CODEWITHSUNDEEP
assemblybios
muhammad kashif
muhammad kashif

Reputation: 2624

Programming in BIOS

I am a C# developer and mostly work with web.

Here is what I want: I want to create a routine that runs directly on the machine (independent of OS) so that if I reinstall the OS then my routine is still there.

Basically I want to create an anti theft system . that routine will get the gps location of the laptop and will send it to a specific email.

I think it can only be done in BIOS level programming but I am not finding the first step.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1340

Answers (1)

Flexo - Save the data dump
Flexo - Save the data dump

Reputation: 88801

Traditional PC BIOS vendors go to lengths to keep their assets secret. This makes BIOS level programming exceedingly hard. It's specific to the vendor of the BIOS, the specific build for the specific hardware it runs on and you'll be patching binaries to inject your code.

Motherboards which have two (or more) EEPROMs for the BIOS make work like this possible for not much cash outlay - it makes sure if you mess things up you still have a way of booting and re-flashing the image you broke.

Coreboot is a free software alternative that aims to cut traditional closed BIOS vendors out of the boot process. It's extensible (very little ASM) and open source which makes it a good place to start looking if you want to develop BIOS extensions.

EFI on newer hardware changes the picture quite significantly too. You could present your software as an EFI extension on an internal USB device for example.

Upvotes: 4

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