JPH06222962A - Defective data collecting and retrieving method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To suppress influences to the workability of a system to the minimum by collecting data in a short time at the time of computer down in the system for which time for investigating the cause of computer down is limited. CONSTITUTION:At the time of computer down, a CPU 11 is set by a reset switch 12, information in a memory 13 is stored in an HDD 7 by executing a program for memory information storage, and the cause of down is investigated by this stored information.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a defect data collection / retrieval method for collecting defect data and investigating the cause when a defect (a computer is down) occurs in a computer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, when a computer goes down, the cause of the down is investigated by analyzing the contents of the memory at that time using a program called a debugger. However, in the case of the control computer, it is not allowed to keep the computer down for a long time, and it is necessary to restart immediately.

To restart the computer, once the CPU
(Central processing unit) needs to be reset, but normally, when the CPU is reset, the contents of the memory at the time the computer goes down are all initialized or overwritten, providing a clue as to why the computer went down. You will lose. In addition, it is impossible to perform sufficient data collection to investigate the cause while the computer is down because of the time constraint described above. In addition, there was no means for investigating the cause when even the debugger did not work.

For this reason, it is necessary to restart the computer in a short time while leaving a clue for investigating the cause.
Furthermore, a means is needed for investigating the cause offline using the acquired information.

[0005]

In the conventional fault data collection and retrieval method, when a computer is down, data is collected within a limited time and the computer is immediately restarted, so that many clues for investigating the cause can be obtained. I couldn't. Also, in order to investigate the cause, it was necessary to leave the computer processing suspended for the time required for that, and it was not possible to restart immediately. Furthermore, when the debugger cannot operate (does not accept keyboard input), there is no means for investigating the cause.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems. When a computer goes down, the cause can be efficiently investigated, and the downed computer can be restarted in a short time. The purpose is to provide a method for collecting and searching defect data.

[0007]

The method for collecting and retrieving defective data according to the invention of claim 1 has a problem that the normal processing program 16 stored in the CPU 11 or the hard disk (HDD) 7 is stopped (computer down). When it occurs, the CPU 11 is reset, and the information in the memory 13 is read out by executing the memory information storage program 17 stored in the hard disk 7.
The defective data is searched from the read memory information.

A method for collecting and retrieving defective data according to a second aspect of the present invention is directed to the CPU 11 or hard disk (HD
D) If a problem (computer down) such that the normal processing program 16 stored in 7 stops occurs, C
The PU 11 is reset, and the memory information storage program 17 stored in the hard disk 7 is executed to read the information in the memory 13 to the outside. The read memory information is not expanded in the memory 13 and read out. According to the correspondence between the position of the file and the position of the memory 13, the information in the file is viewed as if it were on the memory 13, and the cause of the defect is investigated.

[0009]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, when the computer goes down, the CPU 11 is reset and the memory information storage program 17 is executed.
Is read out to the outside. Then, the defective data is retrieved from the read memory information.

In the second aspect of the present invention, when the computer goes down, the CPU 11 is reset and the memory information storage program 17 is executed, whereby the information in the memory 13 is read out and stored as a file. . In order to investigate the cause of the defect, the cause of the defect is investigated by looking at the information in the file as if it were on the memory 13.

[0011]

【Example】

Example 1 (corresponding to claims 1 and 2). 1 is a block diagram of a computer according to a first embodiment of the present invention. In FIG.
Reference numeral 1 is a CRT for displaying various data, 2 is a CRT control device for controlling the CRT 1, 3 is a printer for printing data, 4 is a printer control device for controlling the printer 3,
5 is a keyboard as an input device for inputting commands, 6 is a keyboard control device for controlling the keyboard 5,
7 is a hard disk (HD
D), 8 is an HDD control device for controlling the HDD 7, and 9 is also H
Like the DD7, it is for storing data, but allows you to carry a media on a floppy disk (FD
D) and 10 are FDD control devices for controlling the FDD 9. 11 is a central processing unit (CPU), 12 is a CPU
A reset switch for resetting 11, a readable / writable RAM (memory) 13 for storing programs and other information, 14 an interrupt processing device for performing interrupt processing, and 15 communication for performing communication processing with an external device. It is a processing device. These respective devices are connected via an internal bus 20 to exchange data. The other computers for investigating the cause also have substantially the same system configuration as in FIG.

Further, the HDD 7 has a normal processing program 16 for executing normal computer processing as shown in FIG.
And a memory information storage program 17 for executing the means for storing information in the memory when the computer goes down. Further, as shown in FIG. 3, normally, the memory 13 of the computer is divided into a memory area 18 used as a so-called program memory and a memory area 19 used as a RAM disk.

Next, the operation of the first embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. First, when you start the computer normally, H
Program 1 to perform normal computer processing from DD7
6 is booted in the memory area 18 and executed by the CPU 11 (step S1). If the computer does not go down, the process continues as it is.

When some trouble occurs and the computer goes down (step S2), the computer processing that has been performed up to now stops. For example, when the computer is performing some control, the control of the device is stopped. Normally, before restarting the control of the apparatus, the cause of the down is investigated by using the instruction mounted on the computer. However, the information of the memory 13 which is a clue to the cause is stored in the HDD 7.

When the computer goes down, first, the CPU 1
The reset switch 12 of No. 1 is pressed to reset (step S3). By this operation, even if the computer is in a state of not accepting the input of the keyboard 5, the input can be accepted. Next, the memory 13 stored in the HDD 7 is set so that the information in the memory 13 is not initialized.
The program 17 for storing the information of the
The memory area 19 used as a disk is booted (step S4). In this case, the size of the memory 13 used by the program 17 booted from the HDD 7 is
It must be smaller than the memory area 19 used as the RAM disk.

The booted program 17 reads its contents from the memory area 18 'which remains in the state when the computer went down, and stores all the information from the beginning in the HDD 7 (step S5). The information in the memory 13 is stored in the HDD 7
After being stored in the CPU 11, the CPU 11 is reset again (step S6), the program 16 for executing the normal computer processing is booted in the memory 13, and the normal processing is restarted (step S6).
7, step S8).

In parallel with step S8, the cause is investigated by another computer based on the acquired information. The position of the acquired information in the memory 13 is determined from the beginning of the file. You can know how many positions you have. By using this, the information in the file can be viewed as if it were on the memory 13, and the cause can be investigated (step S9).

The computer according to the first embodiment includes a CPU 11
When the CPU stops and the input from the outside, for example, the input from the keyboard 5 cannot be accepted, the keyboard 11 is initialized by resetting the CPU 11 once,
The information in the memory 13 is acquired. Further, in the state where all the acquired information is recorded in the external storage device without being expanded in the memory 13, the recording position is considered as an address when the memory 13 is present, and whether the information is expanded in the memory 13 The cause is investigated as described above.

That is, in the first embodiment, when the computer is down, the CPU 11 is not first reset and the information in the memory 13 is not initialized, but is externally stored in the memory area 19 used as a RAM disk until then. The program 17 for recording in the storage device is booted, and the memory 13
Record the information in. After obtaining a clue for investigating the cause of the computer down by the above-mentioned operation, the CPU 11 is reset again and the program 17 for performing normal processing is booted,
Reboot the system. After that, the cause is investigated by other computers based on the acquired information.

Embodiment 2 (corresponding to claim 1). Example 1 above
Although steps S3 to S7 in FIG. 4 are performed manually, if the steps S4 to S7 are automatically performed after the CPU 11 is reset in step S3, that is, the memory information storage program 17 is automatically executed. If the normal program is started when the storage is completed, the manual intervention can be reduced as much as possible, and the data collection at the time of down can be performed more smoothly.

Embodiment 3 (corresponding to claims 1 and 2). Although the HDD 7 is used as the external storage device for storing the information in the memory 13 in the first embodiment, a streamer, an MO (magneto-optical disk) or the like may be used instead of the HDD 7. Further, instead of the external storage device, data can be transmitted to another computer by communication and analyzed there.

Example 4. The program 17 for storing the information in the memory 13 may be implemented as a ROM and installed in a computer.

[0023]

As described above, according to the invention of claim 1,
When a computer malfunctions, the memory information is read to the outside and the fault data is searched, so if the computer goes down, as a clue to investigate the cause,
The information of the memory at the time of the down can be acquired, and the computer that has gone down can be restarted in a short time, so the operation for investigating the cause can be performed slowly using another computer, and it can be performed from the keyboard. In some cases, input may not be accepted, and even if the cause could not be determined in the past, the cause can be determined.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, in investigating the cause, not all the information is expanded in the memory, so that the computer that does this does not have to have the same memory capacity as the actual machine.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a computer according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing main programs stored in an HDD shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a usage state of a memory during normal processing in the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an operation according to the first embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 CRT 2 CRT control device 3 printer 4 printer control device 5 keyboard (input device) 6 keyboard control device 7 HDD (hard disk) 8 HDD control device 9 FDD (floppy disk) 10 FDD control device 11 CPU (central processing unit) 12 Reset switch 13 Memory 14 Interrupt processing device 15 Communication processing device 16 Normal processing program 17 Memory information storage program 18, 19, 18 ', 19' Memory area 20 Internal bus

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A computer provided with a central processing unit for performing an operation, a memory for storing information necessary for the operation, and an input device for inputting operation information, wherein the central processing unit or the normal processing is performed. When a problem occurs such that the normal processing program stops, the central processing unit is reset and the memory information storage program is executed to read the information in the memory to the outside, A defect data collection and retrieval method characterized by searching for defect data from 2. A computer provided with a central processing unit for performing an operation, a memory for storing information necessary for the operation, and an input device for inputting operation information, wherein the central processing unit or the normal processing is performed. When a problem occurs such that the normal processing program stops, the central processing unit is reset and the memory information storage program is executed to read the information in the memory to the outside, and the read memory information is read. The cause of the above-mentioned problem is that the information in the file is viewed as if it is on the memory according to the correspondence between the position of the file of the read memory information and the position of the memory without expanding it in the memory. A method for collecting and retrieving defect data, which is characterized by conducting an investigation.