Abstract: The present invention provides a method for centralized and managed loading of boot images into one or more processors that are part of a file server for a mass storage system. In a computer system having at least one first controller, at least one input output processor (IOP), a first bus and a second bus, the present invention includes the steps of detecting readiness of the IOP to load a boot image, identifying across the first bus a location where the boot image will be loaded and loading the boot image across the second bus. The first controller may determine which of a plurality of boot images should be loaded. The first controller and the IOP may each have first and second processors, with communication between the first processors being across the first bus and boot images being accessed by the second processors across the second bus.