Computer multi-buttons booting system and method

• US 20060047940A1
• Filed: 08/24/2004
• Published: 03/02/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 08/24/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Zhigu Holdings Limited
• Original Assignee: Inventec Corporation
• Inventors: Chiu, Chaucer, Huang, Amos
• Granted Patent: US 7,234,055 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/441 Multiboot arrangements, i.e. selecting an operating system to be loaded

Abstract

A multi-buttons booting system comprises an on-switch button logic unit, an embedded chip (EC) and its RAM, a lookup module, and a loading module. A plurality of on-switch buttons are connected to the EC and corresponds to a plurality of operating systems. In response to the push on a button, the EC outputs a signal that writes an indicator value in the RAM. According to the indicator value, the corresponding MBR is sought and loaded. The loaded MBR then conducts the booting of a corresponding operating system. The system resource occupation is thereby reduced, the activation speed is increased, and the user'"'"'s manual intervention is reduced.

Claims

1. A multi-buttons booting system operable to selectively load different main boot records and thereby boot on different computer operating systems by pushing on different on-switch buttons, the system comprising:

an on-switch button logic unit, providing a plurality of on-switch buttons and operable to generate an electrical signal corresponding to the pushing of one on-switch button;

an embedded chip and its RAM, being coupled to the on-switch button logic unit, wherein the embedded chip generates an interruption process in response to the electrical signal from the on-switch button logic unit and writes different indicator data in the RAM corresponding to the pushed on-switch buttons;

a look-up module, searching a main boot record corresponding to the indicator data value in the RAM of the embedded chip; and

a loading module, loading a main boot record according to the lookup status.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the on-switch button logic unit comprises a plurality of on-switch buttons, each on-switch button corresponding to the activation of one operating system.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein each indicator data value corresponds to one on-switch button.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein each main boot record corresponding to each indicator data value includes one indicator string.

5. A multi-buttons booting method, wherein different operating systems are respectively booted by pushing on different on-switch buttons, the method comprising:

providing a plurality of on-switch buttons respectively connected to one embedded chip;

according to a number of operating systems provided setting a plurality of corresponding main boot records;

detecting a signal change of the embedded chip caused by one on-switch button pushing;

writing an indicator value in a RAM of the embedded chip corresponding to the signal change;

searching a main boot record corresponding to the indicator value;

loading a main boot record according to the result of the searching a main boot record corresponding to the indicator value; and

according to the loaded main boot record booting the corresponding operating system.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein each on-switch button corresponds to the activation of one operating system.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the main boot records are initially placed at a specific location of a hard disk.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein searching a main boot record corresponding to the indicator value comprises looking up the indicator value in each main boot record and thereby determining whether the sought main boot record exists.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein loading a main boot record according to the result of the searching a main boot record corresponding to the indicator value further comprises:

if the main boot record is found, loading a disk partition table after the main boot record to boot the corresponding operating system.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein loading a main boot record according to the result of the searching a main boot record corresponding to the indicator value further comprises:

if the main boot record corresponding to the indicator is not found, loading main boot sector data.