "This program cannot be run in DOS mode etc..."), doesn't look like a
> bootblock. I found out that it could somehow be linked with slic 2.1, a
> feature used to transparently validate Windows on OEMs. Sorry no jumper in
> sight on my laptop. But HP flash upgrades (and doesn't downgrade) that zone
> indeed.
> Anyway not reflashing that zone doesn't seem do make any problem when flashing
> another bios version.
> Thanks for your interest.
>
> Best regards,
> Julius

Well it contains the boot vector at ffff:0 and if you can update the 
BIOS without updating that section then it IS a bootblock of some sort, 
or at least part of it is, but it may not contain recovery code which 
may be why it is allowed to be updated. It may however contain other 
things that do not want or need to change on a BIOS update and this may 
include the data used to implement SLIC (which has to be loaded into an 
ACPI table). For certain it has to know how to find the entry point to 
the main BIOS which may not be the same as the one it was built for, 
although if that is a fixed point then there is no magic.
The MZ header etc just reflects that that part was built with tools 
normally used for creating Windows executables, not what sort of content 
it actually is.

Andrew