M. Adam Davis wrote:
>> How is any software that isn't part of the bios supposed to help the
>> bios see the disk drive?
>
> Bios is simply software.  You can replace parts or all of bios with
> other software, since BIOS is called through software interrupts.  You
> simply replace their interrupt handler, or change the interrupt handler
> pointer, or change the handler pointer, then when you're done messing
> witht the data call the original bios handler to do the hard lifting.
>
> The software interrupt table is in memory, so it doesn't matter whether
> bios loads into memory or is run directly from flash.

Yes, but we're talking about a problem at boot time.  By definition, the
only thing that runs at powerup is the bios, and it is read completely
from non-volatile memory at that time.  If that bios can't see the disk
drive, then it can't load any additional software from it, whether that
software could patch the bios so that it would have seen the disk or not.

If the software you are talking about really patches the bios in the
flash, then I can believe it could work.  But in that case, the software
does become "part of the bios"


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