Changing serial number without unplugging the battery & suzy q

Support
1

System Details

  • Device: [VORTICON] HP 11 G8 EE
  • OS: ChromeOS
  • Firmware Type: STOCK
  • Firmware Version:USING CUSTOM SCRIPT WITH VPD -S to change serial
  • Internal storage type: eMMC I believe

Summary of the Issue

GOING INTO DEVELOPER MODE CONSOLE ESC + REFRESH + POWER CTRL + D, ENTER, CTRL + D, WAIT 5 MINUTES TO TRANSITION INTO DEV MODE

ACCIDENTALLY DISCOVERED a way to change the serial number without unplugging the battery.

I am wondering if this is a BAD idea as my company needs to change the serial number on 500 HP 11 G8 EE chromebooks. Not having to open every device and unplugging the battery would save hours of work.

It looks like if I RUN the command futility gbb --set --flash --flags=0 in my script first and then use VPD -S “serial_number”=”new_serialNumber” it will change the serial number 50% to 80% without opening the device and unplugging the battery. IS IT SAFE TO CHANGE THE SERIAL NUMBER LIKE THIS OR SHOULD I ALWAYS UNPLUG THE BATTERY FIRST?

Steps to Reproduce

  1. LOGGED INTO CONSOLE AS ROOT

  2. futility gbb --set --flash --flags=0

  3. VPD -S “serial_number”=”new_serialNumber”

  4. serial number would change without unplugging the battery sometimes, not every time

  5. IS IT SAFE TO USE THE DEVICES WHERE THE BATTERY WAS NOT UNPLUGGED before changing the serial numbers or should I unplug the battery always before changing the serial numbers just to be sure I do not cause any issues such as instability or serial numbers reverting back to previous serial numbers, etc……..

Expected Behavior

SO some vendor sold my company 500 chromebooks with serial numbers only such as 4040000758 and we needed to change the serial numbers back to the original serial number listed on the bottom of the case such as 5CD013FNJS

the script will change the serial numbers without unplugging the battery. Not sure if it working because someone did something else to the devices before or if it is working because I am using the futility gbb command to reset the flags first

2

changing the serial number, which is stored in the RO_VPD firmware region, cannot be done while firmware WP is enabled.

futility gbb --set --flash --flags=0

this has nothing to do with anything related to setting the serial #. It’s resetting the Google Binary Block (GBB) flags to 0, which is their normal state. These flags have no effect if the device is not in Developer Mode. But given that you bought a large # of modified devices, it doesn’t hurt to do this just to be sure. This command only works if WP is disabled, as the GBB region is normally RO.

VPD -S “serial_number”=”new_serialNumber”

this only works if WP is disabled, nothing to do with any commands run previously

LOGGED INTO CONSOLE AS ROOT

only works if device is in developer mode

ACCIDENTALLY DISCOVERED a way to change the serial number without unplugging the battery.

no, you discovered that some of the devices you bought were previously modified and left in a state with WP disabled