Claude helped unlock 55 hidden BIOS settings

Claude Code helped a Reddit user reverse-engineer an HP 15-dw1036ne laptop’s firmware, exposing 55 hidden BIOS setup fields and four previously invisible configuration tabs. The result is being framed as a possible way to rescue locked laptops from the e-waste stream—but it is not a universal BIOS unlock, and it does not involve breaking the machine’s cryptography.

“Claude Code unlocked my laptop’s bios!”

How the firmware bypass works

The laptop uses an RSA-2048 signature check to verify modified firmware. According to TechRadar, the Reddit user did not crack RSA-2048 or forge a valid signature. Instead, the verification routine was patched so that it always reports success.

That is a conventional firmware-modding technique: bypass the result of the integrity check rather than defeat the cryptography behind it. On systems without hardware-rooted boot protection, the relevant verification code can itself be modified inside the firmware.

The work used a standard reverse-engineering toolchain:

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• Ghidra for disassembly
• UEFITool for extracting firmware volumes
• Unicorn Engine to emulate the verification routine outside the physical laptop

Claude Code assisted by connecting these pieces and helping interpret the firmware layout. It did not autonomously discover a new attack or operate the laptop on its own. The model’s contribution was reducing the specialist effort needed to understand this particular machine’s firmware.

That distinction matters. The techniques are already documented, but the firmware layout and relevant code for the HP 15-dw1036ne were not. Claude helped close that machine-specific knowledge gap.

The risks are substantial

The modification still requires physical access to the laptop and a hardware flash programmer. Anyone attempting the process must also accept the possibility of permanently bricking the machine. Modified firmware can introduce stability problems, and disabling or weakening the integrity check leaves the laptop more exposed to future firmware implants.

The approach is also highly specific to the hardware and firmware version. The original poster warned that the script may not work even on superficially similar HP models, so this is not a general recipe for unlocking BIOS-restricted computers.

The security trade-off is therefore direct: owners may regain access to configuration options or extend the life of otherwise unusable hardware, but they may also create a machine that is harder to trust at its lowest software layer.

A cheaper route to repair—or a wider attack surface

The most meaningful change is not the underlying BIOS technique. It is the cost of applying it. An LLM that can read disassembly, track firmware structures, and help assemble a toolchain could make one-off reverse-engineering jobs practical when they previously demanded too much specialist time.

That could benefit repair specialists and owners of locked laptops, particularly when the alternative is discarding otherwise functional hardware. But the same reduction in expertise required could make firmware tampering more accessible to attackers.

TechRadar notes that right-to-repair rules in the EU and several US states have approached related questions without directly resolving firmware modification. The reporting does not establish whether the method works beyond this HP model and firmware version, nor does it provide an independent verification of the Reddit user’s result.

The facts support a narrower conclusion than the headline suggests: Claude Code did not end BIOS locks, but it appears to have made a known, risky firmware-modification process easier to execute on one specific laptop. Its practical value is real for repair—but so is the permanent security cost of replacing a failed verification check with one that simply says “yes.”