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Make sure SecureBoot is disabled, if you’re running a UEFI-based Latitude. Other steps also required, described on this page and in the README.html file included with dell-flash-unlock.

Before internal flashing, you must first disable /dev/mem protections. Make sure to re-enable them after you’re finished.

See: Disabling /dev/mem protection

You can simply boot Linux/BSD, on the Dell Latitude you wish to flash, and run flashprog from there, for Libreboot installation. Certain other steps are also required, documented in the steps below:

You can flash Libreboot directly from the vendor (Dell) BIOS, without taking the machine apart. It can be done entirely from Linux/BSD.

NOTE (15 October 2023): The util is now called dell-flash-unlock, but it was previously called e6400-flash-unlock. Links have been updated.

Check util/dell-flash-unlock in the lbmk.git repository, or in release archives for Libreboot releases from 20230423 onwards.

Go in there:

cd util/dell-flash-unlock
make

With this program, you can unlock the flash in such a way where everything is writeable. Information about how to use it is in the README.html file which is included in that program’s directory, or you can read it online here:

https://browse.libreboot.org/lbmk.git/plain/util/dell-flash-unlock/README.md

Please make sure that you do fully read the README, because it contains useful information.

Literally just run that program, and do what it says. You run it once, and shut down, and when you do, the system brings itself back up automatically; on some systems, you have to boot the machine back up manually, after power down. Then you run it and flash it unlocked. Then you run it again. The source code is intuitive enough that you can easily get the gist of it; it’s writing some EC commands and changing some chipset config bits. The EC on this machine is hooked up to the GPIO33 signal, sometimes called HDA_DOCK_EN, which sets the flash descriptor override thus disabling any flash protection by the IFD. It also bypasses the SMM BIOS lock protection by disabling SMIs, and Dell’s BIOS doesn’t set any other type of protection either such as writing to Protected Range registers.

MAKE SURE to back up the original firmware image first:

flashprog -p internal -r factory.rom

When you flash it, you can use this command:

flashprog -p internal -w libreboot.rom

Where libreboot.rom is your Dell Latitude ROM. Make sure it’s the right one. If flashprog complains about multiple flash chips detected, just pick one of them (doesn’t matter which one). On most Dell machines, the most correct would probably be this option in flashprog: -c MX25L3205D/MX25L3208D.

So:

flashprog -p internal -w libreboot.rom -c MX25L3205D/MX25L3208D

When you see flashprog say VERIFIED at the end, that means the flash was successful. If you don’t see that, or you’re unsure, please contact the Libreboot project via IRC.

Markdown file for this page: https://libreboot.org/docs/install/dell_internal.md

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