Method and system for recovering from operating system failure

• US 6,167,494 A
• Filed: 04/28/1998
• Issued: 12/26/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Western Digital Technologies Incorporated (Western Digital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Cheston, Richard W, Locker, Howard J, Knox, Richard Ian, Rhoades, David Benson, Hoggarth, Roger Philip
• Primary Examiner(s): Cabeca, John W.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Anderson, Matthew D.
• Application Number:
  US09/067,630
• Time in Patent Office: 973 Days
• Field of Search: 711/162, 711/129, 711/163
• US Class Current: 711/162
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1417 Boot up procedures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1446 Point-in-time backing up or restoration of persistent data

Abstract

A method, system and computer program product in which half of the storage space on a non-volatile storage device is used to maintain a copy of the last "known-good" copy of the operating system and on invocation by a user, restoring from this backup copy when, for example, the operating system has become corrupted due to changes made to settings or device drivers.

Claims

1. A method for preventing user-inaccessibility to application data and operating system data stored in a non-volatile storage device within a computer system resulting from corruption of said operating system data, said method comprising the steps of:

partitioning said non-volatile storage device into a first partition that stores application data and operating system data within at least one sector, wherein said operating system data includes filing level instructions for managing said application data and operating system data within said first partition;

partitioning said non-volatile storage device into a second partition that is transparent to said filing level instructions, wherein said second partition includes at least one sector corresponding to each of said at least one sector included within said first partition; and

writing said application data and operating system data within said first partition to said second partition on a sector-by-sector basis, such that upon an operating system failure, said application data and said operating system data may be restored from said second partition to said first partition without utilizing said filing level instructions.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein said non-volatile storage device is a single data storage disk, and wherein said partitioning step further comprises the step of partitioning said single data storage disk into a plurality of partitions, including a first and second partition, said first partition storing data, and said second partition being capable of storing at least as much data as the first partition.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said writing step further comprises the steps of:

sequentially copying said application data and said operating system data into a buffer from each of said at least one sector within said first partition; and

in response to each copying sequence in which said application data and operating system data from each of said at least one sector is copied into a buffer, writing the contents of said buffer into a corresponding sector within said second partition.

4. A data processing system having non-volatile storage, said data processing system comprising:

a first partition within said non-volatile storage that stores application data and operating system data within at least one sector, wherein said operating system data includes filing level instructions for managing said application data and operating system data within said first partition;

a second partition within said non-volatile storage that is transparent to said filing level instructions, wherein said second partition includes at least one sector corresponding to each of said at least one sector included within said first partition; and

processing means for writing said application data and operating system data within said first partition to said second partition on a sector-by-sector basis, such that upon failure of said operating system, said application data and said operating system data may be restored from said second partition to said first partition without utilizing said filing level instructions.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein said non-volatile storage device is a single data storage disk.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein said processing means for writing said application data and operating system data within said first partition to said second partition on a sector-by-sector basis further comprises:

processing means for sequentially copying said application data and said operating system data into a buffer from each of said at least one sector within said first partition; and

processing means, response to each copying sequence in which said application data and operating system data from each of said at least one sector is copied into a buffer, for writing the contents of said buffer into a corresponding sector within said second partition.

7. A computer program product for preventing user-inaccessibility to application data and operating system data stored on a computer non-volatile storage device resulting from corruption of said operating system data, said computer program product comprising:

instruction means for partitioning said non-volatile storage device into a first partition that stores application data and operating system data within at least one sector, wherein said operating system data includes filing level instructions for managing said application data and operating system data within said first partition;

instruction means for partitioning said non-volatile storage device into a second partition that is transparent to said filing level instructions, wherein said second partition includes at least one sector corresponding to each of said at least one sector included within said first partition; and

instruction means for writing said application data and operating system data within said first partition to said second partition on a sector-by-sector basis, such that upon failure of said operating system, said application data and said operating system data may be restored from said second partition to said first partition without utilizing said filing level instructions.

8. The computer program product of claim 7, wherein said instruction means for writing said application data and operating system data within said first partition to said second partition on a sector-by-sector basis further comprises:

instruction means for sequentially copying said application data and said operating system data into a buffer from each of said at least one sector within said first partition; and

instruction means, responsive to each copying sequence in which said application data and operating system data from each of said at least one sector is copied into a buffer, for writing the contents of said buffer into a corresponding sector within said second partition.