Nano Bios Programmer Software Hit
Saija Grzegorek
I recently bought a NANO USB BIOS Chip programmer off of Ebay - a USB with a PLCC-32 socket on it - that is able to program those old PLCC-32 BIOS chips. The product had lots of positive feedbacks with 1k+ units sold. With it, came a link to download the program and the driver. I've flashed many chips with no problems at all. But since the site ( ) was a bit sketchy, I decided to upload the executable file on VirusTotal, which gave me "45/72 vendors reported this as malicious" (here's the full report: ). My antivirus didn't flag the program as malicious, not even Windows Defender or MRT. So, is this malware or not?
I ordered a couple Aladdin modchips off of Amazon in mid July for my 1.6 xboxes. I received them and got them installed, then noticed that it wouldn't flash. Normally that wouldn't be a problem except I had a 1TB drive and I planned to run these without the DVD drive hooked up (I have 2 working optical drives and 7 xboxes) so I needed the nodvd bios. After searching around someone mentioned the NANO USB Programmer being able to write to these chips. I found one on ebay and had it shipped from S. Korea. Anyway, a few weeks later and it finally arrived! The drivers/software for it are sketch AF, so I built a Windows 10 VM and installed it all there. After the initial setup, it takes seconds to flash a new image to these things. I should mention that these are seen as SST49LF002A on the programmer and are NOT the 49LF020A as etched into the board (but we know that by now). I may do an idiots guide/tutorial for this method. I hope we eventually start getting the correct chips in the Aladdin boards that are cheap, but until then, I will just externally flash.
Yes, there are bootable Xbox Linux discs created to perform one function - flash a BIOS file. No GUI. They autorun a shell script to perform a set list of operations. It uses the Linux application raincoat, a BIOS flashing program, to flash the file bios.bin to the modchip/TSOP.
When you boot the disc, you see all the Linux startup lines scroll by then after a short time, the DVD tray ejects waiting for the user to load a BIOS disc. It waits a minute then closes the tray to read the disc. If the file bios.bin is found on it, raincoat flashes the file to the modchip/TSOP. I believe it then ejects the tray for the user to remove the disc, waits a minute, closes the tray then powers off the console.
Thanks for your help with this so far @KaosEngineer. I got that Nano USB flasher today and tried to write the crcwell.bin to a SST49LF080A chip but the xbox frags and tries to boot 3 times then stays on after the 3rd boot but nothing happens. My guess is that I've written a 256 bin file to a 1mb bios and the xbox is not access the right address for it to boot?
Any idea how to get the crcwell.bin or any other 256 bios to work with the SST49LF080A or is there way to put more than one bios on it? Reading more on this, I may also need to reprogram the CPLD on the Aladdin XT to handle 1mb bios
I got OGXBox Bios Flasher Disc v1.1.0, placed bios.bin in c:/bios/ and booted Xblast OS from the flasher disc, choose HDD flash, it then says confirm flash active bank? Hold RT, LT, Start and White to confirm. I do this few times and eventually xbox just reboots. Any ideas!!!
To make an Aladdin XBlast hybrid modchip that uses an SST49LF080A, you have to reprogram the Lattice CPLD chip (using a JTAG programmer) and replace the flash memory chip with the preprogrammed part you mention.
Edit 3: To preprogram the SST49LF080A, you need the external programmer previously mentioned. Or, have an already working Aladdin XBlast hybrid modchip that you can hotswap modchips or remove and socket a new SST49LF080A into the modchip to program the new device in the Xbox.
To make an Aladdin XBlast hybrid modchip that uses an SST49LF080A, you have to reprogram the Lattice CPLD chip (using a JTAG programmer) and replace the flash memory chip with the part you mention.
Thanks for your reply, I can get hold of both SST49LF020A and SST49LF080A. I've also got few jtag and epprom programmers. If I get the SST49LF020A can I just my eppprom pgorammer to flash the bios directly onto it?
Thanks for all the replies, I now know where I stand but it clear that to program an SST49LF020A or even SST49LF080A I need a decent EPROM programmer like TOP3000 or similar which sells for a nearly 120.00. So I'm just going to continue with the openxenium for now. Its shaem though as openxium doesn't seem to work with some of the 1.0 boards and console keep fragging when trying to boot xblast bios from openxenium.
Thanks for all the replies, I now know where I stand but it clear that to program an SST49LF020A or even SST49LF080A I need a decent EPROM programmer like TOP3000 or similar which sells for a nearly 120.00.
So I'm just going to continue with the openxenium for now. Its shaem though as openxium doesn't seem to work with some of the 1.0 boards and console keep fragging when trying to boot xblast bios from openxenium.
Update: @KaosEngineerusing the copy /b crcwell.bin+crcwell.bin+crcwell.bin+crcwell.bin crcwell1MB.bin you suggested has worked. I wrote the new 1MB bios to the SST49LF080A and the xbox booted XBlast OS.
During this installation, I heard the board automatically disconnecting and re-connecting to my host PC, which immediately led to the error printed above. I repeated the process but from the command line sudo ./flash.sh jetson-nano-devkit mmcblk1p1 outputting the following:
You need to compile it (easiest would be using Atmel studio). Then load it onto the arduino with a In-Circuit-Programmer (or you can reprogram one of your arduino's and use that as a programmer to program this one).
I know you want to use the Nano because you have it in front of you and want to get going. But, don't forget you cannot connect over the onboard usb using V-USB. The onboard usb connector from a nano goes through a serial converter chip and only supports Serial Communication. V-Usb runs on 2 digital IO's where it "emulates" usb. So you need to solder on a usb cable/connector and some resistors and diodes before you can start using it. (check the schematic on that site)
There is no difference between the Nano and Mega, when it comes to the USB part. Both don't support native USB (nano uses a FT232 converter, The Mega R3 uses a Atmega16u2) to send serial communication over USB, thus both require V-USB if you want to make a HID out of them. :D
2. Make sure the chip is socket mounted not soldered to the board. If you have a soldered chip you will have to use another bios recovery service and send your whole motherboard. To keep shipping costs low , we just require the chip. See picture below
flashrom is a utility for identifying, reading, writing, verifying and erasing flash chips. It is designed to flash BIOS/EFI/coreboot/firmware/optionROM images on mainboards, network/graphics/storage controller cards, and various other programmer devices.
You could try searching the corrupt bios save file for the computer serial number that was missing in the clean dump you used to unbrick. if located, modify the clean dump by inserting the serial into the exact hex position via overwrite in a hex editor like hexd or something. that works on mac for the same process.
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