System and method for using hot plug configuration for PCI error recovery

In a computer system having a hot plug interface, a method for recovering from a bus error comprising:

• detecting a bus error on an input/output I/O bus of the computer system;
• automatically generating an operating system transparent interrupt, responsive to the bus error;
• wherein the operating system transparent interrupt is a system management interrupt (SMI) that invokes an SMI handler and is generated in peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus hardware and transmitted to a processor of the computer system;
• responsive to the operating system transparent interrupt:
• saving a present operating state of the processor:
• initiating one or more registers to support a system management mode (SMM);
• commencing execution with SMM;
• and
• invoking an interrupt handler that scans devices on the bus to identify the device associated with the error;
• wherein the SMI handler generates a system control interrupt (SCI);
• identifying a device associated with the bus error by scanning peripheral devices and searching one or more error condition registers;
• determining whether the SCI specifies an error on a hot pluggable bus;
• recording the error in an error log;
• asserting a user-indicator to indentify which device caused the bus error;
• and
• responsive to the system control interrupt specifying an error on a hot pluggable bus, invoking a hot plug configuration manager to remove the device in accordance with a hot plug configuration process;
• wherein the hot plug configuration manager comprises an advanced configuration and power interface (ACPI);
• dynamically removing the identified device from system operations utilizing the hot plug configuration manager to perform the removal;
• and
• restoring saved processor state information and resuming operation system operations.