Patent ID: 8261050

Claim:
A computer implemented method for selectively recollecting vital product data during an initial program load at data processing system power on, the computer implemented method comprising: responsive to receiving an input to power on a data processing system, reading an anchor card located in the data processing system that includes a machine type of the data processing system; selecting a set of tables located within firmware of a service processor of the data processing system based on the machine type of the data processing system read from the anchor card; accessing a resource location code array table within the selected set of tables for the data processing system that is a hierarchical representation of parent/child relationships of all resources that could be present in the data processing system and indicates which of the resources include an associated vital product data microchip, wherein a no recollect vital product data tag is added to entries of resources having associated vital product data microchips in the resource location code array table that indicates the resources cannot be removed from or added to the data processing system while the service processor is in a standby state, and wherein the associated vital product data microchips contain vital product data of the resources attached to a respective vital product data microchip; reading an entry for a resource in the resource location code array table to determine whether the entry for the resource includes the no recollect vital product data tag indicating that the resource cannot be removed from or added to the data processing system while the service processor is in the standby state; responsive to determining that the entry for the resource in the resource location code array table does include the no recollect vital product data tag, not recollecting vital product data from a vital product data microchip located on the resource during the initial program load; and responsive to determining that the entry for the resource in the resource location code array table does not include the no recollect vital product data tag, reading an entry for the resource in a presence detect table within the selected set of tables for the data processing system to determine whether the entry for the resource includes an implicit tag that indicates the resource is implicit within the data processing system because the resource is included on a same field replaceable unit as the service processor and not performing a presence detect procedure for the resource in response to determining that the entry for the resource does include the implicit tag because the resource is included on the same field replaceable unit as the service processor, wherein the presence detect table contains entries for each resource that includes an associated vital product data microchip.