Questions on the Plop Boot Manager

Started by 2011PlopUser, December 28, 2011, 22:35:19 PM

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2011PlopUser

At http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html on the Internet I noticed the following two features of the Plop Boot Manager:

A) "It can be used as PCI option ROM in your BIOS."
B) "Access the whole USB hard disk (up to 2TB) even when the bios has a 128 GiB limit."

With my Hewlett-Packard, ZE1110, Pavilion notebook computer's Insyde Software, JA.M1.31 Basic Input Output System (BIOS) I would like to be able to solve two challenges:

1) to be able to backup the data on the partitions of my computer's internal hard-disk drive onto a Universal Serial Bus- (USB-) cabled external hard-disk drive, which I recently ordered.  The use of the free program Partimage Is Not Ghost (PING), available from http://www.windowsdream.com/ping, is attractive for this purpose.  But my computer's Basic Input Output System (BIOS) can only boot from my computer's 3.5-inch diskette drive, Digital Video Disc-Recordable/Digital Video Disc-Read Only Memory/Digital Video Disc-ReWritable/Compact Disc-Read Only Memory/Compact Disc-ReWritable/Compact Disc-Recordable (DVD-R/DVD-ROM/DVD-RW/CD-ROM/CD-RW/CD-R) drive, or internal hard-disk drive, unfortunately not from a USB-cabled, hard-disk drive.  And PING 3.01 and 3.02 did not list an external, USB-cabled, CD writer containing a written CD as a source for backing up or restoring data.  PING 3.01 also did not list an external, USB-cabled, hard-disk drive as a source for backing up or restoring data.

2) Having a BIOS which does not limit to 137 GigaBytes (GB) the use of my computer's 160-GB, internal, hard-disk drive [But it is debatable whether my BIOS caused this limitation because after my computer was booted using a GNOME (GNU [Gnu's Not Unix] Network Object Model Environment) Partition Editor (GParted) "live" CD, GParted "reported" the partitions and unallocated space for all 160 GB of the hard-disk drive.  I'm even wondering if the "live" Linux operating system that I guess might be included in a GParted "live" CD might write something into the BIOS so that all of the hard-disk drive can become visible.].

A plan for backing up the data on my hard-disk drive which I expect would work, skipping some mount and unmount operations, is to:

A) use PING to write a backup image of the hard-disk-drive data onto a partition formatted in, say the ext3 file system, on the same hard-disk drive.
B) Then in an openSUSE, Linux operating system copy that image onto an external, USB-cabled hard-disk drive formatted in, say the ext3 file system.
C) After replacing the internal hard-disk drive, use a GParted, "live" CD to set up the partitions on the new hard-disk drive with partition boundaries and file systems to match the ones on the old hard-disk drive.
D) From a bootable CD load a minimal Linux operating system, file manager, and a master boot record onto the new hard-disk drive.
E) In that minimal Linux operating system copy the image of the first hard-disk drive, located on the external, USB-cabled, hard-disk drive, onto the corresponding partition of the new hard-disk drive on which it was stored on the first hard-disk drive.
F) Boot the computer with a PING CD and choose "Restoration" and the image of the first hard-disk drive, now located in its special partition on the new, hard-disk drive, to restore the data on the old hard-disk drive onto the new hard-disk drive.

But I am interested in the possibility of the use of the Plop Boot Manager with the image stored only on the external hard-disk drive to solve each of the above challenges 1 and 2; this would hopefully allow all of the internal hard-disk drive to be used for non-backup data.  But there are things which relate to the Plop Boot Manager and its use which I don't know or on which I would like clarification:

a1) In my openSUSE-12.1 Linux operating system I saw that for my computer's BIOS "BUS: none" was listed.  Is that okay for recording a "PCI option ROM" (Peripheral Component Interconnect option Read Only Memory) in my computer's BIOS?
a2) What exactly does "PCI option ROM" mean?  Does it mean that the BIOS will be configured to optionally use a PCI bus on the computer?  My computer does contain a PCI bus.

b1) For the formation of the file plpbt.rom with a sample command like "plpbtrom -vendorid 0x10ec -deviceid 0x8139 plpbtrom.bin plpbt.rom," it looks like it is a good idea to include the vendor and device identifications (ids) of something.  Are those ids supposed to be the manufacturer and device ids for the PCI bus or for the BIOS or a mixture of the two?
b2) In openSUSE-12.1 Linux I typed "lspci -vn" (List "PCI" [lspci], verbose [v] and number [n].) and obtained the following output:

linux-iy6k:~ # lspci -vn
00:00.0 0600: 1106:0305 (rev 80)
        Subsystem: 103c:0022
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 8
        Memory at a0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M]
        Capabilities: [a0] AGP version 2.0
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: agpgart-via

00:01.0 0604: 1106:8305 (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0
        I/O behind bridge: 0000c000-0000dfff
        Memory behind bridge: e0000000-efffffff
        Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 90000000-9fffffff
        Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:0a.0 0607: 1217:6972
        Subsystem: 103c:0022
        Flags: bus master, stepping, slow devsel, latency 168, IRQ 11
        Memory at 40000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=05, sec-latency=176
        Memory window 0: 48000000-4bfff000 (prefetchable)
        Memory window 1: 44000000-47fff000
        I/O window 0: 00001800-000018ff
        I/O window 1: 00001400-000014ff
        16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001
        Kernel driver in use: yenta_cardbus

00:11.0 0601: 1106:8231 (rev 10)
        Subsystem: 103c:0022
        Flags: bus master, stepping, medium devsel, latency 0
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: parport_pc

00:11.1 0101: 1106:0571 (rev 06) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
        Subsystem: 103c:0022
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64
        [virtual] Memory at 000001f0 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8]
        [virtual] Memory at 000003f0 (type 3, non-prefetchable)
        [virtual] Memory at 00000170 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8]
        [virtual] Memory at 00000370 (type 3, non-prefetchable)
        I/O ports at 1100 [size=16]
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: pata_via

00:11.2 0c03: 1106:3038 (rev 1e) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: 103c:0022
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 22, IRQ 11
        I/O ports at 1200 [size=32]
        Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd

00:11.4 0680: 1106:8235 (rev 10)
        Subsystem: 103c:0022
        Flags: medium devsel
        Capabilities: [68] Power Management version 2

00:11.5 0401: 1106:3058 (rev 40)
        Subsystem: 103c:0022
        Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 10
        I/O ports at e000 [size=256]
        I/O ports at e100
        I/O ports at e104
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: snd_via82xx

00:11.6 0780: 1106:3068 (rev 20)
        Subsystem: 103c:0022
        Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 10
        I/O ports at e200 [size=256]
        Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: snd_via82xx_modem

01:00.0 0300: 5333:8d02 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: 103c:0022
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
        Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
        Memory at 90000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
        Expansion ROM at 98000000 [disabled] [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [80] AGP version 2.0

linux-iy6k:~ #

Note that "Subsystem: 103:0022" appears a number of times and that "PCI" and "BIOS" do not appear at all in any of the above output.  So, if applicable, what would the vendor id and device id be to include in a command of the form "plpbtrom -vendorid 0x10ec -deviceid 0x8139 plpbtrom.bin plpbt.rom"?

Concerning goal 2 and feature "B" I think my current BIOS may not support 48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA), unless Linux modifies the BIOS, but may limit the maximum portion of a hard-disk drive to ordinarily be visible to 128 GiB (GibiBytes) or 137 GB (http://books.google.com/books?id=kG8LcWfruOAC&pg=PT326&lpg=PT326&dq=%22128+GB%22+BIOS+limitation+LBA+bit&source=bl&ots=xjZ4i7bZkP&sig=PaMNqdzqYJXkXWzjV6WY793BFF0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=WtTzToiyOsTw0gG61I3AAg&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22128%20GB%22%20BIOS%20limitation%20LBA%20bit&f=false).  So although the Plop Boot Manager feature mentions exceeding the 128 GiB limit for USB hard drives, it would be nice if the same Plop Boot Manager technique would enable more than 137 GB of internal, Integrated Development Electronics- (IDE-) cabled hard drives to ordinarily be readable.

3) Could the Plop Boot Manager solve that problem, too?

4) What are the minimum requirements of the software which must be present on a drive which is to be used to boot a computer using the Plop Boot Manager?  Of course there should be an operating system on that drive.  For Linux what are the essential files which should be there, such as initrd.gz or initrd.lz, a Linux kernel file, etc.?  I presume that on the drives accessible to the Plop Boot Manager there would need to be both a boot loader and a master boot record.  Is it necessary to have something special automatically written into the boot loader for the Plop Boot Manager to work?  From what I read the boot loader should for the Plop Boot Manager be written in the boot sector of I think a Linux operating system instead of in the Master Boot Record (MBR).

Furthermore I encourage the Plop Boot Manager developers to expand the Plop Boot Manager to enable the booting of CD-ROMs, CD-Rs, DVD-ROMs, and DVD-Rs in external, USB-cabled CD and DVD drives.---But I must admit ignorance of how difficult that might be to do.  Based on the Plop Boot Manager's listed features, it already looks like it could be a useful program for some people!  Thanks also for kindly making it available free of charge!

Elmar

hi,
too much text, and i dont understand the real question.

so i will answer only a few parts of your post. you can ask again, but not so much at once.

for backup, simply boot a linux and do the backup/restore process.

the bios 128GB limit is only a problem
a) when dos should access sectors above 128GB
b) when you want to boot an operating system that has the boot sector and the needed files (like the kernel and  initrd) above the 128GB.

when linux and windows are started, then they have no problem with > 128GB, that means, when linux is up, you dont have the bios limit of the hard disk.


Quote from: 2011PlopUser on December 28, 2011, 22:35:19 PM
a2) What exactly does "PCI option ROM" mean?  Does it mean that the BIOS will be configured to optionally use a PCI bus on the computer?  My computer does contain a PCI bus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Option_ROM

the boot manager will be started directly from the bios. no hard disk, floppy, cd or whatever is needed to start the boot manager. the boot manager appears like a boot device (hdd, floppy, ..) in the bios boot sequence.


Quote from: 2011PlopUser on December 28, 2011, 22:35:19 PM
4) What are the minimum requirements of the software which must be present on a drive which is to be used to boot a computer using the Plop Boot Manager?  Of course there should be an operating system on that drive. 

when you install the plop boot manager to the mbr then no operating system is required to use the boot manager.  -> no minimum software requirements of software which must be present. the plop boot manager is an operating system independent program


when you want to start the boot manager for example from the grub menu, then grub is required.


Quote from: 2011PlopUser on December 28, 2011, 22:35:19 PM
Furthermore I encourage the Plop Boot Manager developers ...

there is only one developer

best regards
elmar

2011PlopUser

Sorry, 1) I was unable to avoid the varying fonts and font sizes in my first posting in this thread.  If the administrator of this forum wants to make the fonts and font sizes constant throughout that posting, that would be fine with me.  2) I think I left out an explicit outline of a plan I hope could be made workable for my purpose of making and restoring the backups of data on numerous partitions of my internal hard-disk drive, perhaps using the free program PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost, available from http://www.windowsdream.com/ping on the Internet).  With one set of instructions one can deal with multiple partitions in one execution of PING, a convenient feature of that program.  If my outline looks vague, it is because I still don't know a lot about some things so that I may be writing a bit "over my head."  Please note to avoid possible confusion: In my ideal plan below I list in parentheses some of the things I can't do now with my computer and the program PING.  Outside the parentheses I discuss elements of the ideal plan.

Ideal plan that I hope might be workable:

i) USB (Universal Serial Bus) drive appearing as an additional option in my year-2003 BIOS's (Basic Input Output System's) boot screen.  I presume this would be a result of I suppose a PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) option ROM (Read Only Memory) being written into that BIOS after somehow generating that PCI option ROM from the file plpbt.rom by a sample command of the form "plpbtrom -vendorid 0x10ec -deviceid 0x8139 plpbtrom.bin plpbt.rom" (Also I don't yet know exactly what to do between generating the file plpbt.rom and writing the PCI option ROM into my computer's BIOS.).
ii) Then after powering on my computer I would like to be able to choose USB from the BIOS boot options to run PING by booting the Linux operating system that appears with it, with both PING and that Linux operating system located on a USB-cabled, external, hard-disk drive.  (Presently my computer's BIOS does not list a USB drive as a bootable drive.)  My untested hope is that the so-started PING would then show not only the USB-cabled hard-disk drive on which it would ideally be located, but also the partitions (on the other side of the USB cable) of the hard-disk drive inside my notebook computer.  (By booting PING from a PING "live" CD spinning in my computer's internal, DVD [Digital Video Disc] drive, PING 3.01 did not "list" an external, USB-cabled, hard-disk drive as a drive it could "use.")    If that would all be successful, then I should be able to make and restore backups of data from multiple partitions of the internal hard-disk drive between the external, USB-cabled, hard-disk drive and an internal hard-disk drive.

Of secondary importance would be to be able to use all 160 GigaBytes (GB) of my computer's internal hard-disk drive.  Until recently I thought that my computer's BIOS was limited to 28-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA), which if so could in turn limit the accessible portion of my internal hard-disk drive to 137.44 GB, as discussed at http://www.thestarman.narod.ru/asm/mbr/Limits.htm on the Internet.---When I first started using that 160-GB hard-disk drive in January of the year 2009, its capacity was shown as either only 128 GiB (GibiBytes) or 128 GB instead of 160 GB (Back in January of 2009 I may not have known exactly what the difference was between GiB and GB; but gratefully now I do.).  However, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, the program GParted {GNOME (GNU [Gnu's Not Unix] Network Object Model Environment) Partition Editor} on a "live" CD listed all 160 GB of my internal, hard-disk drive's capacity.  In a few days I hope to have the necessary hardware for a 250-GB, USB-cabled, external hard-disk drive for my notebook computer, a drive I hope to be able to use for making and restoring backups of data on my internal hard-disk drive.  Perhaps after formatting that external drive in the ext3 file system I may be able to see if a file manager in my openSUSE-12.1 Linux operating system will show that drive's capacity as 250 GB or 137 GB while using my present BIOS, unless I am able to get the PCI option ROM produced and written into that BIOS before then.

Now a major challenge for me is determining what vendor and device identifications (ids) I should be using for "something PCI" in my computer in the command of the form "plpbtrom -vendorid 0x10ec -deviceid 0x8139 plpbtrom.bin plpbt.rom."

Today's question 1a: Keeping in mind my goal of in my BIOS using a "PCI option ROM" to enable the booting of a USB-1.1-cabled, hard-disk drive containing an operating system and the program PING, for what device should I be determining the vendor and device ids?  For example, in openSUSE-12.1's YaST2's (Yet another Software Tool 2's) "Hardware Information" under "PCI" I saw VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 controller," and probably not immediately below that "Device identifier (spec): 65570" and "Device identifier: 77880"; and then further down under "Resources" I found something similar to "Vendor identifier: 69894" and "Vendor: VIA Technologies, Inc.", "Subvendor Identifier: 69692," and "Subvendor: Hewlett Packard Co."  Do any of those descriptions and numbers match parts of what I would need for the values of the parameters "-vendorid" and "-deviceid" in the command of the form "plpbtrom -vendorid 0x10ec -deviceid 0x8139 plpbtrom.bin plpbt.rom" to generate the file plpbt.rom for I suppose a PCI option ROM?

Today's question 1b: If I learn for what device I should be searching for the vendor id and device id, how may I determine those values for my computer?

Today's question 1c: Once one has the preliminary device id and vendor id is there some formula or conversion one has to use to obtain the vendor and device ids in forms that look like 0x...... and 0x......?

Today's question 1d: If so, what is that formula or conversion procedure?

Today's question 1e: Is a conversion from a decimal to a hexadecimal number involved in such a conversion?

In this particular posting I avoided asking about the less-than-ideal plan of using the Plop Boot Manager on a bootable Compact Disc (CD) to make PING and its accompanying operating system bootable when and if they would be located on an external, USB-cabled hard-disk drive.  I like the idea of instead improving my BIOS's capabilities, assuming that can be done in a way safe for both it and my computer.

Thanks, Elmar, for kindly posting the hyperlink on option ROM.  I did some reading both there and from http://www.acpica.org/download/specsbbs101.pdf, which mentions PCI.  But unfortunately I can't write that I understood well everything I read from either of those Web sites.  Thanks for bearing with me, considering my ignorance of some things.

Elmar

hi,

at first,  its not required to write the meaning of the acronym's

Quote from: 2011PlopUser on January 03, 2012, 05:51:45 AM
PING 3.01 did not "list" an external, USB-cabled, hard-disk drive as a drive it could "use.")

maybe PING is not the correct program for you. your posting was the first time that i hear from that program. when PING does not list usb cabled drives, then no program can fix that issue.

i suggest to use fsarchiver or partimage as backups software. those programs are shipped with many linux distros (in ploplinux too).

partimage example: http://www.plop.at/en/ploplinux.html#partimage
simple fsarchiver example: http://www.plop.at/en/ploplinux.html#fsarchiver


before you modify your bios, you should be sure that everything works as suggested. i mean, use the plop boot manager from floppy or cd, test the backup stuff and so on. when all works, then you can finalize your work with flashing the bios. why should everything work? because flashing the bios is always a risk, and when not all other problems are solved, then there is no need to risk the bios flash.

however, did you ever read the examples how to flash a bios http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html#plprom
basically you can choose any vendor and device id, but to have no compatibility problems (mostly there should be no problems) i suggest to take the numbers of the module that you replace with the boot manager rom.

regards
elmar

2011PlopUser

#4
Thanks, Elmar, for kindly responding to my last posting.  The program fsarchiver example appeared to be for a Windows operating system.  Booting with Plop Linux looked more interesting to me as a possible hard-drive backup solution.  I think the program PING may be based on the program Partimage, which is used in the Plop Linux method to which you referred.

Please detail the following statement of yours: "I suggest to take the numbers of the module that you replace with the boot manager rom."  What exactly do you mean by module in the case of trying to make a USB drive appear as an option for booting in a BIOS?  What do you mean by boot manager ROM, the file plpbt.rom?  Yes, I have seen the Web page containing the sample commands for building the .rom file that you mentioned.

Now back to determining the vendor id and device id to be used in the plpbt.rom-building command.  Going back to my previous posting in this thread I found some interesting correlations between parts of hexadecimal numbers.  Consider "UHCI USB 1.1 Controller, Device identifier (spec): 65570."  Taking the number 65570 to be a decimal number, that converts to the hexadecimal number 10022, using such a conversion feature of my calculator.  Now consider "Subvendor Identifier: 69692."  Decimal 69692 converts to hexadecimal 1103C.  Now further up in this thread the output of the Linux command "lspci -vn" on my computer frequently included "Subsystem: 103:0022."  Note that the "103" part of that output corresponds to the middle part of hexadecimal equivalent 1103C of the subvendor identifier for the subvendor "Hewlett Packard," my computer's manufacturer.  And the "0022" part corresponds to the four, right-most places of the hexadecimal number 10022, corresponding to the decimal number 65570 for "UHCI USB 1.1 Controller, Device identifier (spec)."  So I wonder if "Subsystem: 103:0022" might be some kind of "shorthand" or abbreviated form for 1103C:10022, corresponding to "Hewlett Packard:UHCI USB 1.1 Controller, Device identifier (spec)."  Then in the next step what would one write for the vendor id and device id to be used in the plpbt.rom-building command, 0x1103C and 0x10022?  I'm doing a lot of guessing here, which might not be at all correct, especially for the purpose of making the USB drive a choice for booting in the BIOS.  It would be better for someone to explain to me how to obtain the vendor id and device id one should use when building the file plpbt.rom for the purpose of making the USB drive bootable from the BIOS's boot screen.

I found instructions for flashing AMI and Award BIOSs among the Plop Web pages.  Maybe I should find a different set of instructions for flashing my computer's Insyde Software BIOS, if I should choose to do that.

Elmar

Quote from: 2011PlopUser on January 04, 2012, 04:50:19 AM
Thanks, Elmar, for kindly responding to my last posting.  The program fsarchiver example appeared to be for a Windows operating system. 

no, fsarchiver can used to backup linux too.

note: a backup is not depending on the os you want to backup, it depends on the file system you want to backup. the type of the os that lives in the file system doesn't matter in the most cases.


Quote from: 2011PlopUser on January 04, 2012, 04:50:19 AM
Please detail the following statement of yours: "I suggest to take the numbers of the module that you replace with the boot manager rom."  What exactly do you mean by module in the case of trying to make a USB drive appear as an option for booting in a BIOS?  What do you mean by boot manager ROM, the file plpbt.rom?  Yes, I have seen the Web page containing the sample commands for building the .rom file that you mentioned.

i try to explain it in simple words, if you dont understand it you have to investigate by your self in the web.

the bios rom is a file that has small rom parts
a part is the bios init program with default calls that can be used by software
a part is the vga bios with basic graphic card routines that can be used by software
a part can be a rom for your sata controller to provide access to the sata hard disk (option rom)
a part can be a network boot rom that provides the functionality to boot from network (option rom)
and there are other parts

you can replace the rom parts and put your own rom into the bios rom, but you have to use different programs for different bios manufactures. you also have to use different programs to list the parts.

the boot manager rom plpbt.rom is a rom part that you store into the bios rom. mostly the bios is so big that it fills the whole bios chip -> you replace an existing rom part with the boot manager rom. you should take the network rom because you dont use network boot.

Quote from: 2011PlopUser on January 04, 2012, 04:50:19 AM
Now back to determining the vendor id and device id to be used in the plpbt.rom-building command.  Going back to my previous posting in this thread I found some interesting correlations between parts of hexadecimal numbers.  Consider "UHCI USB 1.1 Controller, Device identifier (spec): 65570."  Taking the number 65570 to be a decimal number, that converts to the hexadecimal number 10022, using such a conversion feature of my calculator.  Now consider "Subvendor Identifier: 69692."  Decimal 69692 converts to hexadecimal 1103C.  Now further up in this thread the output of the Linux command "lspci -vn" on my computer frequently included "Subsystem: 103:0022."  Note that the "103" part of that output corresponds to the middle part of hexadecimal equivalent 1103C of the subvendor identifier for the subvendor "Hewlett Packard," my computer's manufacturer.  And the "0022" part corresponds to the four, right-most places of the hexadecimal number 10022, corresponding to the decimal number 65570 for "UHCI USB 1.1 Controller, Device identifier (spec)."  So I wonder if "Subsystem: 103:0022" might be some kind of "shorthand" or abbreviated form for 1103C:10022, corresponding to "Hewlett Packard:UHCI USB 1.1 Controller, Device identifier (spec)."  Then in the next step what would one write for the vendor id and device id to be used in the plpbt.rom-building command, 0x1103C and 0x10022?  I'm doing a lot of guessing here, which might not be at all correct, especially for the purpose of making the USB drive a choice for booting in the BIOS.  It would be better for someone to explain to me how to obtain the vendor id and device id one should use when building the file plpbt.rom for the purpose of making the USB drive bootable from the BIOS's boot screen.

forget any magic an recalculation of those numbers

vendor id: is the identifier of the manufacure, given by the PCI Special Interest Group that is managing those vendor id's
device id: is the identifier of the device given by the manufacture, the manufacture can choose any number he wants for its devices

those are only numbers, nothing special. only used to identify a device with 2 numbers.

the option rom has also a vendorid/device id. maybe the bios checks its option roms and shows only the optionrom as boot option when there is a device with the same vendorid/deviceid. -> give the boot manager option rom the same vendor id/device id of the rom that you replace.

Quote from: 2011PlopUser on January 04, 2012, 04:50:19 AM
I found instructions for flashing AMI and Award BIOSs among the Plop Web pages.  Maybe I should find a different set of instructions for flashing my computer's Insyde Software BIOS, if I should choose to do that.

i dont know that bios manufacture. you have to search in the web for modifying and flashing that bios.

best regards
elmar