BIOS Flash Q&A White Paper

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