JPH09265360A - Plural storage medium retrieval system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a plural storage medium retrieval system capable of connecting many more storage medium driving devices exceeding the limit of the number of the storage medium driving devices defined as connectable before. SOLUTION: To a CD service program, a function for allocating plural CD- ROM drives to respective drive letters for which an OS specifies a device is added. In order to add the function, at the time of activating it, an initialization file in which a description for making the plural CD-ROM drives 101-10n correspond to the drive letters is written is prepared. On the side of a retrieval terminal, prescribed environment setting is performed as well. In the case that the retrieval terminal is a personal computer 121-12n incorporating MS-DOS for instance, a 'NET USE command' is used and the environment setting is performed. The setting is required only for a first time and the setting is not required in the next time and thereafter.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a multiple storage medium search system for accessing a plurality of storage medium devices connected to a network from a terminal such as a personal computer to search for data recorded in the storage medium.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, various data are stored in a large-capacity storage medium,
In particular, it tends to be stored in a CD-ROM, and accordingly, there is an increasing demand for high-speed and efficient retrieval of data stored in such a storage medium. And a CD-ROM that contains multiple CD-ROM drives
Drive devices are also commercially available, and by connecting a plurality of drive devices, many CD-ROMs mounted on them can be searched.

When constructing a system for searching a plurality of storage media using such a CD-ROM drive, generally, a large number of personal computers as terminals and personal computers as server machines are connected by a network. Then, the user searches a large number of CD-ROMs mounted on a plurality of CD-ROM drive devices managed by the server machine from the terminal. A general multi-media search system is constructed based on a commercially available general-purpose operating system such as Windows NT and a communication protocol such as TCP / IP.

[0004]

However, many of the general-purpose operating systems that are widely used at present have a limit on the number of devices that can be connected as external devices. For example, in one operating system,
Twenty-six letters of alphabets a, b, ..., Z are used as drive letters for designating floppy disk drives (FDD), hard disk drives (HDD), and other recording medium devices. In general, of these, a and b are often assigned to the FDD, and c (and d in some cases) are assigned to the HDD, so a CD that can be connected to the outside
-The number of ROM drivers is limited to 23 or 24 after d (or e). If FDD and HDD are not provided,
Even if all are CD-ROM drives, the maximum number of connectable CD-ROM drives is limited to 26.

On the other hand, the CD-
ROM types tend to increase significantly, and in facilities that store large amounts of data, such as libraries, the above restrictions can be a major obstacle to building a search system. . The present invention has been made based on the above circumstances, and exceeds the limit of the number of storage medium driving devices that can be connected up to now, and enables a plurality of storage medium driving devices to be connected. An object is to provide a medium search system.

[0006]

According to a first aspect of the present invention for solving the above problems, a plurality of storage medium devices and a function of designating the plurality of storage medium devices corresponding to a limited number of drive letters are provided. And a computer equipped with an operating system having a plurality of storage medium devices for searching the contents of the plurality of storage medium devices from the computer. A drive correspondence description file that has, and means for configuring the operating system to recognize a storage medium device corresponding to the respective drive letter by being configured as software that operates on the operating system, by referring to the drive correspondence description file at startup. It is characterized by having.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a server equipped with a plurality of storage medium devices and an operating system having a function of supporting a network function and designating the plurality of storage medium devices corresponding to a limited number of drive letters. Machine, and at least one client machine connected to the server machine by a network, the client machine accessing the plurality of storage medium devices via the server machine, and accessing the contents of the plurality of storage medium devices. In a multiple storage medium search system for searching, a drive correspondence description file having a description indicating that a plurality of storage medium devices are associated with one drive letter, and software configured to operate on the operating system are provided. Record And having a means to recognize the storage media device that refers to a file corresponding to the respective drive letter to the operating system.

According to the present invention, as described above, the means for causing the operating system to recognize the storage medium device corresponding to each of the drive letters refers to the drive correspondence description file, so that a plurality of storage mediums corresponding to one drive letter can be obtained. Consider the whole as one large storage medium. Then, each storage medium included therein is treated as a directory of the large storage medium. As a result, even if the number of drive letters that can be specified by the operating system is limited, it is possible to search for more storage media than this number.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of a multiple storage medium search system of the present embodiment. In FIG. 1, a communication network 1 includes a hub (HUB) 2
A host personal computer 11 that serves as a CD-ROM server and a plurality of personal computers 12 ₁ , 12 ₂ , ... 12 _m that serve as search terminals are connected via the. The host personal computer 11
CD-ROM with multiple CD-ROM drives built-in
ROM drive (or also called "CD-ROM tower") 10 _1, 10 _2, ..., to manage 10 _n. The host computer 11 also includes an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) 13 and a network printer 1 as necessary.
4 can also be connected. The network of FIG. 1 is connected to a LAN or the like via a hub 2.

A personal computer 1 serving as a search terminal
2 ₁ etc., Windows NT, MS-DOS, different models equipped with different operating systems such as Macintosh may coexist. On the other hand, the host computer 11 and the terminal 12 ₁ and the like, to use those with network operating system (OS). Here, a case of using a general-purpose OS will be described, but a non-general-purpose OS may be used.

[0011] CD-ROM drive _device 101 or the like is provided with an inside thereof e.g. 14 units of the CD-ROM drive and therefore can be mounted at the same time 14 sheets of the CD-ROM. Connect the CD-ROM drive to SCSI
When connecting (small computer system interface), up to 7 units can be connected in a daisy chain. By the way, in a conventional multiple storage medium search system in which a specific commercially available network OS such as Windows NT is constructed as an OS for a host computer, all drive letters (alphabets a to z) that can be designated as a device are specified.
Even if the CD-ROM drive is connected to the
Some of them could only connect to the drive. On the other hand, in the present embodiment, by taking measures to be described later, as shown in FIG. 1, two CD-ROM drive devices each having 14 drives incorporated therein (total of 2 drives) are provided.
It is possible to connect up to 7 drives in case of SCSI.

Here, the host computer 11 of the present embodiment uses the existing network OS, and exceeds the limit of the number of alphabets that can be used for device designation, and connects more CD-ROM drives. The mechanism that makes it possible is explained. In order to manage the CD-ROM drive by the host computer 11, a CD service program is required as software for managing the CD-ROM drive on the operating system installed therein. A function is added to the CD service program so that the OS assigns a plurality of CD-ROM drives to each drive letter that specifies a device. In order to add such a function,
When this is started, multiple CD-s will be added to the drive letter.
An initialization file in which a description that associates a ROM drive is described is prepared in advance. This initialization file is the drive correspondence description file of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of concrete contents of the initialization file. Here, as an example, the drive “a:” and the drive “b:” are FDD,
If the drive “c:” and the drive “d:” are HDDs and a CD-ROM drive is assigned after the drive “e:”, in FIG.
1], [CD2], [CD3], ... Correspond to the drives after the drive “e:” seen from the OS in order. Here, the drive seen from the OS is the upper drive, [CD
The drive included in 1] etc. is called a lower drive.

In FIG. 2, for example, a portion such as "¥ = Drive1" written under [CD1] is [CD1].
This indicates that the CD-ROM drive, which is a lower drive belonging to the above, has been designated. That is, in the example of FIG.
Numbers 1 to 14 of the CD-ROM drives are specified under [CD1], numbers 15 to 28 of the CD-ROM drives are specified under [CD2], and numbers 29 to 29 are specified under [CD3]. CD-ROM drives Nos. To 42 are designated. The same applies to [CD4] and thereafter. When the OS sees these, 14 CDs from 1 to 14
-ROM is designated as the drive "e:", and the number is from 2 to 15.
14 CD-ROMs up to No. 8 are designated as the drive “f:”, and 14 CD-ROs from No. 29 to 42.
M is designated as drive "g:". In this case, each CD-RO in the drive "e:" etc. when viewed from the OS
The M is distinguished by using the volume label of the CD-ROM, and the volume label is treated as one directory name. OS based on this initialization file
When the CD service program is started,
D-ROM mapping is performed.

The contents of the initialization file can be easily rewritten by the user, and the number of CD-ROM drives belonging to one upper drive can be changed,
When the CD-ROMs are exchanged between different upper drives, it is only necessary to rewrite this initialization file. On the other hand, it is necessary to set a predetermined environment on the side of the search terminal. When the search terminal is a personal computer incorporating MS-DOS or the like, the environment setting is performed using "NET USE command" or the like. In the example shown in FIG. 3, the e drive seen from the OS on the host side [CD
1] indicates that the setting is assigned. Here, "C
The portion described as "DROM1" indicates that the host computer which is the CD-ROM server is named CDROM1. Similarly, only the necessary drives are sequentially assigned, such as f drive and g drive. However, such setting is necessary only for the first time, and the next time and thereafter, such setting is unnecessary. Further, when the CD-ROM is replaced beyond the device, it is necessary to set the NET USE command again together with the initialization file.

With the above, necessary settings for the server and the client in the multiple storage medium retrieval system shown in FIG. 1 are completed. In the system of FIG. 1, 14 CD-
CD-ROM drive device 10 with built-in ROM drive
₁ unit is connected to n units (n is 2 or more), and conceptually shows the relationship between one upper drive seen from the OS and each CD-ROM drive connected to this upper drive,
It becomes like FIG. In other words, OS viewed from a single drive "e:", a plurality of CD-ROM drive 20 ₁ to
Since 20 ₁₄ will be connected, it is possible to clear the limitation that, when one CD-ROM drive is connected to one of the above-mentioned drives, only a maximum of 26 can be connected as in the conventional case.

Next, referring to FIG. 5, the operation of the multiple storage medium retrieval system of this embodiment will be described. FIG.
FIG. 5A is a flowchart showing the operation on the host computer side, and FIG. 5B is a flowchart showing the operation on the search terminal side. First, the operation of FIG. 5A is performed on the server (host computer) side. That is, when the power of the host computer is turned on in step S10, the OS module is automatically read from a predetermined hard disk device or the like in step S11. The “OS module” is a program for OS startup including a network module, device module, and the like necessary for booting the OS and booting as a host. In step S12, the CD service program is also read from the hard disk device or the like. As described above, when the CD service program is started, it goes to read the initialization file shown in FIG. 2, and according to the contents described in the initialization file, the OS designates a plurality of CDs for each alphabet designating the device. -RO
Allocate M drive and map CD-ROM. By the procedure so far, the host computer is booted up and is in a ready state.

When the host computer is activated as described above, the client (search terminal) side is activated.
In FIG. 5B, when the power of the search terminal is turned on in step S20, for example, the “config.sys” file of MS-DOS is read from the predetermined hard disk device and the process described in “autoexec.bat” is read. To execute. Then, in step 22, the network module is loaded, and in step 23, the OS is accessed and the network is logged on. Then, in step S24, the environment setting for assigning [CD1] or the like to the drive viewed from the OS is performed using the NET USE command described above. As a result, the personal computer 12 ₁ or the like, which is the search terminal, becomes ready. It should be noted that steps S21 to S23 may be batch files. The work of steps S22 and S23 is performed only at the first time, and skips this step and proceeds from the next time.

When an OS such as Windows is started on the retrieval terminal in this state, the CD-ROM drive is automatically recognized as a device by looking at the CD-ROM mapping set above, and the OS is in the ready state. Becomes FIG.
Is one CD-RO for one drive letter as before.
A screen (file manager) displayed on the search terminal when the M drive is assigned (FIG. 10A), and a plurality of CDs in one drive letter according to the present embodiment.
It is the figure which compared and showed the mode (the figure (b)) of the screen displayed on a search terminal, when allocating a ROM drive.

In FIG. 6A, icons of CD-ROM drives connected to the host computer are displayed in the column indicated by 30 in alphabetical order of drive letters. Here, for example, the CD-RO of the drive "e:"
Click the M drive and the left column 31 below
"\ Volume name" is displayed on the screen, and the names of subdirectories and files existing on the disk are listed below. When the subdirectory in this state is clicked, the subordinate directories and files contained therein are displayed in the right column 32.

On the other hand, a CD-ROM based on this embodiment is used.
When the drive is grouped, the search terminal is displayed as shown in FIG. 6 (b). In the column indicated by 40,
Similar to the case of FIG. 9A, the icons of the CD-ROM drives are displayed in alphabetical order of the drive letters. Here, for example, when the icon of the CD-ROM drive of the drive "e:" is clicked, in the left column 41 below the CD-ROM belonging to the drive "e:", there is a \ indicating the root directory. A list of volume names of all the CD-ROMs installed in the drive is displayed. Then, when a volume name is clicked, the directory name and file name included in the CD-ROM corresponding to the volume name are displayed in the right column 4
2 is displayed. The user can select the desired directory or file from these and perform the necessary search operation. In this way, all the file information of, for example, 14 CD-ROMs is displayed on the screen of one file manager, and the desired file can be easily accessed.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and various modifications can be made within the scope of the invention. For example, in the above embodiment, one CD-ROM
The drive unit has 14 built-in CD-ROM drives, and these 14 CD-ROM drives are assigned to one drive letter viewed from the host computer. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and other hard disks are used. Any number of CDs within the limits imposed by wear restrictions
-It is possible to assign the ROM drive to one drive letter. Further, although the above-described embodiment is a system for searching a plurality of storage media connected to a network, it can be applied to a stand-alone type personal computer or the like not connected to a network. Furthermore,
The storage medium of the present invention can be applied not only to a CD-ROM but also to various storage media such as MO.

[0023]

As described above, a drive correspondence description file having a description indicating that one drive letter corresponds to a plurality of storage medium devices, and software configured to operate on an operating system are provided. By providing the operating system with the storage medium device corresponding to the respective drive letter by referring to the correspondence description file, the means for causing the operating system to recognize the storage medium device corresponding to the respective drive letter is provided. By referring to the drive correspondence description file, the entire plurality of storage media corresponding to one drive letter are regarded as one large storage medium, and the individual storage media included therein are treated as directories of the large storage medium. Operating system Even if the number of drive letters that can be specified by the system is limited, it is possible to search for more storage media than this number, and a multiple storage media search system that can search for storage media with a larger capacity than before. Can be provided.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a multiple storage medium search system of the present embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of specific contents of an initialization file.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of settings on the side of a search terminal.

FIG. 4 is a diagram conceptually showing the relationship between an upper drive and each CD-ROM drive connected to the upper drive.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the multiple storage medium search system of the present embodiment.

FIG. 6 shows a state of a conventional screen displayed on a search terminal when one CD-ROM drive is assigned to one drive letter (FIG. 6A) and one drive letter according to the present embodiment. It is the figure which compared and showed the mode (the figure (b)) of the screen displayed on a search terminal, when a some CD-ROM drive is allocated.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Communication Network 2 Hub (HUB) 10 ₁ , 10 ₂ , ..., 10 _n CD-ROM Drive Device 11 Host Computer 12 ₁ , 12 ₂ , ..., 12 _m Personal Computer 13 Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) 14 network printer _{20 1, 20 2, ··· 20} 14 CD-ROM drive

Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification number Office reference number FI Technical display location G06F 17/30 G06F 15/40 360D

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A storage medium device comprising: a plurality of storage medium devices; and a computer equipped with an operating system having a function of designating the plurality of storage medium devices corresponding to a finite number of drive letters. In a multi-storage medium retrieval system for retrieving device contents, a drive correspondence description file having a description indicating that one drive letter corresponds to a plurality of storage medium devices, and configured as software that operates on the operating system and activated. A plurality of storage medium search systems, further comprising: means for referencing the drive correspondence description file to cause the operating system to recognize a storage medium device corresponding to each drive letter. 2. A plurality of storage medium devices, a server machine equipped with an operating system that supports a network function and has a function of designating the plurality of storage medium devices corresponding to a finite number of drive letters, and a network machine for the server machine. Multiple storage medium search including at least one client machine connected to a server machine, accessing the plurality of storage medium devices from the client machine via the server machine, and searching contents of the plurality of storage medium devices In the system, a drive correspondence description file having a description indicating that a plurality of storage media devices are associated with one drive letter, and software configured to operate on the operating system, are referred to when the drive correspondence description file is started. Serial plurality storage media retrieval system characterized by comprising a means for recognizing the storage media device corresponding to the respective drive letter to the operating system, the. 3. The multiple storage medium retrieval system according to claim 1, wherein the drive correspondence description file is rewritable by a user.