Identifying an operating system associated with a boot path

• US 20060288197A1
• Filed: 06/16/2005
• Published: 12/21/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/16/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Bulusu, Mallik, Zimmer, Vincent J., Rothman, Michael A., Swanson, Robert C., Tolentino, Matthew E.
• Application Number:
  US11/154,320
• Publication Number:
  US 20060288197A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/441 Multiboot arrangements, i.e. selecting an operating system to be loaded

Abstract

Various characteristics of a hard drive may be analyzed in order to determine the nature of an operating system stored thereon. For example, an operating system indicator and/or a boot record may be identified which may enable operating system identification. Alternatively, checksums may be used to disambiguate the stored operating system. Other disk characteristics may be utilized to enable a determination of operating system and operating system version. This information may be provided to the user in a graphical user interface indicating the correspondence between operating systems and drives, or a desired operating system, once identified, may be automatically used without analyzing all drives.

Claims

1. a method comprising:

analyzing a characteristic of a hard drive to identify an operating system stored thereon.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein analyzing a characteristic includes automatically analyzing a series of hard drives to determine the operating system stored thereon.

3. The method of claim 1 including searching for operating system indicators in boot records to identify the operating system stored on a drive.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein analyzing a characteristic of a hard drive includes analyzing a checksum.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein analyzing a checksum includes calculating a checksum value and comparing that value to a reference value to determine the type of operating system.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein analyzing a characteristic of a hard drive includes analyzing an installation package partition to determine a Linux version.

7. The method of claim 1 including displaying a graphical user interface showing hard drives and the operating systems stored thereon.

8. The method of claim 1 including automatically locating a particular operating system which a user has selected.

9. The method of claim 8 including terminating the analysis of hard drives when the selected operating system is identified.

10. The method of claim 1 including automatically analyzing one drive after another of a plurality of hard drives on a processor-based system to determine the operating system stored on each hard drive.

11. An article comprising a medium storing instructions that, if executed, enable a processor-based system to:

analyze a characteristic of a hard drive to identify an operating system stored thereon.

12. The article of claim 11 further storing instructions that, if executed, enable the processor-based system to automatically analyze a series of hard drives to determine the operating systems stored thereon.

13. The article of claim 11 further storing instructions that, if executed, enable the processor-based system to search for operating system indicators in boot records to identify the operating system stored on a drive.

14. The article of claim 11 further storing instructions that, if executed, enable the processor-based system to analyze a checksum to identify an operating system.

15. The article of claim 14 further storing instructions that, if executed, enable the processor-based system to calculate a checksum value and compare that value to a reference value to determine the type of operating system.

16. The article of claim 11 further storing instructions that, if executed, enable the processor-based system to analyze an installation package partition to determine a Linux version.

17. The article of claim 11 further storing instructions that, if executed, enable the processor-based system to display a graphical user interface showing hard drives and the operating systems stored thereon.

18. The article of claim 11 further storing instructions that, if executed, enable the processor-based system to automatically locate a particular operating system which a user has selected.

19. The article of claim 18 further storing instructions that, if executed, enable the processor-based system to terminate the analysis of hard drives when the selected operating system is identified.

20. The article of claim 11 further storing instructions that, if executed, enable the processor-based system to automatically analyze one drive after another of a plurality of hard drives on the processor-based system to determine the operating system stored on each drive.

21. A system comprising:

predictive boot logic;

at least two hard drives coupled to said logic; and

said logic to analyze information associated with said hard drives to identify an operating system stored thereon.

22. The system of claim 21 wherein said system is a server.

23. The system of claim 21 including a series of hard drives and said logic to automatically analyze said series of hard drives to determine the operating systems stored thereon.

24. The system of claim 21, said logic to search for operating system indicators and boot records to identify the operating systems stored on said drives.

25. The system of claim 21 wherein said logic to analyze a checksum.

26. The system of claim 24 wherein said logic to calculate a checksum value and compare that value to a reference value to determine a type of operating system.

27. The system of claim 21 wherein said logic to analyze an installation package partition to determine a Linux version.

28. The system of claim 21 including a display to display a graphical user interface showing the hard drives and the operating systems stored thereon.

29. The system of claim 21, said logic to automatically locate a particular operating system which a user has selected.

30. The system of claim 29 wherein said logic to terminate the analysis of hard drives when the selected operated system is identified.