The EDL Utility is a Win32 utility for accessing the Qualcomm Emergency Download interface on Qualcomm processors.
The HP 887A is not a standalone product you can buy off a shelf; it is integrated into specific laptop models. Knowing this helps you find resources, drivers, and upgrade information.
For the desktop version, there are two standard DDR4 UDIMM slots supporting up to 32GB of PC4-19200 (DDR4-2400) RAM.
: Because the power delivery hardware lacks large heatsinks, users should stick to the pre-installed CPU models. Attempting to install high-wattage enthusiast chips (like Ryzen 9 or "X" series variants) can lead to thermal throttling or power supply instability. Memory and Storage Expansion hp 887a motherboard
Run the HP Battery Check tool (built into the BIOS or HP Support Assistant). If the battery passes diagnostics, try resetting the Embedded Controller (EC) by holding the power button for 15 seconds with the laptop unplugged, then plugging it back in and restarting.
: If a PCIe 4.0 drive is heavily discounted or priced identically to a Gen 3 drive, buy it. It will transfer to a future PC build down the road. The HP 887A is not a standalone product
The group sat quietly as the rain softened. The HP 887A had been a witness to small human triumphs: a child learning to program a blinking LED, two teenage friends patching a driver at midnight, a parent guiding a nervous first email. Its circuits had stored not just files, but a distributed warmth of effort and shared mistakes. In return, it offered what little of itself it could: memory fragments that felt like family heirloom notes.
: Because the screw holes, front panel header pins, and I/O shields are tailored specifically to an HP case, moving this motherboard into a standard retail ATX/Micro-ATX case from brands like Corsair or NZXT is incredibly difficult without physical modifications. : Because the power delivery hardware lacks large
With an LGA 1155 socket, the 887A can run excellent value CPUs. The or i7-3770 (if the BIOS and VRMs allow) turn this budget board into a surprisingly capable machine for office work, web browsing, and even light 1080p gaming with a dedicated GPU.
: The motherboard houses a primary PCIe x16 slot for dedicated hardware expansion. Users can seat a low-profile or standard discrete graphics card (like an NVIDIA GTX or entry-level RTX series) depending on case clearance. An additional PCIe x1 slot is available for sound cards, dedicated network adapters, or internal capture cards.
Machines don’t usually listen for stories, but this board had been soldered by hands that hummed lullabies and tweaked jumpers while telling tall tales. Over time the 887A had absorbed echoes: the cadence of summer afternoons, the nervous clicking of someone debugging code, the soft laughter of two siblings sharing a secret website URL. Those patterns etched themselves into its timing loops and diagnostic LEDs until the board responded not only to electrical pulses, but to the human rhythms that had kept it alive.
The rear I/O panel of the 887A motherboard is designed for versatility. While exact port counts can vary by the specific desktop model, you will typically find: Multiple USB 3.1 and USB 2.0 ports. HDMI and VGA (or DisplayPort) for video output. An RJ-45 Ethernet port for stable wired networking. Standard 3.5mm audio jacks for speakers and microphones. Maintenance and Upgrading Tips
The usage has changed and /e is only for erasing NAND memories.
To zero out sections of eMMC or UFS use the new /f fill command.
/u takes a hexadecimal value.
This should make no difference on the standard LUNs (0-7) but will make things clearer on LUNs 81, b0, c4, d0.
Qualcomm processors support two different protocols, "Sahara" and "Firehose". Sahara is supported in ROM and is always present. Firehose is implemented in downloadable loaders in ELF format.
The usual procedure is to first get your device in EDL mode, i.e. where it is presenting USB VID/PID 05c6/9008. This can be achieved by:
Everything under Windows needs some kind of driver. Zadig is a simple generic driver generator. Select "WinUSB" as the type of driver to install. Do NOT use any Windows drivers from Qualcomm. They will try to present your device as a serial port. Now you can do a simple check if you like.
This shows you that the device is connected and has the right driver.
Next, you must use the Sahara protocol to load a loader for the Firehose protocol.
Loaders are specific to processor, device manufacturer, possibly flash memory type and hash.
To decide which one you need you need to collect some basic info.
There are reports that Sahara protocol version 3.0 does not support querying the HWID or Hash.
If this happens to you, use the /qbc quirk (see below).
These files often use .bin or .mbn as the extension despite it actually being a normal ELF file. The file names are based on the 16 hexit HWID and the first 16 hexits of the Hash. By one website they are listed under the last 8 hexits of the Hash. As the filenames tend to be cumbersome, you might rename them something short and mnemonic.
To look up available loaders by Hash see this table.
For Boox Onyx devices see this table.
From this point on the processor is using the Firehose protocol and you need not (can not) reload the loader unless you reboot.
A device might be using eMMC storage (older devices), NAND storage or UFS storage (newer devices).
The /u flag must be used for all operation in Firehose on devices with UFS.
The flags /d (slot), /u (LUN), /p (partition), /s (start block), /c (count of blocks) and /b (block size) are used to specify the range of operation.
If the partition is specified then the start block is relative to the start of the partition.
If partition is not specified, then the start block is absolute.
Zero is the default for both start block and count of blocks.
Partition operations often do not specify either start block or count of blocks.
Operations on raw devices (i.e. not a partition) require an explicit /s and /c to prevent accidents like edl /f.
| Start | Count | Partition | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unspecified | Specified | ||
| 0 | 0 | Whole device | Whole partition |
| 0 | + | Start of device | Start of partition |
| + | + | Middle of device | Middle of partition |
| + | 0 | End of device | End of partition |
| − | 0 | End of device | End of partition |
| − | + | Part of end of device | Part of end of partition |
The major operations are /r (read), /e (erase), /w (write).
The erase and write operations can be combined which yields the non-optimized operations of full erase and (possibly) partial write (depending on the size of the input file).
Be very careful when you specify /e (erase), /w (write) as not specifying a partition means the whole device!
Partitions are sized for the maximum anticipated size of the contents.
Often the fraction of a partition that is actively being used is as low as 20%.
(There are often many partitons with all zeroes in them also.)
There is no particular need to transfer a whole partition when 20% will do.
Of course, if you still want to transfer another 50MB of zeroes, just don't use the /t flag.
Also note that some images have signing or other (sometimes) necessary things after the end of the normal image.
Currently the EDL utility has the capability to recognize the actual size of:
Android images are naturally aligned to pagesize (normally 4096 bytes) but ELF files can be any size. Therefore, when they are read, even when truncated, they are rounded up to the current device blocksize (normally 512 or 4096 bytes). This simplifies matters when/if they are written back to the device.
NAND memory has two peculiarities that require special handling. The first peculiarity is that they have "bad blocks" (an erase block is sometimes 64 x 4096 bytes). During a read the output file will be filled with 0xff wherever bad blocks are to maintain alignment. During a write the input file will be skipped over wherever bad blocks are to maintain alignment. The second peculiarity is that because of the hidden CRC32 and ECC on each page, a freshly erased page must never be written with all 0xff values. The EDL utility will do explicit multiple writes (in the hundreds) around the bad blocks and the empty pages. The EDL utility will do explicit multiple reads (a few) around the bad blocks. You must explicitly erase whichever region of the NAND memory before writing but this may be combined in the same command. The EDL utility now supports NAND volume tables analogously to GPT partition tables.
Quirks are idiosyncracies, anomalies or incorrect implementations of Firehose loaders.
By specifying the /q flag you can bypass problematic parts.
/qabcd, for example, will not query serial number, HWID, hash or SBL version.
There is a default of /qad so you need to /q to display serial number and SBL version.
| A | Do not query serial number |
| B | Do not query HWID |
| C | Do not query hash |
| D | Do not query SBL version |
| E | Allow CSD read to fail (Sony Vivo) |
Show usage:
Query basic info:
Load a loader (needs to be done only once after a fresh start):
List the partitions:
Download the MBR of a UFS LUN:
Download the boot partition (and truncate to its actual size):
Erase the the last 4096 bytes of /vendor (removes FEC correction):
Flash the recovery partition:
Erase and write to NAND memory blocks:
Read accessory SD card:
Try some random XML:
Reboot to normal system:
Reboot to fastboot (probably only works on Motorola):
Multiple compatible commands, reboot to recovery:
Download edl.exe, the EDL utiliy.
Download ubi.exe, a simple utility for examining full dumps of NAND/UBI.
See also: QcomView – a utility for analyzing Qualcomm xbl/abl/Firehose loaders