Question about laptop BIOSs

[Mears]

How many manf. place bios settings on an unwritable partition nowadays? I know Compaq used to. I'm in the market for a notebook and want to avoid any brands that do that.

 

[NTB]

Gateway is another one, I think. Only things I can access in mine are the power settings, boot device order, and a few other small things.

Nate

 

[Mears]

Anyone know if Compaq/HP still do this?

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: NTB
Gateway is another one, I think. Only things I can access in mine are the power settings, boot device order, and a few other small things. Nate

My Gateway Solo 9300cx has a full BIOS accessed by pressing F2 at POST. It can be flashed, and is not stored on a hidden partition. It is written to the BIOS eprom just as most all computers. A BIOS can't be used from a hard drive partition because the machine must be able to boot w/o the HDD.

Perhaps you are talking about a backup set of parameter settings?