cors

This is continuation of this thread (http://forum.techinferno.com/lenovo-ibm/2690-lenovo-y500-unlocked-bios.html) with all the necessary information in the first post in order to make it easier to find all the stuff.

Lenovo Y400 / Y500 - 'unlocked' BIOS / wwan-wlan whitelist removal

NOTE: The Y400 and Y500 use the same BIOS, so even if the files are named "Y500", you're save to use it on your Y400.

The Lenovo Y500 comes with a pretty locked down BIOS, and in addition to this with a whitelist which prevents the user from getting 3rd-party wwan/wlan cards to work properly. The modified BIOS versions here will take care of this. Keep in mind that not necessarily all options available in the modified bios will work. Some might not do anything at all, others could possibly leave your system in a state which will prevent it from booting. Use care when changing stuff in the modified bios, don't touch things you're not familiar with. Use all the mods and software posted here on your own risk. Read the instructions carefully.

NOTE: This will only flash the bios region. It won't reset the nvars set in the bios.

ONLY FLASH A MOD OF THE SAME VERSION AS YOUR CURRENT BIOS VERSION!!!

Attached you'll find modified versions of the Y400 / Y500 BIOS v1.03 and v1.05.

The bios contains your Windows 8 license, therefore you can't just flash any file, else you'll have issue with your Windows activation. Furthermore the serial numbers, service tags etc. are stored there as well. You don't want to loose them.

I wrote a little program that will take care of this issue and personalize the modified bios for you, so that you won't end up with an invalid Windows or no service tags.

Instructions:

• Prepare an USB stick which can boot DOS. If you don't know how to do this, follow this short guide:
  

  
  Guide by @StamatisX - thanks!
  
  

  
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• Download the flash tool, for flashing you'll need the DOS version, but for creating the backup of your current BIOS the Win64 version will do as well, and it is faster. Get the prr tool as well.
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• Grab the modified BIOS you want to flash and the Y500BiosFix tool.
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• Create a backup of your current BIOS using the flash tool you downloaded (first step) by runing the included backup.bat, or by using the Win or Dos version flash tool with this command:

  -d BackupBiosY500.bin -bios

  
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• Make sure you have the modified bios which you want to flash, the bios backup you just created and the Y500BiosFix tool in the same folder. Run the Y500BiosFix tool, follow the instructions on the screen. Make sure to enter the name of the files correctly. It will create a new file for you and will be named after the modified bios file you specified, with 'Fix' appended to it.
  

  
  Here's a screenshot of the tool in use. In the case shown here it will create a file called "modifiedBiosFix.bin" which you can find in the folder where you run the tool. Use that one for flashing.
  [ATTACH=CONFIG]5938[/ATTACH]

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  ..
  

• Put the fixed BIOS, the prr.exe tool and the fpt.exe (along with the fparts.txt file) on the root of your prepared DOS bootable USB drive, restart your system and boot from that drive.
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• Execut the prr.exe, if you don't get an error message continue by pressing enter. Then flash the bios by using this command (filename.bin obviously needs to be replaced with the name of the file you want to flash). If you can't remember the name of your file, use the command dir to display all the files on your drive. Flash with this:

  fpt.exe -f filename.bin -bios

  
  NOTE: The name of the BIOS file mustn't exceed eight characters (not counting the extension)! That's a DOS limit, so make sure the name of your file isn't too long.
  Wait until the process is done. After flashing it will verify the data, in case there's something wrong with the flashed data it will tell you. In that case don't reboot, just flash again.
  

It might look a bit complicated at first, but that's the easiest way I could think of. Let me know if anything is unclear.

>> Here's the 'buy me a beer' link in case you like this <<

Use at your own risk, you are responsible for your system and the changes you make on it. My programs come with absolutely no warranty to the extent permitted by applicable law.

i can't install new wifi(n6300) card on y500, can you help me?

how to download Lenovo_Y500_BIOS_v1.05_Mod.zip (2.19 MB, 123 views)

thanks!