Mechanisms for executing a bare metal boot operation for bare metal booting a control program are provided. These mechanisms boot a computing device to a hypervisor ownership phase of the bare metal boot operation. During the hypervisor ownership phase of the bare metal boot operation a hypervisor is loaded and controls and manages platform hardware of the computing device. The computing device is then booted from the hypervisor ownership phase to a transition phase in which the hypervisor releases control and management of the platform hardware of the computing device to the control program. The computing device is then booted from the transition phase to a control program ownership phase in which the control program is in full control and manages the platform hardware. The bare metal boot operation is performed without restarting the computing device and without cycling through initialization of firmware.