Thinkpads Forum

Bought second hand E14 Gen 3, in case of bios/root kit want to force flash bios.

When I downloaded the flash cd and ran it, it would not install new bios as it was the same version installed ( most recent)

Unlocked rollback protection and tried to flash with earlier version, got error that it is not for my pc.

Repeated a few times with earlier versions same error.

How can I be sure to wipe out bios and re-flash to secure trustable version?

Assuming there is no password in the BIOS, your only option would be to get an EEPROM flasher like CH341A to first backup the current BIOS, then wipe it, then flash the BIOS you want.
Not for the faint of heart and you need to read up first about all the possible pitfalls and extras you need for this type of flashing.
OTOH, maybe you are OCD about possible root kits?
In over 20 years I have never come across one, and I have had hundreds of Thinkpads go through my hands.

Yes I have sup pass.
Can flash a clean image w/ ch34. Painful but I may do it.
Is there a way to decommission/deactivate some of the lenovo/windows remote tools such as WMI and Lenovo client-management interface ?
Not sure if relevant on this model, or if that is at the bios level, or lives in user space.
Any idea is WMI + Lenovo-client management or any other built in remote tool needs to be wiped to ensure safe computing on second hand E14 ?
Thanks for the help, I know I should have bought new but the deal was quite good