Firmware & Reverse Engineering

At a glance

• Outcome: Recovered hardware treated as bricked by the official process. Converted expert-only procedures into repeatable, verifiable runs.
• Status: Reached production use in a working repair shop.
• Role: Solo.
• Stack & libraries: Python and Rust tooling; Ghidra, captured I/O, and ground-truth test vectors for the analysis side.
• Source: Kept private and deliberately vague because valuable methods are easy to copy once disclosed.
• Validation: Checked every write for integrity because a failure can permanently disable a board.
• Limitations: Bound to hardware families available on the bench.

Firmware recovery

• Dumped, reflashed and recovered BIOS and SPI images across multiple boards.
• Inspected and repaired EEPROM configuration and board-identity regions.
• Analyzed undocumented formats and protocols with Ghidra, captured I/O and ground-truth test vectors.
• Automated hours-long manual procedures in Python and Rust for fast, repeatable, auditable runs. Used built-in software and system calls where possible to reduce moving parts and device risk while improving consistency.

Encrypted-drive recovery

Recovered a password stored encrypted in firmware memory for a pair of drives locked behind an encrypted volume. Derived the scheme from its only description, compiled binaries stored on those drives, then unlocked a $5,000–$7,000 machine headed for the junkyard.

Scope

Built tools for bench hardware that vendor tools handled badly or not at all. This claim does not apply generally to industry tools.