Method and apparatus for booting a computer system
First Claim
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.
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Accused Products
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.
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Citations
23 Claims
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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.
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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.
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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.
Specification