Patent · US Expired

Method and computer system for integrating a compression system with an operating system

US6453363B1 · kind B1 · utility

4Cited by
9References
11Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateOct 21, 1993
Grant dateSep 17, 2002
Priority date
Expiry dateOct 21, 2013

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F9/4411
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The present invention provides a method in a computer system of integrating a compression system with an operating system. The computer system preferably comprises at least a memory device and one storage device. A user-supplied device driver is provided for storage devices that are not supported by the computer system to enable the computer system to communicate with the storage devices. In response to initialization of the computer system, the operating/compression system is loaded into the memory device and begins executing before any user-supplied device drivers are loaded into the memory device. Any compressed volume files located on the computer system are assigned drive letters at this time. When the user-supplied device drivers are loaded into the memory device, drive letters are assigned to the various storage devices. A drive letter conflict resolution scheme is provided to resolve conflicts that occur when the operating system attempts to assign a drive letter. The compression system assigns drive letters to compressed volume files (in the case where a compressed drive is created from free space on an existing drive) or to host drives (in the case where the contents of a…

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