Interactive firmware recovery
Contents
1. Referring now to FIG 2 additional details regarding the operation ofthe EFI firmware 136 ofthe computer 100 will be described In most computing systems low level instruction code is used as an intermediary between the hardware com ponents of the computing system and the operating software and other high level software executing on the computing system In some computer systems this low level instruction code is known as BIOS 208 BIOS 208 may provide a set of software routines that allow higher level software to interact with the hardware 210 of the computing system using stan dard calls Because of limitations of the BIOS in many computers a new specification for creating the firmware that is responsible for booting the computer and for intermediating the commu nication between the operating system and the hardware has been created The specification is called the Extensible Firm ware Interface EFT specification which was originally cre ated by INTEL CORPORATION and which is also being US 8 230 210 B1 5 extended by the UNIFIED EXTENSIBLE FIRMWARE INTERFACE FORUM UFFI The EFI specification describes an interface 206 between operating system 202 and firmware 136 In particular the specification defines the interface that platform firmware must implement and the interface that the operating system may use in booting and accessing hardware How the firm ware implements the interface is left up to the manufacturer of the fi2. Provided are methods for recovering firmware instruc tions The method includes determining that a firmware recovery is needed prior to loading an operating system 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 2 receiving user input prior to loading the operating system and updating the firmware instructions in accordance with the input Also provided are computer readable media with com puter executable instructions including launching a firm ware setup utility when it s determined that a firmware recov ery is needed displaying a recovery page in the setup utility and the receiving input from a user for proceeding with the firmware recovery Also provided are systems for recovering computer firm ware including two modules A recovery module determines the need for a firmware recovery receives input needed to perform the recovery and performs the recovery itself A setup module displays information about the firmware recov ery on a display displays the input needed and receives the input from a user Other systems methods and or computer program prod ucts according to embodiments will be or become apparent to one with skill in the art upon review of the following drawings and Detailed Description It is intended that all such addi tional systems methods and or computer program products be included within this description be within the scope of the present invention and be protected by the accompanying
3. claims BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG 1 is a computer architecture diagram that illustrates various components of a computer that provides an illustra tive operating environment FIGS 2 and 3 are computer architecture diagrams that illustrate aspects of an Extensible Firmware Interface EFI environment that may be utilized by implementations FIG 4 depicts program modules which may be utilized as part of a computer boot process FIGS 5 and 6 depict examples of a display as provided by interactive firmware update and FIGS 7 and 8 are both flow diagrams illustrating examples of processes for providing interactive firmware updates DETAILED DESCRIPTION The following detailed description is directed to appara tuses and methods for interactively recovering and updating firmware on a computer In the following detailed description references are made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof and which are shown by way of illustration using specific embodiments or examples Referring now to the drawings in which like numerals represent like elements through the several figures aspects of the various implemen tations and an illustrative operating environment provided herein will be described FIG 1 and the following discussion are intended to provide a brief general description of a suitable computing environ ment in which the embodiments described herein may be implemented Generally program modules in
4. pa 164 124 14 1 gt lt ojepdn useTz 0S petqesta xoorIH 400g qepdn Peraesra WYVHAN 39seu q qepdn useT 206 s nTeA O3 WVHAN oa uorado srui ueeq sey epou xeAooeu SOIA LOS US 8 230 210 B1 Sheet 6 of 8 Jul 24 2012 U S Patent 3TXH OSH SAS sarnejg q peztutzdo S nT A dT H Tez u n uorado ebueyo 42 T S geit 3 T s u zos 3oeTeg 109 9 014 iyu 164 124 114 2 4 11 1 28 4 u qsKs sua 300qea oq Aue pe zetdwos sr qepdn eouo i 440 4 4 FHL NYNL LON OG pexooT st paeoqAeMx p qepdn bureq st weqsAs i5NINNVM 09 GA U S Patent Jul 24 2012 Sheet 7 of 8 US 8 230 210 B1 700 701 RECOGNIZE RECOVERY CONDITION 703 SOLICIT OPTIONS PROCEED B DETERMINE 705 END IMAGE LOCATION 706 UPDATE IMAGE b Y 709 FIG 7 END U S Patent Jul 24 2012 Sheet 8 of 8 US 8 230 210 B1 Se Y 03 GLOBAL INITIALIZATION INITIALIZE AREA DISABLE INTERRUPTS 8 804 805 806 UPDATE BLOCK 809 ENABLE ENABLE INTERRUPTS amp INTERRUPTS amp UPDATE MESSAGE UPDATE MESSAGE ENABLE INTERRUPTS amp UPDATE MESSAGE E RESET US 8 230 210 B1 1 INTERACTIVE FI
5. No 11 538 204 filed on US Official Action dated Apr 1 2009 in U S Appl No 11 538 204 Oct 3 2006 now Pat No 7 702 896 U S Notice of Allowance Allowability dated Nov 23 2009 in U S Appl No 11 538 204 51 Int CI GO6F 15 177 2006 01 Primary Examiner Albert Wang 52 US CL i rente 713 2 714 36 717 168 74 Attorney Agent or Firm Hope Baldauff Hartman 58 Field of Classification Search 713 2 714 36 LLC 717 168 See application file for complete search history 57 ABSTRACT 56 References Cited Firmware is interactively recoverable prior to loading an operating system on a computer Rather than proceeding U S PATENT DOCUMENTS through a recovery without user input user input about a 6 941 452 B2 9 2005 Huang recovery is solicited after determining that an update is 7 143 275 B2 11 2006 Cepulis et al needed Prior to recovering the firmware users may be able 7 146 609 B2 12 2006 Thurstaon et al to for example specify configuration options about the 1025896 BE 42010 Polyudev recovery cancel the update altogether and specify a firmware 2001 0049783 Al 12 2001 Chen s 2003 0217358 Al 11 2003 Thurston et al image location Once input is received the firmware recovery 2004 0015941 Al 1 2004 Sekine proceeds 2004 0076043 Al 4 2004 Boals et al 2006 0112386 Al 5 2006 Moon et al 2008 0126777 Al 5 2008 Chang et al 20 Claims 8 Drawing Sheets U S Patent
6. output ports including a keyboard port a mouse port a serial interface a parallel port and other types of input output ports The LPC interface may also connect a computer storage media such as a ROM or a flash memory such as a NVRAM 137 for storing the firmware 136 that includes program code containing the basic routines that help to start up the computer 100 and to transfer information between elements within the computer 100 Firmware 136 may include a firmware that is compatible with the Extensible Firmware Interface EFI specification It should be appreci ated that in addition to firmware 136 including an EFI com patible firmware other types and combinations of firmware may be included For instance firmware 136 may comprise a Basic Input and Output System BIOS firmware or other type of firmware known to those in the art Additional details regarding the operation ofthe EFI firmware 136 are provided below with respect to FIGS 2 and 3 It should be appreciated that the computer 100 may com prise other types of computing devices including hand held computers embedded computer systems personal digital assistants and other types of computing devices known to those skilled in the art It is also contemplated that the com puter 100 may not include all of the components shown in FIG 1 may include other components that are not explicitly shown in FIG 1 or may utilize an architecture completely different than that shown in FIG 1
7. 04 to update the progress message shown on display 405 The setup utility may then make a call to the interactive firmware update module to resume the update Returning to decision 808 if this is the last block in the current area and at decision 812 this is not the last area then at operation 813 the next area is determined and the new area is initialized for update at operation 804 If this is the last block of the last area at decision 812 then at operation 814 interrupts may be enabled the progress message may be updated and the keyboard is unlocked At decision 815 if the update is intended to be interactive then at decision 816 some input e g Press a key to restart computer is awaited At operation 817 the computer is reset causing it to use the newly updated firmware Although the subject matter presented herein has been described in conjunction with one or more particular embodi ments and implementations it is to be understood that the invention defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific structure configuration or functional ity described herein Rather the specific structure configu ration and functionality are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims The subject matter described above is provided by way of illustration only and should not be construed as limiting Various modifications and changes may be made to the sub ject matter described herein without followin
8. GIGABIT ETHERNET 110 ON BOARD GRAPHICS 112 116 USB PORTS 118 GPIO PINS 120 SERIAL ATA PORTS 122 ATA 100 PORTS 124 SOUND ADAPTER FIRMWARE 136 Jul 24 2012 Sheet 1 of 8 US 8 230 210 B1 100 CPU y 102 104 NORTHBRIDGE 106 MAIN MEMORY 114 126 POWER MANAGEMENT 128 CLOCK GENERATION 130 SCSI HOST SOUTHBRIDGE 108 PCI BUS 132 SYSTEM MANAGEMENT BUS 134 ETHERNET CONTROLLER SUPER UO Ze DEVICE 138 FIG 1 U S Patent Jul 24 2012 Sheet 2 of 8 US 8 230 210 B1 OPERATING SYSTEM 202 212 EXTENSIBLE FIRMWARE INTERFACE 206 BIOS COMPATIBILITY SUPPORT MODULE 208 HARDWARE 210 FIG 2 U S Patent Jul 24 2012 Sheet 3 of 8 US 8 230 210 B1 OPERATING SYSTEM 202 EFI OS LOADER 302 EFI BOOT SERVICES EFI RUNTIME SERVICES 304 306 ACPI PLATFORM SPECIFIC FIRMWARE 308 EFI BOOT LOADER PLATFORM 314 HARDWARE 316 EFI SYSTEM OS PARTITION PARTITION 318 320 FIG 3 US 8 230 210 B1 Sheet 4 of 8 Jul 24 2012 U S Patent y 1 Lumu O00 OOOO LO JINON 31vaan ALUILLO 3HVMINIA dNLas JALLOVSHA3LNI vOv d435VNVIN N33HOS SOV US 8 230 210 B1 Sheet 5 of 8 Jul 24 2012 U S Patent OSH eAeS S3Inegeg p zrur3do Sen eA snorAeud dran uorado 5ueu 42 T S 43S rT s u zos 4 o rT s q 1
9. RMWARE RECOVERY CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a continuation of U S patent applica tion Ser No 11 538 204 filed Oct 3 2006 entitled Interac tive Firmware Recovery now U S Pat No 7 702 896 which is incorporated herein by reference U S Pat No 7 702 896 is related to U S Pat No 7 762 736 issued on Jun 14 2011 entitled Interactive Firmware Update which is incorpo rated herein by reference BACKGROUND Many computer systems utilize a firmware program stored in non volatile memory to assist with the start up of the computer and to enable communication with low level hard ware For instance many personal computer systems utilize a basic input output system BIOS and or additional firmware that includes program code containing fundamental routines that help transfer information between elements within the computer In many computer systems the firmware is stored as groups of memory blocks in one or more non volatile memory devices From time to time it may be necessary to update firmware such as for instance when a newer version of the firmware is available It may also be necessary to recovera previous firmware version such as when the current firmware is somehow corrupted The updating of firmware previously occurred in an auto mated fashion This may occur at the behest ofa management agent installed on the computer or on another computer con nected via a network or at the
10. US008230210B1 a2 United States Patent 10 Patent No US 8 230 210 B1 Polyudov 45 Date of Patent Jul 24 2012 54 INTERACTIVE FIRMWARE RECOVERY OTHER PUBLICATIONS American Megatrends AMIBIOSS Flash Update amp BIOS Recovery Methods Version 1 0 Jun 19 2003 US Official Action mailed May 19 2010 in U S Appl No 75 Inventor Feliks Polyudov Lilburn GA US 73 Assignee America Megatrends Inc Norcross 11 538 286 GA US US Official Action mailed Oct 21 2010 in U S Appl No 11 538 286 Notice Subject to any disclaimer the term of this Giga byte Technology Co GA K8VT890 AMD Socket 754 Proces patent is extended or adjusted under 35 sor Motherboard User s Manual Rev 1001 Jun 10 2005 pp 1 80 U S C 154 b by 63 days Giga byte Technology Co Q Flash Quick Flash BIOS Utility User s I I Manual pp 1 17 This patent is subject to a terminal dis US Notice of Allowance Allowability dated Feb 9 2011 in U S claimer Appl No 11 538 286 Dell OpenManage Server Update Utility 1 1 User s Guide Apr 21 Appl No 12 720 268 2005 U S Appl No 11 538 286 entitled Interactive Firmware Update filed Oct 3 2006 Inventor Feliks Polyudov U S Official Action dated Apr 2 2009 in U S Appl No 11 538 286 U S Official Action dated Nov 24 2009 in U S Appl No 11 538 286 22 Filed Mar 9 2010 Related U S Application Data 63 Continuation of application
11. ality of options should be reset to default values during the updating of the plurality of firmware instructions 4 The method of claim 2 wherein the option comprises a parameter for specifying whether contents of a boot block should be updated during the updating of the plurality of firmware instructions 5 The method of claim 1 further comprising launching a firmware setup utility prior to loading the operating system and US 8 230 210 B1 11 displaying a recovery page using the setup utility prior to solicit the user to provide an input 6 The method of claim 5 further comprising displaying a repeatedly updated visual indicator of progress while updating the plurality of firmware instructions 7 The method of claim 1 wherein determining whether recovery of the firmware instructions is to be conducted in an interactive fashion comprises determining whether a user powered up the computer and conducting the recovery of the firmware instructions in an interactive fashion if the user powered up the computer 8 The method of claim 1 wherein determining whether recovery of the firmware instructions is to be conducted in an interactive fashion comprises determining whether a remote computer initiated the recovery and conducting the recovery ofthe firmware instructions with out receiving user input if the remote computer initiated the recovery 9 The method of claim 1 wherein determining whether recovery of t
12. behest of the firmware itself for example when code determines that the firmware has been corrupted and a recovery may be required A user may alter natively invoke a firmware update using a special keyboard combination a jumper or switch or some other form of manual intervention However once invoked an update pro ceeds without permitting user input or providing feedback on progress The delay inherent in a firmware update can lead to the computer appearing to be frozen with no screen updates and no response from input devices such as an attached keyboard This delay prompted many users to power down their com puters thinking the system had frozen or crashed Powering down a computer during firmware update may cause unin tended problems or at least needlessly slow progress In addition to a lack of feedback existing update and recovery processes do not permit a user to configure the process to cancel or rollback an update or to otherwise control the process It is with respect to these considerations and that the embodiments of the present invention have been made SUMMARY It should be appreciated that this Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter
13. ce A portion of non volatile storage may be set aside as a boot block not shown The boot block may constitute for example a block of memory in NVRAM 137 which may be difficult or impossible to update The boot block may include a reduced set of computer instructions which when executed check the firmware 136 to ensure that the instructions stored therein are not corrupted or otherwise modified and then appropriately update recover load and or execute some por tion of firmware 136 Turning now to FIG 3 additional details regarding an EFI specification compliant system which may be utilized to pro vide an operating environment for the various implementa tions presented herein will be described As shown in FIG 3 the system includes platform hardware 316 and an operating system OS 202 The platform firmware 308 may retrieve an OS image from the EFI system partition 318 using an EFI OS loader 302 The EFI system partition 318 may be an architec turally shareable system partition As such the EFI system partition 318 defines a partition and file system that are designed to allow safe sharing of mass storage between mul tiple vendors An OS partition 320 may also be utilized Once started the EFI OS loader 302 continues to boot the complete operating system 202 In doing so the EFI OS loader 302 may use EFI boot services 304 and interface to other supported specifications to survey comprehend and initialize the various platfo
14. clude routines programs components data structures and other types of structures that perform particular tasks or implement particu lar abstract data types Moreover those skilled in the art will appreciate that the embodiments described herein may be practiced with other computer system configurations includ ing hand held devices multiprocessor systems microproces sor based or programmable consumer electronics minicom puters mainframe computers and the like The embodiments described herein may also be practiced in distributed com puting environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications US 8 230 210 B1 3 network In a distributed computing environment program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices Turning now to FIG 1 an illustrative computer architec ture for practicing the embodiments presented herein will be described It should be appreciated that although the embodi ments described herein are discussed in the context of a conventional desktop or server computer virtually any type of computing device may be utilized FIG 1 shows an illus trative computer architecture for a computer 100 that is opera tive to interactively recover or update an installed firmware In order to provide the functionality described herein the computer 100 includes a baseboard or motherboard which is a printed circuit board to which a mu
15. e placed in a table or similar data structure When setup utility 403 executes it may retrieve this information and display recovery page 501 Other methods for providing information about options and receiving input may be available Once input is received regarding options information about the input may be stored for use during the recovery procedure Soliciting input may include requesting that a user press a key before proceeding At operation 704 it is determined whether the recovery pro cedure should proceed This may be determined based on user input or based on one or more selected options The firmware recovery procedure may exit at this point without performing the update Otherwise the recovery proceeds At operation 705 the location of a new firmware image is located The new firmware image refers to a set of computer instructions stored somewhere outside the firmware which may be used to update the firmware Either partial or full firmware updates may be stored in the new firmware image The image may be stored in the memory of computer 100 on a non volatile storage medium e g a hard drive or USB drive associated with computer 100 or on aremote computer connected via a network connection At operation 706 the firmware update operation occurs The firmware update operation may involve copying the firmware image from one location to another and or overwriting an outdated or cor rupted set of instructions In some embodimen
16. e southbridge 108 and the SCSI host bus adapter 130 and their associated com 15 20 25 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 4 puter readable media provide non volatile storage for the computer 100 Although the description of computer read able media contained herein refers to a mass storage device such as a hard disk or CD ROM drive it should be appreci ated by those skilled in the art that computer readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by the com puter 100 By way of example and not limitation computer readable media may comprise computer storage media and communication media Computer storage media includes volatile and non volatile removable and non removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer readable instructions data structures program modules or other data Computer storage media includes but is not limited to RAM ROM EPROM EEPROM flash memory or other solid state memory tech nology CD ROM DVD HD DVD BLU RAY or other opti cal storage magnetic cassettes magnetic tape magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by the computer A low pin count LPC interface may also be provided by the southbridge 108 for connecting a Super I O device 138 The Super I O device 138 is responsible for providing a number of input
17. e update module 401 may include instructions which work in conjunction with setup utility 403 screen manager 404 and other code stored on computer 100 Interactive firmware update module 401 may allow a user to interact with an executing firmware update providing infor mation to the user via display 405 and receiving selections and commands via input devices such as keyboard 406 Inter active firmware update module 401 or other code stored on computer 100 may access a new firmware image and either execute or extract portions of the new firmware image The firmware image may include instructions which call or inter act with setup utility 403 and or screen manager 404 In additional embodiments interactive firmware update module 401 may be stored in or otherwise accessed from a new firmware image FIG 5 depicts an example of a display 501 as provided by interactive firmware update module 401 in conjunction with setup utility 403 and screen manager 404 Display 501 may be shown during a computer s boot operation Display 501 shows that computer 100 has detected a recovery condition It should be noted that although the example here applies spe cifically to an EFI recovery other instructions stored in the US 8 230 210 B1 7 firmware may be the subject of a recovery or an update Display 501 includes a set of options 502 that a user can manipulate using an input device as well as a proceed instruc tion 503 which enables the user to
18. fashion This determination may be made in a number of ways Interactivity may be an option set by a user of computer 100 or by a local or remote man agement agent Actions preceding a recovery may also deter mine interactivity For example if a user powered up com puter 100 manually and it is determined that a recovery is needed the process may automatically decide that the update is interactive Alternatively if a remote computer initiated the recovery then the recovery may proceed automatically with out interactivity Additionally interactivity may be deter mined depending on the level of firmware corruption detected If for example corruption is minimal a user may be presented with more options to configure and or diagnose the issue However if the corruption is severe a recovery may proceed without interactivity If a recovery is determined to be non interactive then the recovery procedure continues at operation 705 If otherwise a recovery is determined to be interactive then at operation 703 the computer solicits the entry of options to configure the firmware recovery procedure Options may be solicited by showing them on display 405 and receiving input from a user via keyboard 406 Options on display 405 may be shown by providing option information to setup utility 403 For example when a recovery condition is determined informa tion about recovery interactivity e g configuration options and progress feedback may b
19. g the example embodiments and applications illustrated and described and without departing from the true spirit and scope ofthe present invention which is set forth in the following claims What is claimed is 1 A computer implemented method for recovering a plu rality of firmware instructions the method comprising determining whether the plurality of firmware instructions need recovery prior to loading an operating system on a computer in response to determining that the plurality of firmware instructions need recovery determining whether recov ery of the firmware instructions is to be conducted in an interactive fashion in response to determining that recovery of the firmware instructions is to be conducted in an interactive fashion soliciting a user to supply an input regarding the recov ery prior to loading the operating system receiving the input from the user and updating the plurality of firm ware instructions in accordance with the input and in response to determining that recovery of the firmware instructions is not to be conducted in an interactive fash ion updating the plurality of firmware instructions with out receiving user input 2 The method of claim 1 wherein soliciting a user to supply an input regarding the update prior to loading the operating system comprises displaying an option for modifi cation 3 The method of claim 2 wherein the option comprises a parameter for specifying whether a plur
20. he firmware instructions is to be conducted in an interactive fashion comprises determining a level of corruption of the firmware instruc tions conducting the recovery ofthe firmware instructions with out interactivity if the level of corruption of the firmware instructions is severe and conducting the recovery of the firmware instructions with interactivity if the level of corruption of the firmware instructions is minimal 10 A non transitory computer readable medium having computer executable instructions stored thereon which when executed by a computer cause the computer to determine whether a recovery of a computer firmware of the computer is needed and in response to determining that a recovery of the computer firmware is needed to determine whether recovery of the firmware is to be conducted in an interactive fashion to display a recovery page for soliciting input regarding the recovery from a user in response to determining that recovery of the firmware is to be conducted in an inter active fashion to receive input from the user by way of the recovery page to recover the computer firmware in accordance with the input and to recover the computer firmware without soliciting input from the user in response to determining that the recovery of the firm ware is not to be conducted in an interactive fashion 11 The computer readable medium of claim 10 wherein displaying the recovery page comprises displaying a config
21. ine the location of the firmware image Other calculations may be determining an address delta between a ROM address and a RAM address In addition the keyboard or other input device may be locked and warning message 602 may be initialized Other initialized variables may include a progress message The progress message may be stored as a string of characters At operation 804 initialization specific to an area of the firmware image occurs An area may represent a subdivision of the firmware image although the image may be stored within a single area An area may include one or more blocks of data A first block within the area may also be determined during operation 804 and the previously determined address delta used to determine a location for the block At operation 805 interrupts may be disabled preventing their disturbing the block update at operation 806 During operation 806 the block may be copied into firmware or elsewhere in memory Also during block update 806 interrupts may be selectively re enabled and the keyboard selectively unlocked If at decision 807 there was an error during a block update then at operation 809 interrupts are enabled and the progress message may be updated to reflect the error In addition during operation 809 an error recovery routine may be acti vated one which may for example replace previously stored firmware and override the update In addition the keyboard is unlocked If there are n
22. initiate a recovery once the user is satisfied with the options In addition setup utility 403 may provide a description 505 of a currently selected option as well as input instructions 504 which instruct the user about manipulating the options By providing display 501 a user may control the specifics of the recovery and also may con trol its progress In some embodiments a user may be unable to configure options or control progress when for example the recovery was triggered by an administrator who wishes to limit interactivity by an end user When a user is shown display 501 the user may direct or move a cursor and select an option modify it and then pro ceed to another option Options may include for example resetting BIOS EFI or other configuration options updating the boot block in addition to the remainder of the firmware ignoring the recovery condition and booting the operating system using a new firmware image without performing an update In addition to setting options forthe impending recov ery a user may be able to perform other functions prior to performing the recovery including for example testing the old firmware image and testing the new firmware image Additional options and functions may enable the user to select and or download a new firmware image from a remote computer via a network connection prior to performing an update FIG 6 depicts a display 601 similar to display 501 of FIG 5 including input
23. instructions 504 Display 601 informs a user as to the ongoing progress of an update or recovery As such a user will not mistakenly believe that computer 100 has frozen because a progress message 603 is refreshed during the update Both displays 501 and 601 may be generated with the assistance of setup utility 403 and or screen manager 404 or with another software module not requiring an operating system to be loaded Display 601 may be shown immediately following a selection made by the user on display 501 Alter natively display 601 may be shown independently such as in the case where no options may be available for the update or recovery when the update or recovery is determined not to be interactive or in any situation where firmware is being updated Display 601 may include a warning message 602 and an updated progress message 603 Warning message 602 may be used to remind the user not to power down or otherwise disrupt computer 100 during the update or recovery Progress message 603 is repeatedly updated so as to show the user that the firmware update or recovery is progressing Details will be provided below with respect to FIG 8 as to how progress message 603 may be generated and displayed FIG 7 is a flow diagram illustrating an example of a pro cess for providing an interactive firmware recovery The logi cal operations of the various implementations presented including those of FIGS 7 and 8 may be 1 a sequence of compute
24. ltitude of components or devices may be connected by way of a system bus or other communication path In one illustrative embodiment a CPU 102 operates in conjunction with a chipset 104 The CPU 102 is a standard central processor that performs arithmetic and logical operations necessary for the operation of the com puter The computer 100 may include a multitude of CPUs 102 Chipset 104 includes a northbridge 106 and a southbridge 108 Northbridge 106 provides an interface between CPU 102 and the remainder of computer 100 Northbridge 106 also provides an interface to a random access memory RAM used as a main memory 114 in computer 100 and possibly to an on board graphics adapter 112 Northbridge 106 may also include functionality for providing networking functionality through a gigabit Ethernet adapter 110 Gigabit Ethernet adapter 110 is capable of connecting computer 100 to one or more other computers via a network Connections which may be made by adapter 110 may include local area network LAN or wide area network WAN connections LAN and WAN networking environments are commonplace in offices enterprise wide computer networks intranets and the Inter net Northbridge 106 is connected to southbridge 108 Southbridge 108 is responsible for controlling many ofthe input output functions of computer 100 In particular south bridge 108 may provide one or more universal serial bus USB ports 116 a sound adapter 124 an Ethernet contr
25. mware instructions with out receiving user input if the remote computer initiated the recovery 18 The computer readable medium of claim 10 wherein determine whether recovery of the firmware instructions is to be conducted in an interactive fashion comprises determining a level of corruption of the firmware instruc tions conducting the recovery ofthe firmware instructions with out interactivity ifthe level of corruption ofthe firmware instructions is severe and conducting the recovery of the firmware instructions with interactivity if the level of corruption of the firmware instructions is minimal 19 A computer system configured for interactive recovery of a firmware the computer system comprising one or more central processing units and a non volatile memory device having instructions stored thereupon which when executed on the one or more central processing units cause the computer system to determine whether the firmware needs recovery prior to loading an operating system on the computer sys tem to determine whether recovery of the firmware is to be conducted in an interactive fashion in response to determining that the firmware needs recovery in response to determining that recovery of the firmware is to be conducted in an interactive fashion to solicit a user to supply an input regarding the recovery prior to loading the operating system to receive the input from the user to update the firmware in accorda
26. nce with the input and to update the firmware without receiving user input in response to determining that recovery ofthe firmware is not to be conducted in an interactive fashion 20 The computer system of claim 19 wherein the non volatile memory device has further computer executable instructions stored thereupon which when executed by the one or more central processing units causes the computer system to repeatedly update a display of a progress message while performing recovery of the firmware
27. o errors at decision 807 and this is not the last block within the area at decision 808 then at operation 810 interrupts may be enabled and the progress message may be updated to reflect further progress towards updating the firmware The updated message may reflect an additional percentage of the area or firmware being completed Proceed ing to the next block at operation 811 interrupts are once again disabled at operation 805 The period between re en abling and disabling interrupts may allow a separate process or set of instructions to interrupt the ongoing firmware update Such an interrupt may include a setup utility 403 or screen manager 404 interrupting or calling back to retrieve or access the most recent progress message Likewise the updated progress message may be pushed by the firmware update routine to update the screen without necessarily using an interrupt In some embodiments setup utility 403 may make periodic calls to the interactive firmware update module during the firmware update These calls from the setup utility may be immediately handled may be deferred or may be ignored by the interactive firmware update module When handling these calls the interactive firmware update module may put the an 0 a 5 40 45 55 65 10 ongoing update operation on hold and then update the progress message The update module may then return con trol to setup utility 403 which can then utilize screen manager 4
28. oller 134 and one or more general purpose input output GPIO pins 118 Southbridge 108 may also provide a bus for inter facing peripheral card devices such as a SCSI host bus adapter 130 In one embodiment the bus comprises a peripheral component interconnect PCI bus Southbridge 108 may also provide a system management bus 132 for use in managing the various components of computer 100 Power manage ment circuitry 126 and clock generation circuitry 128 may also be utilized during the operation of southbridge 108 Southbridge 108 is also operative to provide one or more interfaces for connecting mass storage devices to computer 100 For instance according to an embodiment southbridge 108 includes a serial advanced technology attachment SATA adapter for providing one or more serial ATA ports 120 and an ATAIOO adapter for providing one or more ATA100 ports 122 Serial ATA ports 120 and ATA100 ports 122 may be in turn connected to one or more mass storage devices storing an operating system and application programs and other data As known to those skilled in the art an oper ating system comprises a set of programs that control opera tions of a computer and allocation of resources An applica tion program is software that runs on top of the operating system software or other runtime environment and uses computer resources to perform application specific tasks desired by a user of computer 100 The mass storage devices connected to th
29. r implemented acts or program modules running on computer 100 and or 2 interconnected machine logic cir cuits or circuit modules within computer 100 The implemen tation is a matter of choice dependent on the performance requirements of the computer on which the embodiments are implemented Accordingly the logical operations making up the implementations are referred to variously as operations structural devices acts or modules It will be recognized by one skilled in the art that these operations structural devices acts and modules may be implemented in software in firm ware in special purpose digital logic and or any combination thereof without deviating from the spirit and scope of the 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 8 attached claims Moreover it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the operations described may be combined divided reordered skipped and otherwise modified also without deviating from the spirit and scope of the attached claims Routine 700 begins with operation 701 which involves determining that a recovery is to be initiated Determining the need for a recovery may be accomplished by determining for example that the current firmware image has been corrupted or that a remote computer connected to computer 100 via a network has requested a recovery At decision 702 the firm ware update routine determines whether the recovery is to be conducted in an interactive
30. rm components and the operating system software that manages them Thus interfaces 314 from other specifications may also be present on the system For example the Advanced Configuration and Power Man agement Interface ACPI and the System Management BIOS SMBIOS specifications may be supported 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 6 EFI boot services 304 provide interfaces for devices and system functionality that can be used during boot time EFI runtime services 306 may also be available to the OS loader 302 during the boot phase For example a minimal set of runtime services may be presented to ensure appropriate abstraction of base platform hardware resources that may be needed by the operating system 202 during its normal opera tion EFI allows extension of platform firmware by loading EFI driver and EFI application images which when loaded have access to all EFI defined runtime and boot services Various program modules provide the boot and runtime services These program modules may be loaded by the EFI boot loader 312 at system boot time The EFI boot loader 312 is a component in the EFI firmware that determines which program modules should be explicitly loaded and when Once the EFI firmware is initialized it passes control to the boot loader 312 The boot loader 312 is then responsible for deter mining which of the program modules to load and in what order It should be appreciated that both operating
31. rmware The EFI specification provides protocols for EFI drivers to communicate with each other and the EFI core provides functions such as allocation of memory creating events setting the clock and many others As described above firmware 136 may include a firmware compatible with the EFI specification from INTEL CORPO RATION or from the UEFI FORUM The specification defines a way for the operating system 202 and firmware 136 to communicate only information necessary to support the operating system boot process This may be accomplished through a formal and complete abstract specification of the software visible interface presented to the operating system by the platform and the firmware According to one implementation of EFI on INTEL COR PORATION IA 32 platforms both EFI 206 and a BIOS 208 may be present in firmware 136 This allows users and system integrators to support both firmware interfaces In order to provide this functionality an interface 212 may be provided for use by legacy operating systems and applications Addi tional details regarding the architecture and operation of EFI 206 are provided below with respect to FIG 3 Moreover additional details regarding the operation and architecture of EFI can be found in either version 1 10 of the EFI specifica tion available from INTEL CORPORATION and or version 2 0 of the UEFI specification available from the UEFI FORUM both of which are expressly incorporated herein by referen
32. system 202 and firmware 136 may provide a runtime environment for application programs as described herein FIG 4 depicts program modules which may be utilized as part of the boot process of computer 100 During a boot process a setup utility 403 may be initiated prior to the loading of an operating system 202 Setup utility 403 may be initiated at the behest of a user e g depressing a special key or combination of keys at the behest ofa management agent stored on computer 100 or on another computer connected by a network and or at the behest of the instructions stored in firmware 136 itself In the latter situation a power on self test POST may be performed which may verify the integrity of the instructions stored in firmware 136 This may include evaluating the instructions stored on firmware 136 to deter mine whether they have been corrupted or modified inappro priately If it is found that firmware 136 is lacking integrity setup utility 403 may be initiated without external interven tion Setup utility 403 may include and or may otherwise work with screen manager 404 Setup utility 403 may receive and process input from a user via for example a keyboard 406 Setup utility 403 in conjunction with screen manager 404 may display information and options on a display 405 The combination of input and output may allow a user to configure setup options or otherwise work interactively with setup utility 403 An interactive firmwar
33. ts the firm ware update operation may involve utilizing the interactive process depicted in FIG 8 Upon completion of an update operation at decision 707 again depending on whether the recovery procedure is US 8 230 210 B1 9 intended to be interactive or not additional input may be requested This may be a request to confirm or commit the update and or to press a key to continue If interactive once input is received at decision 708 then at operation 709 com puter 100 may be reset or the firmware will otherwise be restarted with the new firmware image installed FIG 8 is a flow diagram illustrating an example of a pro cess for providing interactive firmware updates The routine 800 depicted in this example may or may not work as part of the process 700 set forth above In other words routine 800 may be used in the handling of update operation 706 At decision 801 interactivity is determined in any ofa number of ways but does not necessarily need to be determined in the same fashion as the interactivity determined at decision 702 At decision 802 if interactive an input may be waited on before proceeding The input may merely be a depressed key signaling that the update should begin At operation 803 a global initialization occurs wherein variables and procedures are initialized prior to beginning the actual update Global initialization 803 may determine the number of blocks and or areas to be updated and may also determ
34. u ration option for configuring the recovery 12 The computer readable medium of claim 11 wherein the configuration option comprises a parameter for specifying whether configuration data stored in non volatile memory should be reset 13 The computer readable medium of claim 11 wherein the configuration option comprises a parameter for specifying whether a boot block should be updated 14 The computer readable medium of claim 10 having further computer executable instructions stored thereupon which when executed by the computer cause the computer to 25 35 40 45 50 12 display a repeatedly updated visual indicator of progress while proceeding with the recovery of the computer firmware 15 The computer readable medium of claim 10 wherein the instructions are all executed prior to the loading of an operating system 16 The computer readable medium of claim 10 wherein determine whether recovery of the firmware instructions is to be conducted in an interactive fashion comprises determining whether a user powered up the computer and conducting the recovery of the firmware instructions in an interactive fashion if the user powered up the computer 17 The computer readable medium of claim 10 wherein determine whether recovery of the firmware instructions is to be conducted in an interactive fashion comprises determining whether a remote computer initiated the recovery and conducting the recovery of the fir
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