Boot failure recovery

• US 6,230,285 B1
• Filed: 09/08/1998
• Issued: 05/08/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 09/08/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Symantec Corporation (NortonLifeLock Inc.)
• Inventors: Trollope, Rowan, Isenberg, Henri J., Sadowsky, Richard S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Iqbal, Nadeem
• Application Number:
  US09/149,527
• Time in Patent Office: 973 Days
• Field of Search: 714/14, 714/25, 714/26, 714/27, 714/30, 714/32, 714/39, 714/41, 714/47, 714/48, 714/57, 714/8, 714/2, 714/3, 714/5, 714/7, 714/15, 714/16, 714/20
• US Class Current: 714/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1417 Boot up procedures

Abstract

A boot failure recovery system operates to diagnose a failed system boot in a computer operating system which boots by bootstrapping from a boot sector (12) of a storage medium (10) using configuration information (82). The boot failure recovery system includes an agent (24) which monitors operating system files used during system boot and which stores information regarding changes to the system files to a change file. A repair module (22) analyzes the change file to determine the cause of the failed system boot. A boot check module (16) responds to initiation of a system boot by determining if a prior system boot was successful. Boot check module (16) causes execution of a first boot sector code module (16) upon occurrence of a successful prior system boot and causes execution of the repair module (22) upon occurrence of a failed prior system boot.

Claims

1. A boot failure recovery system for diagnosing a failed system boot in a computer operating system that boots by bootstrapping from a boot sector of a storage medium using configuration information, the boot failure recovery system comprising:

an agent for monitoring operating system files used during system boot and for storing information regarding changes made to said system files since a previous system boot to a change file;

a repair module, responsive to said agent, for analyzing said change file to determine the cause of said failed system boot; and

a boot check module, responsive to initiation of a system boot, for determining if a prior system boot was successful, said boot check module causing execution of a first boot sector code module upon occurrence of a successful prior system boot and causing execution of said repair module upon occurrence of a failed prior system boot.

2. A boot failure recovery system as set forth in claim 1 wherein said boot check module further responds to occurrence of a failed prior system boot by modifying a partition table, that indicates an active boot partition for said operating system, to indicate a partition occupied by said repair module to be said active boot partition.

3. A boot failure recovery system as set forth in claim 2 wherein said boot check module further causes restarting of said operating system after changing said active boot partition.

4. A boot failure recovery system as set forth in claim 1 wherein said repair module retrieves information from a boot log generated from said operating system if said boot log is unable to determine the cause of said failed system boot from said change file.

5. A boot failure recovery system as set forth in claim 1 wherein said repair module identifies a routine contributing to said failed system boot and removes said routine from a start-up sequence executed by said operating system upon system boot.

6. A boot failure recovery system as set forth in claim 1 wherein execution of said repair module is invoked by use of a MS-DOS operating system.

7. A boot failure recovery system as set forth in claim 1 further comprising a reboot module for causing a reboot of said operating system upon installation of said boot failure recovery system and for determining the sequence of events occurring during a successful boot of said operating system.

8. A boot failure recovery system as set forth in claim 7 wherein said reboot module further comprises means for creating a new partition on a boot drive used by said operating system and for installing said repair module on said new partition.

9. A boot failure recovery system as set forth in claim 8 wherein said means for creating a new partition on said boot drive further comprises means, responsive to a failure to create said new partition, for providing a user of said operating system an option to create a rescue disk which contains said repair module.

10. A boot failure recovery system as set forth in claim 1 wherein said agent further comprises a user interface to report a cause of said failed system boot to a user of said system.

11. A boot failure recovery system as set forth in claim 10 wherein said agent further reports changes made by said agent to said user by way of said user interface.

12. A boot failure recovery system as set forth in claim 1 wherein said operating system is a Windows compatible operating system and wherein said agent monitors Windows system files selected from a group consisting essentially of an autoexec.bat file, a config.sys file, a win.ini file, a system.ini file, and a protocol.ini file.

13. A boot failure recovery system as set forth in claim 1 wherein the change file takes the form of a last-in-first-out type data structure.

14. A boot failure recovery system as set forth in claim 1 wherein said first boot sector code module is executed by default by said operating system.

15. A computer storage medium, comprising a utility program for a Windows compatible operating system, said utility program responsive to booting of said operating system for detecting an unsuccessful boot of said operating system, and being further responsive to said unsuccessful boot for invoking a repair module, said repair module diagnosing said prior boot failure of said operating system by analyzing changes made to system files utilized by said operating system since a previous system boot upon booting of said operating system, said repair module further being responsive to an input from a user of said operating system to cause removal of at least one routine which contributed to said prior boot failure.

16. A method for diagnosing boot failure in a computer operating system which boots from a boot sector on a storage medium and which uses stored configuration information for said boot, the method comprising:

monitoring operating system files used during system boot and storing information regarding changes made in said system files since a previous system boot in a change file;

analyzing said change file to determine a cause of said failed system boot;

responding to initiation of a system boot after a prior successful system boot, by causing execution of a first boot sector code module upon occurrence of a successful prior system boot; and

responding to initiation of a system boot after a prior failed system boot, by analyzing said change file to determine a cause of said prior failed system boot and removing at least a first routine from said change file determined to cause said failed system boot.