[dba-Tech] Running BIOS setup from Windows

MartyConnelly martyconnelly at shaw.ca
Sun Jan 22 11:50:13 CST 2006


There are a lot of DOS assembler programs out there that save, restore 
and display the first 128 bytes of CMOS
You might wonder why they save only 128 bytes of CMOS even though
some modern computers have many times that amount in extendeded BIOS.  
The problem is the way
you get at the rest of it is proprietary.  The vendors won't disclose how
you get at it.  It is possible to disassemble the ROM BIOS to figure it
out in an individual case. There is also a way to get at BIOS passwords.

You can hit PrintScrn when in BIOS settings area to save settings to paper.
I used this on old 286's to remember cyls and heads disk settings, when 
the bios didn't check beforehand
as they do now.


You can view a lot of BIOS settings via WMI.
for example to find manufacture of BIOS
http://www.activexperts.com/activmonitor/windowsmanagement/adminscripts/computermanagement/hardware/#RetrBiosInfo.htm
or
http://www.activexperts.com/activmonitor/windowsmanagement/wmi/samples/hw/#Win32_BIOS.htm

On this above site there are a lot more vbs scripts that could be 
translated to VBA to get at specific info..

I suppose you could try the individual BIOS manufactures site. Going 
back about 10 years AMI
had some programs to display info.




Shamil Salakhetdinov wrote:

>Hi All,
>
>Did anybody use subj utilities like hwsetup?
>(http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.asp?p=102215&seqNum=4&rl=1)
>
>I have never seen/used it - I just wanted to have something like BIOS setup
>to run from Windows in "virtual" mode - I mean I don't need to change BIOS
>setup options while MS Windows is running - I just wanted to investigate
>them...
>
>Thank you for any additional info on subject.
>Shamil
>
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>
>  
>

-- 
Marty Connelly
Victoria, B.C.
Canada






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