Hardware Flashing with Raspberry Pi

Note: This method is under construction, and still needs to be tested on other hardware than the T60.

Raspberry Pi (ThinkPad X60/T60 and Macbook 2,1)

The Raspberry Pi (a multipurpose $25 Linux computer) can be used as a BIOS flashing tool, thanks to its GPIO pins and SPI support.

Disassembling the ThinkPad

Follow the X60 Hardware Maintenance Manual or T60 Hardware Maintenance Manual to disassemble the laptop, until you can access the BIOS chip.

For photos, follow the Libreboot T60 Recovery Guide.

• On the X60, the BIOS chip is on the bottom of the motherboard, under a layer of protective black tape.
• On the T60, the BIOS chip is just under the palmrest, but blocked by a magnesium frame (which you will have to remove).

Pomona Clip Pinout

Diagram of the 26 GPIO Pins of the Raspberry Pi Model B (for the Model B+ with 40 pins, start counting from the right and leave 14 pins):

 8-pin for X60:

~~~~ LCD (Front) ~~~~
        8765
        ----
        |  |
        ----
        1234
~~~ Palmrest (back) ~~

Pin #	SPI Pin Name	BP (Seeed)	BP (Spkfun)	Beagleboard Black	Raspberry Pi
1	CS	White	Red	Pin 17	24
2	MISO	Black	Brown	Pin 21	21
3	not used	not used	not used	not used	not used
4	GND	Brown	Black	Pin 1	25
5	MOSI	Gray	Orange	Pin 18	19
6	CLK	Purple	Yellow	Pin 22	23
7	not used	not used	not used	not used	not used
8	3.3V	red	White	3.3V PSU RED	17

Make sure the pinouts are correct; otherwise, Flashrom will fail to detect a chip, or it will "detect" a 0x0 chip. Finally, make sure that the Pomona clip makes contact with the metal wires of the chip. It can be a challenge, but keep trying.

How to supply power to the flashchip

There are two ways to supply power to the chip: plugging in an AC adapter (without turning the laptop on), and using the 8th 3.3v pin.

I have found that the SST chips work best with the 8th pin, while the Macronix chips require an AC Adapter to power up.

Never connect both the 8th pin and the AC adapter at the same time.

Your results may vary.

Reading the Flashchip

First, visually inspect (with a magnifying glass) the type of flashchip on the motherboard.

Next, download and compile the latest Flashrom source code on the Raspberry Pi.

sudo apt-get install build-essential pciutils usbutils libpci-dev libusb-dev libusb-1.0-0 libusb-1.0-0-dev libftdi1 libftdi-dev zlib1g-dev subversion
svn co https://code.coreboot.org/svn/flashrom/trunk flashrom
cd flashrom
make
sudo modprobe spi_bcm2708
sudo modprobe spidev

If your chip is an SST, run this command:

sudo ./flashrom -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev0.0 -r test.rom

If your chip is a Macronix, run this command:

sudo ./flashrom -c "MX25L1605" -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev0.0 -r test.rom

Next, check the md5sum of the dump:

md5sum test.rom

Run the flashrom command again to make a second dump. Then, check the md5sum of the second dump:

md5sum test.rom

If the md5sums match after three tries, flashrom has managed to read the flashchip precisely (but not always accurately). You may try and flash Libreboot now.

Flashing Libreboot

Note: replace /path/to/libreboot.rom with the location of your chosen ROM, such as ../bin/x60/libreboot_usqwerty.rom):

If your chip is an SST, run this command:

sudo ./flashrom -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev0.0 -w /path/to/libreboot.rom

If your chip is a Macronix, run this command:

sudo ./flashrom -c "MX25L1605" -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev0.0 -w /path/to/libreboot.rom

Once that command outputs the following, the flash has completed successfully. If not, just flash again.

Reading old flash chip contents... done.
Erasing and writing flash chip... Erase/write done.
Verifying flash... VERIFIED.

Sources

• Scruss - Simple ADC with the Raspberry Pi
• Flashing coreboot on a T60 with a Raspberry Pi - the_unconventional's blog
• Pomona SOIC Clip flashing
  • Arch Linux Wiki - Installing Arch Linux on Chromebook
  • Google Drive - Raspberry Pi SOIC Clip connection
  • rPI with Flashrom and SOIC Clip Powerpoint

Raspberry Pi Pinout Diagrams

MCP	3008 Pin	Pi GPIO Pin #	Pi Pin Name
16	VDD	1	3.3 V
15	VREF	1	3.3 V
14	AGND	6	GND
13	CLK	23	GPIO11 SPI0_SCLK
12	DOUT	21	GPIO09 SPI0_MISO
11	DIN	19	GPIO10 SPI0_MOSI
10	CS	24	GPIO08 CE0
9	DGND	6	GND

• Source: Perl & Raspberry Pi - Raspberry Pi GPIO Pinout

Raspberry Pi (ThinkPad X200)

Requirements:

• An x86, x86_64, or arm7l (for changing the libreboot.rom image mac address)
• Raspberry Pi and peripherals
• Relevant SOIC clip
• 6 female - female jumpers
• Internet connection
• Screw drivers

Follow the ThinkPad X200: Initial installation guide to disassemble the laptop, and access the BIOS rom chip.

Note: x86# refers to commands to be run on the x86 computer, and pi# refers to commands to be run on the pi. A good practice is to make a work directory to keep your libreboot stuff inside.

x86# mkdir ~/work

Download NOOBS from The Raspberry Pi Foundation. Torrent download recommended, and remember to seed. :)

Download Libreboot from their releases page. For your safety, verify the GPG signature as well.

x86# gpg --keyserver prefered.keyserver.org --recv-keys 0x656F212E

x86# for signature in $(ls *.sig); do gpg --verify $signature; done

Extract NOOBS and libreboot.

x86# mkdir ~/work/noobs

x86# unzip ~/Downloads/NOOBS_v1_4_1.zip -d ~/work/noobs/

x86# cd ~/work && tar -xvJf ~/Downloads/libreboot_bin.tar.xz

Install Noobs to your fat32 formatted SD card

x86# cp -R ~/work/noobs/* /path/to/mounted/SDcard/

Set up NOOBS on Raspberry Pi

Plug in the NOOBs SDCard to your Raspberry Pi, and enable the following under 'Advanced Options':

SSH server

SPI

I2C

On first boot

pi# sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade && reboot

On second boot

pi# sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install libftdi1 libftdi-dev libusb-dev libpci-dev subversion

Other dependencies that should already be installed with the noobs base install include:

pciutils, zlib, libusb, build-essential

If they are missing then install them.

Download and build flashrom.

pi# svn co svn://flashrom.org/flashrom/trunk ~/flashrom

pi# cd ~/flashrom

pi# make

pi# sudo make install

On your x86 box change the libreboot.rom mac address

x86# cd ~/work/libreboot_bin/

Change the mac address on the libreboot images to match yours.

x86# ./ich9macchange XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

Move the libreboot.rom image over to your pi

x86# scp ~/work/libreboot_bin/<path_to_your_bin> pi@your.pi.address:~/flashrom/libreboot.rom

Shutdown your pi, write down your rom chip model, and wire up the clip

pi# sudo shutdown now -hP

Chip model name

Pinout. You may want to download the image so you can zoom in on the text.

Pin #	SPI Pin Name	Raspberry Pi Pin #
1	not used	not used
2	3.3V	1
3	not used	not used
4	not used	not used
5	not used	not used
6	not used	not used
7	CS#	24
8	S0/SIO1	21
9	not used	not used
10	GND	25
11	not used	not used
12	not used	not used
13	not used	not used
14	not used	not used
15	S1/SIO0	19
16	SCLK	23

Note: The raspberry pi 3.3V rail should be sufficient to power the chip during flashing, so no external power supply should be required; however, at the time of writing that has only been tested and confirmed for one chip, the MX25L6405D.

Macronix Spec sheet so you can adjust your pinout for 8 pin 4Mb chips as necessary

At this point connect your SOIC clip to the rom chip before powering on your PI.

Power on your Pi, and run the following. Ensure you swap out "your_chip_name" with the proper name/model of your chip. Check that it can be read successfully. If you cannot read the chip and receive an error similar to "no EEPROM Detected" or "0x0 Chip detected" then you may want to try powering off your PI, and switching the two pins which are connected to the IO ports. I.E. Connect pins (clip)8 to (pi)19 and pins (clip)15 to (pi)21

pi# cd ~/flashrom

pi# ./flashrom -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev0.0,spispeed=512 --chip <your_chip_name> -r romread1.rom

pi# ./flashrom -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev0.0,spispeed=512 --chip <your_chip_name> -r romread2.rom

pi# ./flashrom -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev0.0,spispeed=512 --chip <your_chip_name> -r romread3.rom

pi# sha512sum romread*.rom

If they are identical sha512 hashes then you can generally assume that it's safe to flash your rom.

pi# ./flashrom -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev0.0,spispeed=512 --chip <your_chip_name> -w libreboot.rom

It may fail a couple times, but keep at it and when you get the message Verifying flash... Verified or Warning: Chip content is identical to the requested image then you're done.

Shut down your pi, put your box back together, and install a libre OS for great good!

Raspberry Pi (C720 Chromebook)

The Raspberry Pi (a multipurpose $25 Linux computer) can be used as a BIOS flashing tool, thanks to its GPIO pins and SPI support.

What you need

• $25 - Raspberry Pi Model B (Rev.2 or higher)
• $10-20 - SOIC-8 Pomona Clip
  • Usually comes bundled with nice, color-colored female to female wires

Raspberry Pi Pinouts

GPIO Pinouts:

*Diagram made by "Pacman" from Win-Raid Forums*

SOIC Pinouts:

Plugging in the SOIC Clip

We have to connect the Raspberry Pi to the SOIC Clip as shown in the below diagram (using the f-f wires usually included with the Pomona clip).

(C720 Only?) The diagram depicts a "bridged" connection. You will need to fashion one with some copper wire:

Plug in the wires to the clip as shown below:

Plug in the other end of the wires to the Raspberry Pi as shown below:

(C720 only?) Plug in the "bridged" wires as shown below:

Finally, put the Pomona SOIC clip on the chip:

Flashrom

Once it's all set up, flashrom works out of the box.

Sources

• Pomona SOIC Clip flashing
  • Arch Linux Wiki - Installing Arch Linux on Chromebook
  • Google Drive - Raspberry Pi SOIC Clip connection
  • rPI with Flashrom and SOIC Clip Powerpoint
  • Tnhh - Unbricking Chromebook with Beaglebone
• Use a DIY DIP System to flash an desoldered BIOS chip
  • Viktak - How to recover laptop after failed BIOS flash
  • Win-Raid - Recover from Failed BIOS Flashing using Raspberry Pi