Patent ID: 7117348

Claim:
A method of detecting the validity of BIOS configuration data for a computer system, the method comprising: detecting a layout of present BIOS configuration data, the present BIOS configuration data being stored in a memory device in the computer system; detecting a layout of updated BIOS configuration data, the updated BIOS configuration data being contained within executable program code comprising an updated BIOS configuration for the computer system; comparing the layout of the present BIOS configuration data to the layout of the updated BIOS configuration data; if the layout of the present BIOS configuration data matches the layout of the updated BIOS configuration data, then determining that the present BIOS configuration data is valid; if the layout of the present BIOS configuration data does not match the layout of the updated BIOS configuration data, then determining that the present BIOS configuration data is invalid; and resetting the present BIOS configuration data to a default state after determining that the present BIOS configuration data is invalid.