Abstract: According to an embodiment of the invention, a method and apparatus for support of a non-standard device containing operating system data are described. According to one embodiment, a circuit comprises a first device that is not compliant with a PCI (peripheral component interconnect) standard, the first device containing operating system data, where the operating system data is not bootable for any non-standard device; a second device that is compliant with the PCI standard, the second device being associated with the operating system data, the association of the second device with the operating system data from the first device enabling the operating system data from the first device to be booted according to the PCI standard; and a memory to receive the operating system data from the first device.

Abstract: In one embodiment, the present invention includes a method of initializing a system without a basic input/output system (BIOS) to vector to a memory dedicated to a network controller, requesting the BIOS from a remote source using code stored in the memory, and storing the BIOS in a volatile memory of the system.