Introduction; Supported Platforms; Location Of Hp Efi And Preboot Applications- The Hp Tools Fat32 Partition - HP 2230s - Compaq Business Notebook Manuallines

1. Introduction

As computer technology has advanced, the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) has
expanded in an effort to handle new components, larger and more complex
chipsets, add‐in cards, and so on. This expansion of the BIOS has made it
increasingly intricate.
The computer industry's answer to address BIOS limitations is the development
of the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI). EFI is a set of modular interfaces that
replaces the set of traditional BIOS interfaces between the operating system and
platform firmware.
EFI is based on the high‐level C language and is driver‐based, scalable, and easy to
debug and upgrade. EFI uses a modular, platform‐independent architecture that
can perform boot and other BIOS functions.
Tapping into this technology, HP has implemented a preboot partition on all of its
1
commercial notebook computers. Along with replacing the traditional BIOS
interface, the HP partition adds tools to the preboot system environment. The
partition is viewable on the hard drive and is labeled as HP_TOOLS. On 2008 and
later commercial notebook platforms with the EFI BIOS, HP created the partition
as a FAT32 partition, due to EFI BIOS limitations with accessing other partition
formats.
For more information about EFI, go to http://www.hp.com/go/techcenter

2. Supported Platforms

The HP_Tools partition feature described in this document is supported by 2008
and 2009 HP business notebooks.
3. Location of HP EFI and Preboot Applications- the
HP_TOOLS Fat32 Partition
2