Extraction of vga bios from .BIN file?

[Eric Poulsen]

I've downloaded the 1.13 version of the Epia Via BIOS, which should
solve my VGA issues. Thing is, I can't seem to find a valid VGA BIOS
within this file -- Is there a magic trick to extracting this?

Bios file:
http://www.via.com.tw/download/mainboards/1/0/i0100113.bin

[Christian Sühs]

Post by Eric Poulsen
I've downloaded the 1.13 version of the Epia Via BIOS, which should
solve my VGA issues. Thing is, I can't seem to find a valid VGA BIOS
within this file -- Is there a magic trick to extracting this?
http://www.via.com.tw/download/mainboards/1/0/i0100113.bin

There are a lot of tools to do this.
search for "awardeco" for linux
or awardedit, cbrom, ie for DOS, Windoof

[Richard Smith]

Post by Eric Poulsen
I've downloaded the 1.13 version of the Epia Via BIOS, which should
solve my VGA issues. Thing is, I can't seem to find a valid VGA BIOS
within this file -- Is there a magic trick to extracting this?
http://www.via.com.tw/download/mainboards/1/0/i0100113.bin

A lot of times the factory bios stuff is compressed.

You will probally have to boot under factory and use dd to extract.
Somewhere there were some tools for various mfgs that would extract
the image. Check the archives. If you find one for via then we
should list them on the wiki.

--
Richard A. Smith

[Borg No. One]

Hi.


The VIA EPIA BIOS is an Award/Phoenix Award BIOS, so it contains lh5/lha
compressed modules.
With a hex editor and/or lha/lh5 unpacker you can extract the VGABIOS from
the VIA EPIA BIOS file.

Using "CBROM"/"CBROM32"/"Award BIOS Editor"/..., you can see that the BIOS
file contains following BIOS modules:


CBROM32 V1.45 [08/03/04 Release] (C)Phoenix Technologies 2001-2004

******** i0100113.bin BIOS component ********

No. Item-Name Original-Size Compressed-Size Original-File-Name
=========================================================================
0. System BIOS 20000h(128.00K) 12B3Fh(74.81K) i0100113.BIN
1. XGROUP CODE 0ACE0h(43.22K) 079D2h(30.46K) awardext.rom
2. ACPI table 030B9h(12.18K) 01408h(5.01K) ACPITBL.BIN
3. EPA LOGO 0168Ch(5.64K) 002AAh(0.67K) AwardBmp.bmp
4. GROUP ROM[ 0] 054D0h(21.20K) 025DEh(9.47K) _EN_CODE.BIN
5. YGROUP ROM 04AA0h(18.66K) 031DFh(12.47K) awardeyt.rom
6. LOGO BitMap 4B30Ch(300.76K) 02ECBh(11.70K) vpsd.bmp
7. VGA ROM[1] 0FA00h(62.50K) 0947Ah(37.12K) MVPSD_15.rom
8. PCI ROM[A] 0A000h(40.00K) 05FF2h(23.99K) pxe.lom

Total compress code space = 35000h(212.00K)
Total compressed code size = 336B7h(205.68K)
Remain compress code space = 01949h(6.32K)

** Micro Code Information **
Update ID CPUID| Update ID CPUID| Update ID CPUID| Update ID CPUID
----------------+------------------+------------------+------------------
SLOT1 13 0630|


If you should use "CBROM", then just use following command to extract the
VGA BIOS:

"CBROM i0100113.bin /VGA extract"



PS:
... the VIA EPIA has a nice BIOS logo. ;)

http://bnobtc.pix-art.com/images/bioslogo
-->
via_vpsd.png

Post by Eric Poulsen
I've downloaded the 1.13 version of the Epia Via BIOS, which should
solve my VGA issues. Thing is, I can't seem to find a valid VGA BIOS
within this file -- Is there a magic trick to extracting this?
http://www.via.com.tw/download/mainboards/1/0/i0100113.bin

[Eric Poulsen]

Okay,

I tried awardeco, and it DOES NOT list the VGA ROM, but CBROM (under the
"dosbox" emulator) worked well.

Only one thing -- the extracted VGA ROM is _exactly_ 64000 bytes
(instead of 65536) -- do I need to pad it out (with zeros?) before
concatenating it with LinuxBIOS to achieve the final burnable image?

Post by Borg No. One
Hi.
The VIA EPIA BIOS is an Award/Phoenix Award BIOS, so it contains lh5/lha
compressed modules.
With a hex editor and/or lha/lh5 unpacker you can extract the VGABIOS from
the VIA EPIA BIOS file.
Using "CBROM"/"CBROM32"/"Award BIOS Editor"/..., you can see that the BIOS
CBROM32 V1.45 [08/03/04 Release] (C)Phoenix Technologies 2001-2004
******** i0100113.bin BIOS component ********
No. Item-Name Original-Size Compressed-Size Original-File-Name
=========================================================================
0. System BIOS 20000h(128.00K) 12B3Fh(74.81K) i0100113.BIN
1. XGROUP CODE 0ACE0h(43.22K) 079D2h(30.46K) awardext.rom
2. ACPI table 030B9h(12.18K) 01408h(5.01K) ACPITBL.BIN
3. EPA LOGO 0168Ch(5.64K) 002AAh(0.67K) AwardBmp.bmp
4. GROUP ROM[ 0] 054D0h(21.20K) 025DEh(9.47K) _EN_CODE.BIN
5. YGROUP ROM 04AA0h(18.66K) 031DFh(12.47K) awardeyt.rom
6. LOGO BitMap 4B30Ch(300.76K) 02ECBh(11.70K) vpsd.bmp
7. VGA ROM[1] 0FA00h(62.50K) 0947Ah(37.12K) MVPSD_15.rom
8. PCI ROM[A] 0A000h(40.00K) 05FF2h(23.99K) pxe.lom
Total compress code space = 35000h(212.00K)
Total compressed code size = 336B7h(205.68K)
Remain compress code space = 01949h(6.32K)
** Micro Code Information **
Update ID CPUID| Update ID CPUID| Update ID CPUID| Update ID CPUID
----------------+------------------+------------------+------------------
SLOT1 13 0630|
If you should use "CBROM", then just use following command to extract the
"CBROM i0100113.bin /VGA extract"
... the VIA EPIA has a nice BIOS logo. ;)
http://bnobtc.pix-art.com/images/bioslogo
-->
via_vpsd.png

Post by Eric Poulsen
I've downloaded the 1.13 version of the Epia Via BIOS, which should
solve my VGA issues. Thing is, I can't seem to find a valid VGA BIOS
within this file -- Is there a magic trick to extracting this?
http://www.via.com.tw/download/mainboards/1/0/i0100113.bin

[Richard Smith]

Post by Eric Poulsen
Okay,
I tried awardeco, and it DOES NOT list the VGA ROM, but CBROM (under the
"dosbox" emulator) worked well.

Please keep track of your procedure, what tools worked and didn't
work, where you got them from, etc so we can put it on the wiki.

Post by Eric Poulsen
Only one thing -- the extracted VGA ROM is _exactly_ 64000 bytes
(instead of 65536) -- do I need to pad it out (with zeros?) before
concatenating it with LinuxBIOS to achieve the final burnable image?

Yes. dd can snap it to the right size for you. You could also tweak
your ROM_SIZE to make it match.

--
Richard A. Smith

[Eric Poulsen]

Post by Richard Smith

Post by Eric Poulsen
Okay,
I tried awardeco, and it DOES NOT list the VGA ROM, but CBROM (under the
"dosbox" emulator) worked well.

Please keep track of your procedure, what tools worked and didn't
work, where you got them from, etc so we can put it on the wiki.

I've done a LOT of things, but they mostly didn't work =)

When this is all over, I'll write up a set of instructions, and follow
them from a clean install to see if I've got it all down.

Post by Richard Smith

Post by Eric Poulsen
Only one thing -- the extracted VGA ROM is _exactly_ 64000 bytes
(instead of 65536) -- do I need to pad it out (with zeros?) before
concatenating it with LinuxBIOS to achieve the final burnable image?

Yes. dd can snap it to the right size for you. You could also tweak
your ROM_SIZE to make it match.

I've got the VGA extracted -- I'll burn it tonight and see what happens.

Assumedly:

dd if=vga.bios.bin of=vga.bios.bin.padded bs=65536 count=1 conv=sync

Post by Richard Smith
--
Richard A. Smith

[Richard Smith]

Post by Eric Poulsen

Post by Richard Smith
Please keep track of your procedure, what tools worked and didn't
work, where you got them from, etc so we can put it on the wiki.

I've done a LOT of things, but they mostly didn't work =)

:)

Post by Eric Poulsen
When this is all over, I'll write up a set of instructions, and follow
them from a clean install to see if I've got it all down.

Thanks.

Post by Eric Poulsen
dd if=vga.bios.bin of=vga.bios.bin.padded bs=65536 count=1 conv=sync

yep. Thats it.

--
Richard A. Smith