What is a .HEX file?
HEX is an Intel HEX file, carrying firmware as text to flash onto microcontrollers.
- Did you know
- Intel HEX, from 1973, is still how firmware reaches countless chips today.
- Intel HEX was devised in 1973 for Intel’s Intellec development systems, originally to load programs from paper tape.
- Each text record ends in a checksum that is the two’s complement of the sum of its bytes, guarding against corruption while flashing chips.
- What Analyser reads
- Inspect virtual-machine descriptors (VMware .vmx, VirtualBox .vbox, OVF/OVA), disc images (Nero .nrg, Alcohol .mds/.mdf, CloneCD), embedded firmware (Intel HEX, Motorola S-record, UF2, ELF/AXF, Device Tree Blobs, U-Boot uImage), partition tables (MBR/GPT with GUIDs), Linux filesystem superblocks (ext2/3/4, SquashFS, cramfs, romfs) and Windows imaging (WIM/ESD) - reading headers directly, no upload.
- Depth of analysis
- .HEX is an identification-grade format: Analyser recognises it from its bytes and decodes the header metadata it carries, rather than opening it in a full viewer. Formats that do get a full viewer are marked "Full" on the formats page.
- Open a .HEX file
- Drag a .HEX file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It is identified entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.