Thinkpads Forum

Hi guys,

I'm new here, 1st post, and I just got a T60 2 days ago. I'd like to change the BIOS boot splash for security reasons. I saw in the wallpapers section there is a guide to do it for earlier models, but the T60 was not included. I did not update the BIOS to 1.07 yet, but I did download the bootable CD ISO. I unpacked it and inside it looks like there is a tool to let you use your own image, provided it as a bmp and less than 10k. The 'instructions' are in the readme text file in the iso. I'm wondering if anyone has tried this, as I found the instuctions to be a bit vague. If anyone has, or has a better idea of what they are doing with it please let me know.

Thanks,
Matt Macenka

by using nero or some other burning software, burn the iso image to a CD. Do not burn the extracted files or the iso file itself. If you are using nero burning software, go to the "recorder menu" then choose "burn image" and navigate to find the bootable bios image, which is the iso file you have downloaded. Restart your computer, go to the BIOS and set the bios so that your computer will boot from the CD-ROM. Save the bios information by hitting F10 after you made the necessary changes to the bios. Then it will restart, just before it restart, plugin the bootable CD that you have prepared. After the restart, you will be presented with the bios upgrade menu. But I suggest you do not upgrade to this BIOS yet, as it seems that there are some bugs with version 1.07

I know how to update the BIOS, but thanks anyways , I was wondering if anybody successfully changed the BIOS boot slash screen using the utility that was packed in the ISO for the bootable BIOS flash

I didn't use the ISO cause altering and reburning is a pain - but I have successfully changed the boot image using the windows update utility on a T60, there is a text file explaining how to in the extracted folder for the update.

snife wrote:I didn't use the ISO cause altering and reburning is a pain - but I have successfully changed the boot image using the windows update utility on a T60, there is a text file explaining how to in the extracted folder for the update.

That is the *Windows* boot image; this question is regarding the BIOS splash screen and how to change it.

See; http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_change ... r_Windows)

HTH

Ok, I guess I'm confusing you guys so I'll make it as simple as possible:

I want to change the BIOS boot splash, the image the pops up right when you turn on the computer, our T60's boot splash says Thinkpad horizontally and has lenovo running vertically on the right side, with the intel CPU logo in the upper right. This is what I want to change, to include my name and contact info. This screen cannot be erased via reformat and you need a BIOS pw and the ability to flash the bios to change it.

Kenn wrote: http://www.pbase.com/kenn/image/48575444/original
A simple CMOS boot logo, created to replace the default IBM one with owner and machine model information. If you've got a supervisor password and branded logo installed, it'll be tough for anyone stealing your laptop to resell (or, heh, use) it.

I found this post in the pictures section and used it as a template.

Chis, I found that link before, but it doesn't apply to our T60's. I did find something very interesting though. If you go to Lenovo's download pages for the T60 and get the 1.07 bios ISO for a bootable CD you can see what I'm talking about. Unpack the ISO with a program like winrar. There is a text file called readme.txt. The part that I'm talking about is the first section, here is what it says:

**********************************************************************
* *
* NOTES ON CUSTOM START UP IMAGES *
* ------------------------------- *
* *
* THIS VERSION OF THE FLASH UPDATE PROGRAM GIVES THE OPTION OF *
* REPLACING (OR ELIMINATING) THE DEFAULT "LENOVO" IMAGE THAT IS *
* DISPLAYED DURING SYSTEM START UP. THE USER CAN SUBSTITUTE A *
* 16 COLOR WINDOWS BITMAP (.BMP) TO REPLACE THE DEFAULT IMAGE. *
* *
* 1. LOGO.BAT WILL ONLY WORK IN A MICROSOFT (R) OPERATING SYSTEM *
* DOS WINDOW. *
* 2. PREPARE YOUR IMAGE BY NAMING IT 'LOGO.BMP', AND COPY IT. *
* 3. GO TO THE DOS WINDOW. RUN LOGO.BAT TO COMPRESS AND PREPARE *
* THE BITMAP FILE FOR FLASHING. LOGO.MOD IS THE RESULT. *
* 4. UPDATE ACCORDING TO INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS *
* *
* AFTER YOU UPDATE THE BIOS ON YOUR SYSTEM, YOUR LOGO WILL *
* APPEAR ON THE STARTUP SCREEN. *
* *
* SOME GUIDELINES FOR THESE IMAGES INCLUDE: *
* *
* 1. THE COMPRESSED IMAGE FILE SIZE LIMITED TO 10KB. *
* 2. SIMPLE DESIGNS (THE IMAGE WILL BE COMPRESSED AND COMPLEX *
* IMAGES DON'T COMPRESS WELL...) *
* 3. AN LENOVO LOGO IS USED BY DEFAULT, BUT A 16 COLOR 640x480 *
* WINDOWS .BMP FILE CAN BE USED INSTEAD. *
* *
**********************************************************************

Has anyone tried this, or am I the only one who has found this utility?

christopher_wolf wrote:

snife wrote:I didn't use the ISO cause altering and reburning is a pain - but I have successfully changed the boot image using the windows update utility on a T60, there is a text file explaining how to in the extracted folder for the update.

That is the *Windows* boot image; this question is regarding the BIOS splash screen and how to change it.

See; http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_change ... r_Windows)

HTH

I know the difference between the windows boot image and the bios splash screen - it is the bios screen I am talking about, i really don't know what i said that would indicate i was talking about the windows boot image. The T60 BIOS update utility is windows based and extracts to c:\drivers\flash\XXXXXXX\ where you can place your custom image and it will ask you if you want to use it when you run winuptp.exe to update the BIOS

ok, cool, that's easier than the bootable cd. Now, does that utility compress the image for you, because all the bmp images I export are more around 300k.

Thanks for your help

You need to place it in the folder and run logo.bat in the directory from a windows command line, this will create the logo.mod file which you much check is under 10kb, unfortunately, your original image is quite large and I am not sure it will compress down that far to be honest, i've only ever used simple logos which start off <100kb.

does anyone have the original logo on bmp?
i Just want to replace some thinkg inside