Method and apparatus for booting a computer system

• US 20050044348A1
• Filed: 07/15/2004
• Published: 02/24/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 08/14/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TI Technologies LLC
• Original Assignee: TI Technologies LLC
• Inventors: O'Connell, Daniel James
• Granted Patent: US 7,313,684 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4418 Suspend and resume; Hibernate and awake

Abstract

A method for quickly booting a personal computer system using a non-volatile reprogrammable memory device. A compressed memory image of the contents of the system working memory, hardware configuration and other information stored in memory when the system is in a desired operational state is stored in the non-volatile reprogrammable memory. When rebooting the process detects changed hardware and diverts from the reboot to identify the hardware before continuing.

Claims

1. A method of booting a computer system having a system working memory to a level where the operating system is fully loaded, including the steps of providing a memory image of desired contents of the system working memory, loading the memory image in non-volatile reprogrammable memory, and upon the system being required to boot, loading the memory image from the non-volatile reprogrammable memory into the system working memory

characterised in that upon reloading the memory image the loader recognizes changed hardware in the computer system incompatible with portions of the memory image, and processes initialization for this changed hardware before proceeding with unaffected portions of the memory image.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 characterised in that it includes the step of encrypting and compressing the memory image and loading the encrypted compressed memory image into the non-volatile reprogrammable memory, and upon reloading, decompressing and decrypting the compressed memory image so that the decompressed memory image is loaded into the working memory.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 characterised in that the step of providing a memory image of desired contents of the system working memory includes the step of providing a memory image of post-boot contents of the system working memory, the contents of CPU registers and the contents of other chipset devices.

4. A method of booting a computer system as claimed in claim 1 characterised in that the step of providing a memory image of desired contents of the system working memory includes the step of providing a memory image which is an image of all data stored in the system working memory and other hardware device registers prior to the computer system last being shut down.

5. A method of booting a computer system as claimed in claim 4 characterised in that the memory image includes pages from virtual memory or the volatile page file.

6. A method as claimed in claim 1 characterised in that it includes the step of creating the memory image during the set up process of the operating system.

7. A method as claimed in claim 1 characterised in that it includes the step of updating the memory image in response to a significant change to the configuration of the system.

8. A method as claimed in claim 7 characterised in that the updating step includes the step of archiving the last known good memory image.

9. A method as claimed in claim 1 characterised in that the non-volatile reprogrammable memory is flash memory and the method includes the step of modifying the operating system source code to support a flash file system and/or a Flash Translation Layer (FTL).

10. A method as claimed in claim 1 characterised in that it includes the step of modifying the firmware to boot from the non-volatile reprogrammable memory.

11. A method as claimed in claim 10 characterised in that a password is required for the firmware to boot from the memory image.

12. A method as claimed in claim 11 wherein failure to supply a correct password deletes any and all stored memory images.

13. A method as claimed in claim 1 characterised in that the memory image is an image including all system settings and memory contents relating to a logged in user.

14. A computer system including

a digital processing means,

a working memory for the digital processing means,

a non-volatile reprogrammable memory including a memory image of desired contents of the system working memory and other portions of memory, the non-volatile reprogrammable memory being capable of transferring the memory image to the system working memory in order to boot the computer system characterised in that the memory image includes hardware configuration and hardware context information.

15. A computer system as claimed in claim 14 characterised in that where the computer hardware configuration has altered from that in the memory image, those portions of the image relating to changed hardware are not loaded, and the changed hardware is recognised and initialised before the remainder of the memory image is processed.

16. A computer system as claimed in claim 14 characterised in that the system includes a disk drive or other memory storage device including at least one archive copy of the memory image.

17. A computer system as claimed in claim 14 characterised in that the memory image is an image of desired post-boot contents of the existing working memory, the CPU registers, other chipset registers and any temporarily stored memory pages.

18. A computer system as claimed in claim 14 characterised in that the memory image is an image of all data stored in the working memory prior to the computer system being shut down.

19. A computer system as claimed in claim 14 characterised in that the memory image was created during a setup process of an operating system of the computer system.

20. A computer system as claimed in claim 14 characterised in that the system includes a disk drive or other memory storage device including at least one “

last known good”

copy of the memory image.

21. A computer system as claimed in claim 14 characterised in that the non-volatile reprogrammable memory uses Flash memory.

22. A method of shutting down a computer system having a system working memory, the method including the steps of

creating a memory image of the contents of the system working memory, the hardware configuration and context, CPU registers, chipset registers and volatile page file memory,

loading the memory image in a non-volatile reprogrammable memory in a compressed form, and

shutting down the computer system.

23. The method as claimed in claim 22 wherein the memory image is additionally encrypted.