Kontron EPIC/CE, User Manual

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24 Appendix B: BIOS Operation
Kontron User's Guide EPIC/CE 87
24.10.2 Preventing Problems When Updating or Restoring BIOS
Updating the BIOS represents a potential hazard. Power failures or fluctuations can occur when you
update the Flash ROM can damage the BIOS code, making the system unbootable.
To prevent this hazard, many systems come with a boot-block Flash ROM. The boot-block region contains
a fail-safe recovery routine. If the boot-block code finds a corrupted BIOS (checksum fails), it boots into
the crisis recovery mode and loads a BIOS image from a crisis diskette (see above).
Additionally, the end user can insert an update key into the parallel port (LPT) to force initiating the
boot block recovery routine.
For further information on the update key and the crisis diskette, see the Application Note
PHLASH_SCE???, which is available from the KONTRON Embedded Modules Web site. The three question
marks stand for the revision number of the file.