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The ESP will be accessible for both read and write operations. Altering the
contents of the ESP should be carefully considered. It should not be used as a
general storage area. Recommended uses of the ESP are:
BIOS update files
Diagnostic update files
RSA firmware update
Firmware update files for other devices
Backup of the EFI/SAL
Backup of the EFI Firmware Boot Manager boot options
Backup of the Windows boot record
Useful EFI utilities
Important: Do not alter the content of the EFI directory on the EFI System
Partition. As described in "EFI System Partition" on page 33, this directory
contains the files necessary to boot installed operating systems.
Always make a backup of important files that can be taken off site.
Exporting and importing the Windows EFI boot record
During the installation process, the Setup program adds a new entry to the EFI
Firmware Boot Manager menu.
It will be added to the top of the menu so that if no keys are pressed once the EFI
Firmware Boot Manager menu appears, Windows will automatically start. The
default delay is 30 seconds but may be changed using the Set Auto Boot Timeout
option in the Boot Option Maintenance menu.
The EFI Firmware Boot Manager records are stored in NVRAM. If the boot
record is deleted from EFI NVRAM, there is no other way to start Windows
except by restoring the boot record from backups. To back up and restore
Windows boot records use the NVRBOOT.EFI utility.
In this section we show you how to save the Windows options in the EFI
Firmware Boot Manager menu and how to recover it in case of an NVRAM
failure.
Tip: This procedure actually saves all the boot options in the EFI Firmware
Boot Manager, but if you require all the options then always use the EFI
backup command. The backup command is designed for this, nvrboot.efi
features may change as Microsoft make modifications to it.
In "GUID Partition Table disk" on page 31, we describe how GPT disks are
identified by the global unique identifier (GUID). The entries in the EFI Firmware
Boot Manager menu use the GUID to identify which device to boot from.
IBM Eserver xSeries 455 Planning and Installation Guide
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