JP4963167B2 - System startup method and program - Google Patents

Description

According to the present invention, a hard disk image in which an application is installed together with an operating system (OS) is recorded on an external storage medium, and data is transferred from the external storage medium to a hard disk drive (HDD) in a computer system when the system is started. In particular, when the operation of the system becomes unstable, the operation is unstable before the application is installed or the application is installed. The present invention relates to a system activation method and a program that can immediately determine whether or not it has become unstable.

In recent years, computer systems have been installed in various products. For example, one conventional image processing apparatus is provided with an information processing unit that exhibits functions of a category different from the image processing function exhibited by the image processing unit, and this information processing unit is operated by a general-purpose OS. It is controlled (Patent Document 1).
In such a system, an attached application is recorded on an external storage medium such as a DVD as an HD image in which the application is installed together with the OS so that the attached application can be upgraded or the attached application can be easily added. The data is expanded and recorded from the external storage medium to the HDD in the system. In this way, when the distributor upgrades or adds an attached application, it is only necessary to replace the external storage medium, and it is not necessary to perform complicated processing for installing the OS or application, and the time required for the installation. The cost can be reduced.
As another prior art, as disclosed in Patent Document 2, a step of receiving a boot request, accessing a signature sector of a single drive, a first serial number for the first boot partition, and a second for the second boot partition The second serial number is scanned, the first serial number is used to identify the first boot partition, and the second serial number is used to identify the second boot partition. And then a selection window is displayed requesting the user to select the first boot partition or the second boot partition, and then the step of modifying the single drive boot flag according to the user's selection. Go ahead and modify this boot flag by changing the first boot partition and the second boot party One of the options is identified as a partition including an operating system for computer boot, and this method further includes a step of concealing an unselected partition. An information recording medium, an OS that starts while rewriting data, a rewritable information recording medium writing driver for performing a write operation on a rewritable information recording medium drive, and a disk drive stored in an interrupt vector table Patent Document 4 discloses a technique for storing an address conversion program that rewrites the start address of an interrupt processing program for manipulating the start address of a rewritable information recording medium writing driver. Notification of abnormalities or automatically HDD- At the time of e-mail transmission, a program is added in the file to notify the occurrence of an abnormality by e-mail etc. by adding the installation location ID of the apparatus to the administrator using the communication means of the LAN or MODEM from BIOS , Determine whether it can be restored remotely, notify HDD-S, shorten the motor rotation time from HDD-M, copy the necessary user files from HDD-M to HDD-S to OS (APL) Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-228561, which satisfies the specifications of PARTIES (Protected Area Run Time Interface Extension Services) and has an OS access environment and a PARTIES partition that is an area hidden from the OS, and user data management・ User mode modules that operate in the OS access environment in applications and hidden A technology having a CMOS / NVRAM that provides a work area for performing communication with a management mode module that operates in an environment for a designated area is disclosed in Patent Document 6 in which a hard disk stores software first. A partition, a second program for storing the restoration program for restoring the software to the initial state and backup data, a boot block for starting the system from one of the first partition and the second partition, and a system from any partition The BIOS has a switching program for instructing the boot block whether to start, and the BIOS starts the switching program when there is a specific input operation when the power is turned on. At this time, the switching program starts from the second partition. A technique for instructing a boot block to start a system is disclosed.
JP 2004-356822 A JP 2002-7139 A JP 2002-222087 A JP 2002-49487 A JP 2004-13563 A JP 2003-280914 A

However, in the above-described conventional technology, for example, in Windows (registered trademark), which is a general-purpose OS, the registry may be rewritten by installing an application, and the operation may become slow or unstable. Further, there may be a case where the operation becomes slow or unstable due to a problem on the system side including the OS.
In such a case, by uninstalling the application, it is possible to determine whether the problem is on the application side or the system side including the OS.
However, when a user has installed a large number of applications, the task of uninstalling the applications is difficult, and there is a problem that the work takes time.
The present invention has been made to solve the above-described conventional problems, and its purpose is to ensure that the operation is unstable before the application is installed when the operation of the system becomes unstable. It is another object of the present invention to provide a system activation method and a program that can immediately determine whether the operation has become unstable due to the application being installed.

In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, a hard disk in which an operating system is installed is recorded as an image on an external storage medium, and the computer system is started from the external storage medium when the system is started. a system starting method for recording expand data to the hard disk of the inner, computer, the external storage medium as at least two partitions areas of the plurality of the divided partition of the hard disk boot possible from and recording the operating system to the computer, the at least two bootable operating system is recorded partition of the hard disk, and boot partition to use only one partition in normal boot A step of hiding remaining partitions so that it is no longer visible from the operating system of the computer system, the steps of continuing the system startup process by switching the boot process to the hard disk of the boot partition, the computer, the from the external storage medium said hard to hard disk in the computer system before recording deployed as an image, wherein whether the master boot record of the hard disk can be reproduced normally, or partition configuration of the hard disk is recorded in the external storage medium Checking whether the image file has a different partition configuration, and if the computer fails to play back the master boot record of the hard disk normally. Alternatively, when the partition configuration of the hard disk is different from the partition configuration in the image file recorded on the external storage medium, the step of expanding the data from the external storage medium and recording the data on the hard disk; When the boot record can be normally reproduced and the partition configuration of the hard disk is the same as that of the image file recorded on the external storage medium, the data of the hard disk is not expanded from the external storage medium. And a step of booting from a boot partition.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, a hard disk with an operating system installed is recorded as an image on an external storage medium, and data is expanded from the external storage medium to a hard disk drive in a computer system when the system is started up. And recording the operating system so that the computer can be booted from the external storage medium to one partition area of a plurality of partitions of the hard disk drive, and at least one or more partitions region, the steps of the operating system and reserved area to be recorded, the computer, the hard from the external storage medium to the hard disk in the computer system And recording expand the I disk image, a step computer, when recording by developing the hard disk image to the hard disk, to copy the operating system of the partition area in the reserved partition area, computer However, only one partition of the hard disk in which at least two bootable operating systems are recorded is used as a boot partition for normal boot, and the remaining partitions are made invisible to the operating system of the computer system. a step of hiding, the steps to continue the system boot process by switching the boot process to boot partition of the hard disk, the computer, the external The hard disk from憶媒body to the hard disk in the computer system before recording deployed as an image, wherein whether the master boot record of the hard disk can be reproduced normally, or the partition configuration of the hard disk the external storage medium Checking whether the partition configuration in the image file recorded on the disk is different, and if the computer cannot reproduce the master boot record of the hard disk normally or if the partition configuration of the hard disk is stored in the external storage medium A step of decompressing data from the external storage medium and recording it on the hard disk when the partition configuration of the recorded image file is different, and a computer comprising the hard disk If the master boot record of the disk can be reproduced normally and the partition configuration of the hard disk is the same as that of the image file recorded on the external storage medium, the data is not expanded from the external storage medium. And booting from the boot partition of the hard disk .

The invention according to claim 3, the computer, the one from the external storage medium of the plurality partitions of the hard disk when recording by developing the hard to hard disk in the computer system as an image, boot from any partition And a step of starting from the selected partition.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a program for causing a computer to execute the system startup method according to any one of the first to third aspects .

According to the present invention, when the operation of the system becomes unstable, the operation becomes unstable before the application (OS) is installed, or the operation becomes unstable because the application is installed. It will be possible to quickly determine whether it has happened.
In addition, according to the present invention, the HD image can be reduced by using one master HDD partition in which the OS or application is installed.
Further, according to the present invention, it is not necessary to record data on the HDD every time because the HDD is inspected at the time of system startup to determine whether or not data recording from the optical disk to the HDD is necessary. It is also possible to prevent the data stored later from being overwritten.
Further, according to the present invention, it is possible to select a boot partition by a selection SW attached to the computer system.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of one embodiment of a computer system according to the present invention.
As shown in FIG. 1, in this computer system, a CPU 3, an HDD 5, a BIOS ROM 7, a memory 9, a drive device 11, a LAN 13, and a display I / F 15 are connected to each other via an internal bus 1. An LCD (or CRT) 17 is connected to the display I / F 15.
The drive device 11 can reproduce data from an optical disk 19 such as a CD or a DVD. This computer system can be activated from the HDD 5 or the optical disk 19 inserted in the drive device 11, and activation from the HDD 5 or the optical disk 19 described below is controlled by the CPU 3 by the BIOS.
As shown in FIG. 2, the optical disk 19 records an image of a master HDD. In this master HDD, it is assumed that MBR (master boot record), partition 1, partition 2, and partition 3 are recorded from the head sector as shown in the figure. Further, the same operation system (OS) is recorded in each of the partition 1 and the partition 2, and an application is stored in the other partition 3. On the optical disc 19, these HD image data are compressed and recorded. FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing a state in which an image of the master HDD is recorded on the optical disc 19.
At the same time, a boot program is recorded on the optical disc 19 and is created as a bootable disc. When the system is activated from the optical disc 19, the activation process is transferred from the BIOS to the boot program, and the activation process is continued from the boot program.

When the optical disk 19 is inserted into the computer system and is activated from the optical disk 19 when the system is activated, the boot program is stored in the HDD 5 in the computer system as shown in FIG. The HD image recorded in the optical disk 19 is developed and recorded, and an HDD having the same configuration as the master HDD in FIG. 2 is created. FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a state in which the image of the master HDD stored on the optical disc 19 is expanded on the HDD 5.
That is, in a state where an application program or the like is not installed by the user, the same OS is recorded in the partition 1 and the partition 2 which are expanded and recorded in the HDD 5. For example, when the partition 1 is a boot partition, the OS of the partition 1 that is expanded and recorded in the HDD 5 is started.
Here, even if the user installs an application program in the partition 1 of the HDD 5 or saves the data, the partition 2 is always in an initial state where it has just been expanded from the optical disc 19 and recorded. Therefore, for example, when the operation becomes unstable in the partition 1, the operation is unstable before the application is installed by starting from the partition 2, or the application is installed. It is possible to determine whether the operation has become unstable.
Here, when the partition 1 is a boot partition, it is necessary to make the partition 2 invisible to the OS of the computer system. This is because if an application is installed in the partition 2 or data is stored, it becomes difficult to distinguish between a malfunction of the application and a malfunction of the OS when the operation becomes unstable.
Therefore, the partition 2 can be hidden by rewriting the partition table recorded in the MBR of the HDD 5 at system startup from A to B and C as shown in FIG. As information on the partitions 1 to 3 in FIG. 4, the top address of the partition, the total number of sectors, a boot flag indicating from which partition to start, and the like are recorded. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of the operation of rewriting the partition table so that the partition 2 is not visible to the OS of the computer system.

Originally, the partition table can have up to four pieces of partition information, but in this embodiment, since it is an HDD having three partitions, ALL “00” is stored in the area where the fourth partition information is recorded. To be recorded.
For example, when the boot partition is partition 1, in order to make partition 2 invisible to the OS, the partition table recorded in the MBR of HDD 5 as shown in A in the figure is rewritten as shown in B in the figure. By eliminating the information of partition 2 from the partition table, it becomes possible to make partition 2 invisible to the OS of the computer system.
Further, in the case where the boot partition as the partition 2, by rewriting the partition table as shown in figure C, that Do can be invisible partition 1 from the OS of the computer system.
When an image of the master HDD is recorded on the optical disk 19 and an OS is installed in advance in both the partition 1 and the partition 2 of the master HDD, the capacity of the image file becomes large and may not fit in the optical disk 19 in some cases. is there.
Therefore, since the same data is recorded in the partition 1 and the partition 2, as shown in FIG. 5, in the optical disk 19, the OS is installed only in the partition 1, and the partition 2 has the same size as the partition 1. By setting it as a reserved area, the image file of the master HDD can be made smaller. Then, when the recording deployed from the optical disk 19 to the HDD 5, when to copy the data of the partition 1 to partition 2, Ru can partition 1 and partition 2 and the same data.

FIG. 5 is an operation explanatory diagram for copying data in partition 1 to partition 2 when an OS installed only in partition 1 on optical disk 19 is expanded and recorded in HDD 5.
By the way, if the process as described above is performed every time the system is started, even when the user installs an application or when data is stored, the recording from the optical disk 19 to the HDD 5 is performed again. Data will be overwritten. Therefore, the application installed by the user and the stored data are also overwritten.
Therefore, it is necessary to check whether data is recorded on the HDD 5 when the system is started up, and only when data is not recorded, the data is developed from the optical disk 19 and recorded on the HDD 5.
FIG. 6 is a flowchart of the HDD check process performed when the system is started.
First, when the activation process is transferred from the BIOS when the system is activated, the MBR of the HDD 5 is reproduced to check whether data is recorded in the HDD 5 (step A1). Processing in which data is expanded from the optical disk 19 and recorded on the HDD 5 when the MBR cannot be normally reproduced or the partition table is different from the HD image file recorded on the optical disk 19 (YE in step A2). Is executed (step A3). If the MBR can be normally played back and the partition table is the same as the HD image file recorded on the optical disk 19 (NO in step A2), the HDD boot without executing the recording process from the optical disk 19 to the HDD 5 Continue processing .

Next, another embodiment of a computer system having a SW for selecting a boot partition will be described.
FIG. 7 is a configuration block diagram of another embodiment of a computer system having a SW for selecting a boot partition.
As shown in FIG. 7, this computer system includes a CPU 3, an HDD 5, a BIOS ROM 7, a memory 9, a drive device 11, a LAN 13, a display I / F 15, and a selection switch via an internal bus 1. 21 are connected to each other, and an LCD (or CRT) 17 is connected to the display I / F 15.
Next, boot partition switching processing in another embodiment will be described based on the processing flow shown in FIG. FIG. 8 is a flowchart of boot partition switching processing according to another embodiment.
First, before starting the system, the partition to be booted is selected by the selection SW 21 shown in FIG. Thereafter, when the startup process is transferred from the BIOS to the boot program at the system startup, the boot partition selected by the selection SW 21 is checked (B1). If the selection SW 21 is set to 1 (YES in B2), the boot partition is set to partition 1 (B4) and the boot process is continued. If the selection SW 21 is set to 2 (NO in B2), the boot partition is set to partition 2 (B3), and the boot process is continued. As described above, the boot partition can be selected by the selection SW 21 shown in FIG .

1 is a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of a computer system according to the present invention. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a state in which an image of a master HDD is recorded on an optical disc 19. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a state in which an image of a master HDD stored on an optical disc 19 is expanded on an HDD 5. FIG. It is explanatory drawing of the operation | movement which rewrites a partition table so that the partition 2 may become invisible from OS. FIG. 11 is an operation explanatory diagram for copying data in partition 1 to partition 2 when an OS installed only in partition 1 on optical disk 19 is expanded and recorded in HDD 5. It is a process flowchart of HDD check performed at the time of system starting. It is a block diagram of a configuration of another embodiment of a computer system having SW21 for selecting a boot partition. It is a flowchart of the boot partition switching process in other embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Internal bus, 3 ... CPU, 5 ... HDD, 7 ... ROM, 9 ... Memory, 11 ... Drive apparatus, 13 ... LAN, 19 ... Optical disk, 21 ... Selection switch

Claims (4)

The external storage medium, may be recorded hard disk in a state in which the operating system is installed as an image, the system startup, there a system starting method for recording by expanding the data from the external storage medium to the hard disk in the computer system And
And step computer, recording at least two partition area to boot the operating system to allow one of said external storage medium partition is divided into a plurality of hard disks from,
Computer, the at least two bootable operating system is recorded partition of the hard disk, and boot partition for normal boot only one partition, not visible to the rest of the partition from the operating system of the computer system Step to hide and
A step of continuing the system startup process by switching the boot process to the hard disk boot partition,
Computer, wherein the hard disk from the external storage medium to the hard disk in the computer system before recording deployed as an image, wherein whether the master boot record of the hard disk can be reproduced normally, or partition configuration of the hard disk Checking whether the partition configuration in the image file recorded in the external storage medium is different;
The computer expands the data from the external storage medium when the master boot record of the hard disk cannot be reproduced normally or when the partition structure of the hard disk is different from the partition structure in the image file recorded on the external storage medium. And recording on the hard disk,
The computer can reproduce the data from the external storage medium when the master boot record of the hard disk can be normally reproduced and the partition structure of the hard disk is the same in the image file recorded on the external storage medium. Booting from the hard disk boot partition without unpacking;
A system activation method comprising: A system activation method in which a hard disk with an operating system installed is recorded as an image on an external storage medium, and data is expanded and recorded from the external storage medium to a hard disk drive in a computer system when the system is activated. And
The computer records an operating system so as to be able to boot from one of the partitions divided into a plurality of hard disk drives from the external storage medium, and at least one partition area is stored in the operating system. A region reserved for recording
And step computer, said recording expand hard disk image from the external storage medium to the hard disk in the computer system,
And step computer, when recording by developing the hard disk image to the hard disk, to copy the operating system of the partition area in the reserved partition area,
Computer, the at least two bootable operating system is recorded partition of the hard disk, and boot partition to use only one partition in a normal boot, invisible to the rest of the partition from the operating system of the computer system as Step to hide in,
A step of continuing the system startup process by switching the boot process to the hard disk boot partition,
Computer, wherein the hard disk from the external storage medium to the hard disk in the computer system before recording deployed as an image, wherein whether the master boot record of the hard disk can be reproduced normally, or partition configuration of the hard disk Checking whether the partition configuration in the image file recorded in the external storage medium is different;
The computer expands the data from the external storage medium when the master boot record of the hard disk cannot be reproduced normally or when the partition structure of the hard disk is different from the partition structure in the image file recorded on the external storage medium. And recording on the hard disk,
The computer can reproduce the data from the external storage medium when the master boot record of the hard disk can be normally reproduced and the partition structure of the hard disk is the same in the image file recorded on the external storage medium. Booting from the hard disk boot partition without unpacking;
A system activation method comprising: And step computer, to choose the one from the external storage medium of the hard disk of the plurality partitions when recording by developing the hard to hard disk in the computer system as an image, to boot from any partition,
System startup method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized by comprising the steps of: Starting from the selected partition. The program for making a computer perform the system starting method as described in any one of Claims 1 thru | or 3.

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