Compaq 8100 BIOS Flash Q&A White Paper - Page 18

What if the PC does not complete the BIOS flash process? HP business PC products provide flash disaster recovery if the BIOS flash process fails to complete. The BIOS will automatically detect that the BIOS flash process did not properly complete and boot in recovery mode. With most business PC models, the user or administrator will be presented with the following screen. It will boot the PC in a recovery mode and search the root directory of the removable media sources (floppy, USB, or CD) for a compatible binary image. The BIOS CD image file (XXX_MMmm.iso), included in the softpaq, should be used to create a BIOS image CD if the user or administrator desires to use CD media for BIOS recovery. When flashing during recovery, the CD media, containing the BIOS image file, must be El-Torito compatible. Floppy or USB media sources can simply contain the BIOS binary image file in the root directory. Once a binary image is located, the BIOS update process will be attempted again. The automatic flash recovery will continue until the BIOS is successfully updated or restored. If no binary image is found, the PC will attempt to boot to diskette or USB flash media. The boot media must have DOS in order for the disaster recovery mode to successfully boot. What is a processor microcode update softpaq and how is it used? Typical processors download code from the BIOS during initialization referred to as microcode. If a new, supported processor is installed in the business PC which requires a microcode currently not adequately provided by the BIOS, the BIOS will issue a POST warning "1801-Microcode Update Error". To add this microcode to