Basic Ingoing-Outgoing System (IIRC) but what does it really mean?
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When you turn your computer on, the operating system hasn’t turned on yet. Considder this, if you build a computer, with a new hard drive, how do you install the OS? The bios is the start up system manager built into the mother board not the hard drive. This is where you can adjust the system”@ clock, and tell the computer where to boot from.
If you set the boot drive to be a plugged in USB stick or cd rom drive, then you’d be able to run an os instal program.
Also, if you os isn’t running right, you can set the boot menu to start in safe mode.
The bios is also how you can build and manage a raid set up, depending on the motherboards capabilities.
For diagnostic purposes, you can monitor real time voltage settings, and make tweaks to ram timings/ speed and cpu clock settings, assuming the motherboard supports adjustments.
There is a small cell battery called the cmos battery that keeps just enough of a charge active on the board to allow bios settings to remain even when the computer is powered down and unplugged. The motherboard has no built in permanent storage, only temporary cache and ram, without power to these areas, settings would not be saved and the bios would revert to its factory settings, destroying any raid set ups in the process.
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