BIOS
Hard Drive Recovery - BIOS
BIOS in computing stands for Basic Input/Output System. Also known as System BIOS, it is a de facto satandard defining a firmware interface. BIOS is the boot firmware and the first code to execute as soon as the PC is powered on.
BIOS first appeared in the CP/M operating system. Most versions of DOS have a file called IBMBIO.COM or IO.SYS that is similar to CP/M BIOS. In other classes of computers, BIOS is known under the generic names such as boot loader, boot ROM or boot monitor. In some Sun and PowerPC-based computers, Open Firmware is used as BIOS.
BIOS identifies, tests and initializes system devices such as the video display card, hard disk, and floppy disk. As a result, the software stored on these media can be loaded, executed and given control of the PC. This whole process is known as booting up or bootstrapping.
BIOS programs are stored on a chip and are built to work with various devices that make up the complementary chipset of the system. A small library of basic input/output functions can be called to operate and control the peripherals such as the keyboard, text display functions and the like.
PC motherboard suppliers license a BIOS core and toolkit from independent BIOS vendors (IBV). They then customize the BIOS to suit their hardware. For this reason, standard BIOSs are obtained from motherboard manufactures. Major BIOS vendors are American Megatrends (AMI), Insyde Software and Phoenix Technologies.
