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4 Summary of the HP/Phoenix BIOS
Setup Program
Security Menu
Sub-menus are presented for changing the characteristics and values of the
User Password, the System Administrator Password, the amount of
protection against use of the system’s drives (using the Hardware Protection
sub-menu), and the amount of protection against being able to boot from
the system’s drives (using the Start-Up Center sub-menu).
The minimum lengths of either type of password can be set to a specific
number of characters, or to
none
. The maximum length of each is 32
characters. A limit can be set for the maximum number of retries that are
permitted if the password is mistyped, and whether a delay should be
imposed (of successively increasing lengths: 4 seconds, 8 seconds, 16
seconds, and finally 32 seconds) before successive retries are accepted
(using the
exponential
setting for the “Lock Time Between Attempts”
field).
The “User Password” sub-menu grants access to the keyboard lock timer
option. Once this password has been set, the menu gives access to the main
sub-menu of user preferences.
Under the “Hardware Protection” sub-menu, the following devices can have
their access
locked/unlocked
: flexible disk controller, IDE controllers,
serial and parallel ports. Writes to the flexible disk can be
locked
, so as to
prevent the exporting of data. Writes to the hard disk drive boot sector can
be
locked
, for instance as a protection against viruses.
Under the “Start-Up Center” sub-menu, the
Setup
program not only allows
the user to select which devices are enabled or disabled (by selecting
yes
or
no
) for booting up the system, but also indicates their order of
precedence when more than one is enabled: flexible disk drive, CD-ROM
drive, or hard disk drive.
Power Menu
The “Power” menu allows the user to set the standby delay. It also allows the
system administrator to decide whether the mouse is enabled as a means of
reactivating the system from
Standby
.
