Is it possible to load a premade BIOS config onto a clean machine?

Question

Basically, what I'm trying to do is wipe a machine and load a pre-configured BIOS onto it on boot, whether it be through a disk, CD or USB. I'm open to programming a script, but I've yet to figure out what tools or languages I could use to approach this problem.

Also, if there's already a similar post to this on SO, I would appreciate a link. I tried searching for it, but I may be using the wrong keywords to find the particular answer I'm looking for.

I looked into the Dell OpenManage DTK, but my conclusion was that it didn't do what I wanted it to, for it seems like it updates BIOS settings onto other machines from a centralized machine, which is not what I want since you'd have to have already set up a minimal BIOS config that includes enabled iDRAC on those machines already.

Much appreciated fellas.

Answer 1

While some BIOS will allow you to load a configuration via USB drive or floppy disk, none that I am aware of will allow you to have a configuration load automatically on boot. This would actually be a huge security vulnerability so I doubt you'll be able to find a way to do this.

An alternate solution is that you could probably find many motherboards with removable BIOS chips and use an EEPROM burner to preload the BIOS chips with the configuration you want. Here is a listing of numerous EEPROM burners on this site: http://www.sivava.com/EPROM_Programmer_4.html