Computer operating booting system making use of multi-buttons

• US 7,234,055 B2
• Filed: 08/24/2004
• Issued: 06/19/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/24/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Zhigu Holdings Limited
• Original Assignee: Inventec Corporation
• Inventors: Chiu, Chaucer, Huang, Amos
• Primary Examiner(s): Cao; Chun
• Application Number:
  US10/923,881
• Publication Number:
  US 20060047940A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,029 Days
• Field of Search: 713/1, 713/2
• 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 computer operating booting system using multiple buttons 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, and allowing booting on different operating systems;

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 an indicator data value in the RAM corresponding to the pushing of the one on-switch button;

a search module, configured to search for a main boot record, to be set corresponding to the indicator data value in the RAM of the embedded chip, and a searched result of the main boot record to be loaded for accessing the main boot record; and

a loading module, loading the main boot record according to a status of the search module, wherein when the computer operating system is loading the main boot record, each of the operating systems with its main boot record is respectively distinguished via the indicator data value, the computer operating system then loads the main boot record corresponding to the indicator data value and determines whether the main boot record exists, if the main boot record to be set exists the disk partition table is loaded thereafter to boot the corresponding operating system; and

wherein each computer operating system corresponds to one independent main boot record.

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. The system of claim 1, wherein the different computer operating systems are booted by different hardware signals differentiated, when a computer with the different computer operating systems is switched on, a firmware code of the embedded chip in a 8051 core executes an initialization without activating the computer operating systems, the on-switch buttons thereby can be distinguished from one another.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the embedded chip includes a plurality of general-purposes inputs and outputs that can be set by the user, effective general-purposes inputs (GPI) of the general-purposes inputs operate to interrupt the embedded chip, an interruption service program is described afterwards.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer operating system loads the main boot record corresponding to the indicator data value and determines whether the main boot record exists, if the main boot record to be set does not exist, a protective main boot record and a protective disk partition table are loaded for protection purposes and a selection of operating systems to boot is given to a user according to a default mode.

8. A computer operating booting method using multiple buttons, 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, wherein the on-switch buttons allow booting on different operating systems;

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 to be set corresponding to the indicator value stored in the RAM, and a searched result of the main boot record to be loaded for accessing the main boot record;

loading the main boot record according to the result of the step of searching the main boot record corresponding to the indicator value, wherein when the computer operating system is loading the main boot record, each of the operating systems with its main boot record is respectively distinguished via the indicator data value, the computer operating system then loads the main boot record corresponding to the indicator data value and determines whether the main boot record exists, if the main boot record to be set exists the disk partition table is loaded thereafter to boot the corresponding operating system; and

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

wherein each computer operating system corresponds to one independent main boot record.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein each on-switch button corresponds to the activation of one operating system.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the main boot records are initially placed at a specific location of a hard disk.

11. The method of claim 8, 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.

12. The method of claim 8, 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.

13. The method of claim 8, 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.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the different computer operating systems are booted by different hardware signals differentiated, when a computer with the different computer operating systems is switched on, a firmware code of the embedded chip in a 8051 core executes an initialization without activating the computer operating systems, the on-switch buttons thereby can be distinguished from one another.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein the embedded chip includes a plurality of general-purposes inputs and outputs that can be set by the user, effective general-purposes inputs (GPI) of the general-purposes inputs operate to interrupt the embedded chip, an interruption service program is described afterwards.

16. The method of claim 8, wherein, in the step of loading the main boot record, the computer operating system loads the main boot record corresponding to the indicator data value and determines whether the main boot record exists, if the main boot record to be set does not exist, a protective main boot record and a protective disk partition table are loaded for protection purposes and a selection of operating systems to boot is given to a user according to a default mode.