Techniques for initializing/reinitializing a device on an expansion card
without power cycling the system. More specifically, an instruction set
is provided such that a device on an expansion card can be reinitialized
without power cycling the system. Further, the instruction set may be
implemented to initialize a device on a replacement expansion card.
During the system boot, an expansion basic input/output system (BIOS) is
copied into the system memory. After the system boot, a copy of the
configuration information for the device on the expansion card is saved
in a backup file in the system memory. The expansion card can be removed
and replaced and the configuration information stored in the backup file
in the system memory can be used to configure the replacement device. The
copy of the expansion BIOS in the system memory can be reprogrammed such
that it can be implemented to initialize the device on the replacement
expansion card without power cycling the system.
