Method and apparatus for providing diagnosis of a processor without an operating system boot

摘要

A method and apparatus are provided for diagnosis of a processor in an operating system-absent environment (i.e., without or prior to an operating system boot). A boot operation of the processor is begun, and a Power-On Self test (POST) process is run. If a failure in the POST process occurs, the failure is detected and information regarding it is stored. The processor is then rebooted and the POST process is begun again. The stored information of the prior POST failure is then used for diagnosis during the reboot operation. To assist in the diagnosis, information about the state of the boot process can be displayed as a supplement to beep codes customarily used for diagnosis. In another aspect of the invention, after a boot failure is detected, a Pre-boot Diagnostic System Loader can be run. Information stored in the Pre-boot Diagnostic System Loader can then be used to boot a diagnostic partition. Also, in order to permit diagnosis and repair by establishing connection with a remote location, a voice connection and a network connection can be separately established between the processor and the remote location on separate lines. The voice connection and the network connection can then be correlated with one another by using a Lightweight-Directory-Access-Protocol (LDAP) database which stores information to permit the correlation. Once the correlation is established, diagnosis and remote repair can be achieved. All of these operations can be run in the OS-absent environment.