Quote Originally Posted by Big King Sanctaphrax
I'm going to sound like a bit of an idiot here, but what is firmware? Similar to drivers?
Yes firmware is software that is held in permanent flash memory (doesn't need any power to maintain it).

A lot of hardware devices have firmware that can be updated: motherboards, CD drives, hard disks, PDAs; I've even updated my DVD recorder. Firmware updates often contain bug fixes and sometimes new features. Google for the model name and "firmware".

A note of caution: you have to be careful when updating firmware that the update process is not interrupted at all (power surges/outages), as this can leave your hardware in an unrecoverable state.

"Shine on you crazy diamond".