ok Noob question

[F8]

What the hell exactly is firmware? I heard of it many times. I know what software and hardware are...what is firmware?

[Tril-]

it's a software that updates your hardware :) so it can continue doing it's thing and be up to date. ie you can flash your bios to support new cpu if your manufature releases the upgrade..... or you can flash your cdr to support new media reconigion

[vbl117]

Firmware is optical drives Bios . Like Motherboard Bios it can be flashed/upgraded . Bios is both a Hardware ( the EEPROM flash memory on the motherboard or device ) and Software ( the info/data/program stored in it to operate the Motherboard or device ) part . Of course most of the time when we talk about Bios/Firmware , we are speaking about his Software side because most of the time we want to upgrade the program stored in the EEPROM flash memory .
Bios is basically a link between Hardware and Software ( like O.S but at a much lower/basic level ) , without Bios a Motherboard cannot achieve Boot and some basic tasks . In modern motherboards there is a little part unflashable in the bios called "BootBlock" allowing floppy disk boot after a bad flash and able to search available Bios on the floppy ( for further information you can go there for example : http://www.wimsbios.com/index.htm?/HTML1/faq.html ) .
This is the case for example with my Epox 8KTA3 chipset VIA KT133A ( it contains Bootblock ) . Without Bios a device like CD/RW ( i.e after a bad Firmware flash ) cannot be used by Software like burning Software ( Dimitri has created an utility allowing to flash a drive after a bad flash : http://www.digitri.tk/ ) .

[cfitz]

We have a FAQ on that as well:

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=6571

cfitz