HP EliteBook 8470p questions

[IRJustman]

Hi, all.

I picked up a refurbished HP EliteBook 8470p at a local Fry's for a song, 'bout $200 or so plus tax (was on sale).  It's much like the machines I've been decommissioning as a contract IT worker for various clients, so I was more than glad to pick one up.  Then I tricked 'er out, likely for a little bit more than what I originally paid for it, but eh, I'm not gonna complain. ;3

The only issue I'm running into now is that I'd like to have the UEFI shell on this device, like I have on just about every other UEFI-enabled machine in my inventory.  Far as I can see, there isn't one embedded in the firmware like I have on my MSI motherboards.  I usually use the one bundled with Roderick Smith's rEFInd boot manager, but it doesn't ever come fully online when I start it.  I know it's not a secure boot issue since I have my certificate/key management down to a fine art and rEFInd itself works just fine with secure boot enabled and Rod's key in the db store (I also have my own key in there for stuff I sign).  The other way  I can tell it's not working is by trying to start it when secure boot is disabled.  However, the key management utilities I can get from various Linux distributions' releases of efitools work fine.  That's how I got Rod's and my keys into the db store; then I let the HP's firmware handle the rest (like PK, KEK, the rest of the db keys, the "current" dbx keys, etc.).

I guess the question is, is there a specific release of the UEFI shell that HP 's systems want for me to use on its business laptop offerings?

Another question is where can I get updated firmware for this device?  I'm not sure if I'm up to date with it or not, as it could help with the issue I've covered above.

BTW, fly as high as you wish.  I am very comfortable with any technical language thrown at me!

--IJ.

[PRADZ]

I am an HP employee.

Thanks for the post and Welcome to HP Forums

I understand that you are facing a concern with HP UEFI.

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/hpsupportassistant/pc-diags.html

Please try to install HP UEFI for hardware related testing and system update you can use HPSA link which will help update your unit with software and windows related issues.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-pavilion-g6-2300-notebook-pc-series/5330578/mode...

Please click the thumbs up button to say "Thanks!"
Clicking "Accept as Solution" on a reply that solves your problem makes it easier for other people to find solutions.

Hope this helped

[IRJustman]

I appreciate the reply, but none of my questions were answered and the answer I was given was not what I asked for.

One question I asked was about where to get the latest firmware for my laptop.  Since I asked that question, I did ultimately find it.  However, I had to select "Windows 8.1 64-bit" from the operating system dropdown in order to get it.  I run Windows 10 64-bit, for which it never showed up.  I recommend that that it should be made so that Windows 10 users can find it without dropping the OS selection dropdown.

All that said, I downloaded and applied the update without incident.  I was pleasantly surprised that this firmware update was released earlier this year.  I was hoping the firmware update would possibly implement a later revision of UEFI, but it's still at 2.10.  More below.

The other was about the (U)EFI shell.  What this does is give EFI- and UEFI-based PCs a command prompt much like DOS's COMMAND.COM and Windows and OS/2's CMD.EXE.  The main difference is that this is in a pre-boot environment, allowing the user to load drivers for hardware and/or filesystems to access partitions on the computer as well as to boot off media using a command prompt.

I normally use the EFI Shell 2.0 for UEFI 2.20 and later.  rEFInd reports that the UEFI revision is 2.10, for which the UEFI shell for UEFI 2.20 and later does not appear to work for.  I have a version for UEFI pre-2.30 which seems to work, but I need to futz around with text modes to make it work right on this machine.  I may need to recompile it with appropriate patches applied and any adjustments made to deal with the video mode issue I'm having.  What I was wondering was whether HP had a specific version of the EFI Shell that it recommends for use with these PCs.  If there are no such recommendations, I will have to deal with it myself.

Thank you.

--IJ.