A firmware-based mechanism for creating, storing and retrieving variable-length records associated with error events occurring in a computer platform. The mechanism responds to error notifications by invoking a firmware-based error-handling module. The error-handling module retrieves processor-specific error information and may also interrogate the other components of the computer platform to determine their error status. Then, according to the nature of the discovered errors, the error-handling module may assemble the retrieved error information and status information into a variable-length error record, which the error-handling module may then store in a memory. On request from a processing agent, the error-handling module may retrieve a previously-stored error record and present it to the requesting agent. Thus, the invention provides a unified and standardized approach to computer error handling at the firmware level.