HP Business Desktops BIOS

Upgrades and Recovery

The HP BIOS provides numerous ways to upgrade HP Business Desktop computers for the constantly

changing enterprise environment. Each BIOS upgrade is packaged into a SoftPaq deliverable and

made available on

www.hp.com. The SoftPaq contains detailed instructions to perform BIOS updates

in any of the available formats. The following sections provide a brief description of the various BIOS

upgrade options and recovery mechanisms:

• Local BIOS update

• BIOS update while in Windows

• Remote BIOS update

• Fail-safe flash recovery

One key feature of all HP BIOS upgrade methods is that all system settings and user data is

preserved. There is no need to ‘set defaults’ or re-configure settings as with some competing systems.

Local BIOS update

HP Business Desktop computer BIOS can be updated locally by using the F10 setup “Flash System

ROM” feature. This flash utility offers the user the option of selecting the media containing the BIOS

image file (7D1_MMmm.bin) provided in the SoftPAQ. The F10 ROM-based flash can accept the

binary file from the root directory of any removable media such as USB, legacy floppy diskette, or

CD. The selected media must have a formatted FAT16 or FAT32 primary partition containing the

binary image. If a setup password has been established on the HP Business Desktop, that password

must be used to enter the F10 setup utility and update the BIOS.

The DOS Flash (FLASHBIN.EXE) is the DOS-compatible flash utility that can be used from a DOS-

bootable flash media device (1.44MB diskette or USB flash media device). To flash the computer

BIOS locally, the SoftPaq provides a DOS Flash folder that can be copied to the media. As with the

other BIOS upgrades, administrator security is available through the use of the setup password.

BIOS update while in Windows

HPQFLASH is a utility that is designed to flash the HP BIOS within a Windows environment. If the

computer has a setup password enabled, then HPQFLASH will prompt for the password to be entered

before completing the flash process. This utility is designed for business applications in which DOS

images may not be available, users may not be comfortable in DOS environments, or security

concerns prevent computers from booting to removable media.

Remote BIOS update

Many customer computer environments require strict control of BIOS versions. BIOS updates are only

distributed after exhaustive testing has been completed. For these environments, the HP BIOS provides

support for remote BIOS upgrades through several tools. The BIOS SoftPaqs can be delivered to

remote computers as a self-contained upgrades using System Software Manager (SSM) to update the

HP BIOS on appropriate computers on a network. Refer to

http://www.hp.com/go/ssm for more

information and for detailed instructions and downloads. The SoftPaq can also be distributed through

HP Client Manager Software (HPCMS) and Altiris Notification Server to remotely target, distribute,

and update the HP BIOS on network HP Business Desktop computers. The HP Client Management

Solutions website (

http://www.hp.com/go/im) contains information about this feature and other

management options. DOS Flash (FLASHBIN.EXE) can also be remotely executed through Altiris

eXpress. Remote BIOS updating is accomplished by executing the DOS Flash within the limited DOS

extended environment that exists while running Altiris eXpress.