Techniques for booting a computing device with a flash memory without knowledge of parametric information of the flash memory are described herein. In one embodiment of the invention, the computing device receives input requesting the computing device to begin operation and executes a set of one or more instructions stored in a non-volatile memory. The execution of the set of instructions configures a first read routine for accessing the flash memory based on a common denominator format of candidate flash memories, and the first read routine is not configured based on information located in a flash memory identification table. The computing device reads a bootstrapping code image based on the first read routine into a volatile memory and executes that first bootstrapping code image. Other methods and apparatuses are also described.