Patent · US Expired

Suspend-to-disk system for removable hard drive

US5680540A · kind A · utility

14Cited by
9References
34Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateAug 5, 1996
Grant dateOct 21, 1997
Priority date
Expiry dateAug 5, 2016

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F9/4418
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

Method and apparatus for enabling a suspend-to-disk (S2D) state to be associated with a hard disk to which the operations of a personal computer (PC) have been suspended, rather than with the PC itself. In a preferred embodiment, responsive to initiation of an S2D operation, a partition table stored in a partition sector of the hard disk is copied to a known address within an S2D partition of the hard disk and the copy of the partition table stored in the partition sector is altered such that the S2D partition, rather than a native operating system (OS) partition, is designated as the active partition. The S2D operations continue in a conventional manner, with the state of the PC being saved to the hard disk, at which point the PC is powered off. When the PC is subsequently powered back on, the PC boots up from the S2D partition. A resume-from-disk (RFD) program writes the copy of the partition table previously stored in the S2D partition back to the partition sector and then restores the state of the PC.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.