System and method for enabling a target computer to use storage resources of a host computer
US5887164A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Jun 6, 1997 |
| Grant date | Mar 23, 1999 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jun 6, 2017 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F9/4406
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A system and method for a target computer to use a storage device of its host computer and in particular for bootstrapping an operating system from the storage device onto the target computer. The computer system comprises a host computer coupled to a target computer via an I/O bus. In one embodiment the target computer is an embedded system comprising an intelligent data acquisition device. The host computer includes a disk drive with a file system and a file which serves as a virtual disk drive for the target computer, i.e., the file is essentially an image of a disk drive which would otherwise be coupled to the target computer. The target computer may be a BIOS level IBM-compatible personal computer. The target computer includes an option ROM with an int13H handler which hooks the disk service routine software interrupt vector of the target computer and forwards INT 13H requests to a device driver executing on the host computer via a shared memory on the target computer. The device driver converts the sector address specified in the INT 13H request input parameters into an offset into the virtual disk file and reads the data from the file to the shared memory. The int13H handler…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.