[ale] Sunday 05-22-05 6PM RUN-AS-ROOT CHALLENGE

[Jim Popovitch]

On Thu, 2005-05-19 at 15:46 -0400, Geoffrey wrote:
> >>Re-flashing the BIOS is minor to rebuilding past work.
> > 
> How do you flash the bios to start with?  You must boot the machine, 
> usually from a floppy.  Before you get there, the bios has to run.

You pull the chip out and put in a new one.  One hour tops if you
_don't_ know what you are doing and have the new chip in hand.
Seriously, you are trying to make this a bigger thing than it is.

> If you reload the bios with your a piece of code that does not look at 
> the floppy to boot, or anything else for that matter, tell me how you 
> plan to flash the bios?

Personally I would just call IBM and have them do it under warranty
(they do that as a standard service).  If you wanted to do it yourself
there are a TON of bios providers that will fedex you a replacement bios
overnight.

> If the bios chip is removable, you can pull it and reprogram it with a 
> stand alone bios flasher, but how many people have one?  (I do)

I don't, nor do I rebuild my carburetor, fix my TV, etc.

> 
> Have you ever burned a rom or eprom?  Have you written assembler?  

Yes, exactly 20 years ago on CPM based systems no less.

> Then you should know that you can write more then just vendor bios code to 
> the chip.
> 
> If the chip is not removable, there is the slight possibility you can 
> wire directly to the mb and flash it, but again, you need a device to do 
> that.
> 
> How do you get the computer to flash itself when you never get out of 
> the bios and the bios does not see any boot devices?

:rolleyes:

-Jim P.