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Description  |
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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to data backup and recovery on computer
systems.
Personal computer workstations, such as the IBM-compatible Personal
Computer (PC), have become popular today for a wide variety of computing
tasks. Each PC typically includes one or more internal high capacity hard
disk drives, and operates under a disk operating system to control the
internal operation of the PC. For IBM-compatible PC's, commonly used disk
operating systems today are IBM OS/2 (commercially available from IBM
corporation), Microsoft MS-DOS, and Microsoft Windows 3.x (both
commercially available from Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash.).
The complexity of personal computers has increased dramatically in recent
years. A wide variety of hardware and software options are available today
for configuring a personal computer, adding to their complexity. Complex
computer systems require similarly complex disk operating systems to
support the wide variety of possible system hardware and software
configurations available today. Because there are so many possible system
configurations available, a typical operating system needs to be
individually tailored for each personal computer system on which it is
installed. This tailoring operation typically requires that a skilled
technician spend several hours building the operating system on the
personal computer according to the desired system configuration. This
process is typically repeated for each system built, even if the
configuration of that system is identical to one previously built.
Data stored on magnetic media disk drives, such as high capacity hard
disks, are vulnerable to hazards such as "head crashes," accidental
exposure to magnetic fields, loss of power during data writing operations,
unintentional reformatting or data overwriting, or other destructive
forces which can cause stored data to be lost. Data can also be lost by
software failure, user error, hard storage device failure, or even loss or
theft of the storage media or device.
Data backup systems, such as magnetic tape backup, are generally very
useful for restoring corrupted or destroyed data files on the high
capacity hard disk. However, these backup systems normally require that
the disk operating system installed on the hard disk be intact and fully
operational before data can be restored to the hard disk. A data loss
affecting the operating system itself is typically not recoverable by
using the tape backup system, and requires that the operating system be
reloaded onto the hard disk and configured anew. Where the operating
system was "factory loaded," reloading of the operating system onto the
hard disk outside the factory may consume many hours of valuable user and
technical support time.
Data backup systems are known which restore high capacity hard disks from a
digital image of that hard disk, i.e., on a media bit-mapped basis. This
type of image restoration may be able to restore an operating system to
fixed storage media since the operating system is simply some portion of
the total image being restored. However, any reformat or repartition of
the hard disk, which is typically required after a head crash or other
problem affecting the integrity of the media, can change the underlying
logical structure of the hard disk which may make it impossible to restore
a digital image to the hard disk without losing data.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a data backup procedure and apparatus for
backing up and restoring, or otherwise loading a fully configured
operating system to the high capacity storage device (e.g., hard disk) of
a computer workstation, such as a personal computer. The invention quickly
restores the operating system to the workstation from standard system
backup media, such as magnetic backup tapes, without the need to reload
and reconfigure the operating system from its original distribution media.
The operating system can be restored regardless of whether the high
capacity storage device has been reformatted, repartitioned, or otherwise
replaced with an equivalent device. The present invention can also be used
to efficiently factory load a fully configured operating system, and
application software, into similarly configured workstations on a
production line.
In general, in one aspect, this invention features a method for recovering
or loading a desired operating system onto a storage device of a data
processing system. The method includes providing a first media having the
desired operating system files to be loaded onto the storage device,
providing a second media having configuration-specific data files,
initializing the data processing system from the second media to provide a
temporary operating system using the configuration-specific data files,
loading the desired operating system files from the first media to the
storage device using the temporary operating system, and reinitializing
the data processing system with the desired operating system from the
storage device.
Preferred embodiments of the method include providing the first media by
copying the desired operating system files, or all the files, stored on
the storage device to the first media. The copying can be achieved by
running a data backup routine. Other preferred embodiments include
providing the configuration-specific data files to the second media by
copying the configuration-specific data files from the storage device to
the second media.
In yet other preferred embodiments, the second media is a removable, floppy
diskette, the storage device is a hard disk drive, and the first media is
a magnetic backup tape.
In still other preferred embodiments, the configuration-specific data files
include system configuration files, operating system configuration files,
and device drivers. The device drivers specifically include device drivers
for using a tape backup device for reading the magnetic backup tape.
In yet other preferred embodiments, the method includes initializing the
storage device prior to the step of loading the desired operating system
files from the first media to the storage device. Initializing includes
formatting and partitioning the storage device. A different desired
operating system can be loaded from the first media to each partition of
the storage device. Each partition is formatted using a format command and
procedure specific to the particular desired operating system to be loaded
into that partition.
In general, in another aspect, the invention features a method for loading
a desired operating system onto a hard disk drive of a target data
processing system, including configuring a hard disk drive of a model data
processing system with the desired configuration for the target data
processing system, copying the desired operating system files stored on
the hard disk drive of the model data processing system to a first media,
copying configuration-specific data files from the hard disk drive of the
model data processing system to a second media, initializing the target
data processing system from the second media to provide a temporary
operating system using the configuration-specific data files, and loading
the desired operating system files from the first media to a hard disk
drive of the target data processing system using the temporary operating
system.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the invention
will be apparent from the following more particular description of
embodiments of the invention, as illustrated in the accompanying drawings
in which like reference characters refer to the same parts throughout the
different views. The drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis
instead being placed upon illustrating the principles of the invention.
FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of a PC workstation which utilizes the
operating system recovery or loading features of this invention.
FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of the data storage media for
implementing the operating system recovery or loading features of this
invention.
FIG. 3 is a flow diagram showing the storage media setup done prior to
implementing an operating system recover or load procedure of this
invention.
FIG. 4 is a flow diagram showing the implementation of an operating system
recover or load procedure of this invention.
FIG. 5 is a flow diagram showing the storage media setup done prior to
implementing a multiple operating system recover or load procedure of this
invention.
FIG. 6 is a flow diagram showing the implementation of a multiple operating
system recover or load procedure of this invention.
FIG. 7 is a flow diagram showing the implementation of this invention for
efficiently factory loading operating systems and application software
into multiple data processing systems.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
FIG. 1 shows one embodiment of a data processing system 10 which features
the operating system recovery and loading of this invention. Data
processing system 10 includes a computer workstation 12 which can be, for
instance, an IBM-compatible personal computer (PC) operating under a disk
operating system. The disk operating system of the embodiment described
herein is IBM OS/2 (versions 1.2, 1.3x, 2.0 and 2.x), but could also be
Microsoft MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows 3.x, UNIX, or another operating
system.
Workstation 12 typically includes at least one high capacity storage device
16, such as a non-volatile magnetic media hard disk drive, which stores
files necessary to start (boot) and operate the workstation. These files
include operating system files 18, system configuration files 20, device
driver files 22, and any other files necessary to properly configure and
operate the workstation.
Workstation 12 also includes an interface 24 for connecting to a backup
data device 26 such as a magnetic tape drive, optical disk drive, or a
secondary hard disk drive. The backup data device may be physically
located within the workstation, or may be a separate device temporarily
connected to the workstation through a workstation data port 28, e.g. a
parallel data port.
Workstation 12 also typically includes a processor 30, such as an Intel
80x86 device connected to a local high speed solid state memory 32
including read only memory (ROM) and random access memory (RAM). A high
performance backplane channel 34 can connect the processor 30 to various
devices in the workstation including a user interface 36, a video display
adapter 38 for driving a video display 40, a hard disk drive adapter 42
for communicating with hard disk drive 16, a tape drive adapter 44 for
communicating with the backup tape drive device 26, and a data port
interface 46 for communicating with a wide variety of devices such as
modems and printers. Typically, each interface and adapter device requires
a specific software device driver 48 resident in memory 32 to operate the
device in the configured workstation/operating system environment.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the operating system is the
IBM OS/2 installed onto an IBM-compatible PC. Loading OS/2 onto the PC can
take as long as three to five hours, involve as many as twenty-four
diskettes which must be manually inserted into the PC when prompted by the
installation program, and require the attention of a skilled computer
operator. With the present invention, an entire OS/2 operating system,
completely configured for the PC, can be loaded, or otherwise restored,
onto the PC in under about ten minutes.
FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram showing the data storage media for
implementing the operating system recovery or loading procedure of this
invention. The PC hard disk drive 16 is first fully loaded and configured
with operating system files 18, system configuration files 20, and device
driver files 22. All the files stored on hard disk 16 are backed up to
create one or more backup tapes 50, and device drivers 22 are copied from
hard disk 16 onto a bootable recovery diskette 52. Operating system
installation files are copied from the original disks 54 distributed with
the operating system to make the recovery diskette a bootable diskette.
The recovery diskette also includes the recovery application program 55 of
this invention for implementing the recovery and loading procedures. The
recovery diskette can further include a text file which identifies the PC
system the recovery diskette belongs to.
To recover the fully configured operating system onto the hard disk 16, the
PC system is started, or booted, from the bootable recovery diskette 52.
The system configuration files 20 and device drivers 22 stored on the
recovery diskette 52 are used to configure the system and provide the
necessary device drivers to activate the PC devices, especially the backup
tape drive 26. The operating system files 18, system configuration files
20 and device drivers 22 are then loaded from the backup tape 50 onto the
hard disk 16 under control of a recovery diskette-loaded recovery
application program. The PC can then be restarted from hard drive and any
other backed up files can be restored to hard drive 32 from the backup
tape 50.
Depending on the type of operating system to be loaded onto the hard disk,
the recovery diskette can actually be a set of several recovery diskettes,
each diskette containing a particular sub-set of files. For instance, for
IBM OS/2 v. 1.2, 1.3x the recovery diskette set is actually made up of two
recovery diskettes, one bootable disk containing a copy of the original
OS/2 boot/install distribution disk files and some system configuration
files, and the other diskette containing all executable files necessary to
run the recovery or loading process and other required resource files. In
contrast, for IBM OS/2 v. 2.0, 2.x the recovery diskette set includes up
to four recovery diskettes, depending on the system configuration. In this
case, one bootable disk contains a direct copy of the original boot disk
distributed with the OS/2 v. 2.0, 2.x. Another disk contains modified copy
of the OS/2 v. 2.0, 2.x "Install" disk (minus some files, plus
configuration info files). A third disk contains all executable files
necessary to run the recovery or loading process of this invention, and
other resource files. Yet a fourth disk containing format information is
required if multiple versions of OS/2, with the OS/2 boot manager, are to
be recovered or loaded into the hard disk.
The number of recovery diskettes required is a function of the method in
which the operating system is distributed, rather than by the requirements
of the load or restore procedure of this invention. Thus, these recovery
diskette sets will be referred to herein as the recovery diskette for
simplicity, referring to removable media which is bootable, and contains
all the needed operating system, system configuration, device driver, and
recovery application program files.
FIG. 3 is a flow diagram showing preparation steps performed prior to
implementation of the operating system recovery and loading procedure of
this invention. Prior to performing a recovery or loading operation with
this invention, a PC is fully loaded and configured (100) as desired with
the operating system, device drivers, configuration files, and application
software including a tape backup program. The tape backup program should
be capable of backing up the entire system in a manner where individual
data files can be retrieved from the backup media and restored to the hard
drive, rather than requiring a restoration of the entire image of the hard
drive. One suitable backup program is Sytos Plus, which is commercially
available from Sytron Corporation, 134 Flanders Road, Westboro, Mass.
01581, the assignee of the present application.
Next, a partial or full backup (102) of the PC hard disk is made to create
a restorable backup media set (103) containing a copy of any or all files
currently residing on the PC hard disk, including all operating system
files, configuration files, and device drivers. This backup media set will
be used as the source for the operating system subsequently loaded or
restored onto the PC hard drive.
Next, a recovery diskette is prepared from the fully configured PC by
copying various files from the hard disk onto the recovery diskette, which
essentially define the current PC configuration. These copied files
include vital operating system configuration files (104), system
configuration files (106), and device drivers (108) which are required for
the proper operation of the hardware, operating system, and attached
devices. The most important device driver is the backup device driver,
e.g., backup tape drive device driver, which must be available to activate
the backup tape drive during the recovery or loading operation.
For instance, in one embodiment of the present invention, the copied files
include various OS/2 operating system files, CONFIG.SYS, and various
device drivers such as SCSI.SYS (IBM OS/2 versions prior to 2.0),
ASPI4OS2.SYS (IBM OS/2 versions prior to 2.0), TAPE.TSD (MS OS/2 LADDR),
*.BID (MS OS/2 LADDR), *.ADD (IBM OS/2 2.0), and any backup device
drivers.
Operating system installation files are copied (110) from the
"Installation" diskette, distributed with the original operating system
distribution diskettes, to the recovery diskette. The recovery diskette
also includes an application program for implementing the loading or
recovery procedure of this invention, and an application program capable
of recovering the operating system files from the backup media onto the
hard disk of the PC.
FIG. 4 is a flow diagram showing implementation of the operating system
recovery and loading procedure of this invention. After a hard disk error
affecting the operating system, the PC typically will be incapable of
starting (i.e., booting) from the hard disk. Operating system errors will
typically result in unreliable operation. Hard disk crashes and other
problems that affect the physical hard drive media often require that the
hard drive be reformatted and/or repartitioned. In either of these cases,
the operating system of the PC needs to be restored to the hard disk
before normal hard disk operation of the PC can resume.
To begin the recovery process, the operator inserts (200) the backup tape
containing the operating system files to be restored into the PC tape
drive. Next, the operator starts (i.e., boots) (202) the PC from the
recovery diskette which loads an initial, temporary operating system into
the memory of the PC. The recovery diskette also supplies this initial
operating system with the necessary system configuration files and device
drivers, i.e., the files previously copied to the recovery diskette from
the fully configured PC.
In this embodiment, the system is started from the recovery diskette, which
includes a copy of the files on the OS/2 Installation diskette distributed
with the OS/2 operating system. Alternatively, the system can be started
directly from the OS/2 Installation diskette and the recovery diskette is
then inserted into the floppy disk drive when the installation process
prompts the user for the next diskette.
Next, a recovery program is loaded from the recovery diskette into the PC
and run (204) to directly recover (206) the operating system files from
the backup tape. Other files on the backup tape can also be restored to
the PC by the recovery program. Finally, the PC is rebooted 208 from the
recovered operating system files now installed on the hard disk, and the
hard drive can be further restored (210) from the backup tape if
necessary.
In the case of a PC functioning as a file server on a network, restoration
is somewhat modified. In this case, both the PC operating system, the
Network operating system, and data files are restored from the backup tape
to the hard drive of the server by the recovery program. Access Control
Lists (ACL's), associated with each data file to define network user
access to the data file, might not be restorable at the same time as the
operating systems and data files. This typically occurs because the ACL's
for the data files cannot be restored until the server is started, and the
server cannot be started until the operating systems are restored. To
address this situation, the operating systems are restored first by the
recovery program, the server is restarted, and the recovery program is run
again. During the second running of the recovery program, the recovery
program restores only the ACL's from the backup tape to fully restore the
server.
FIG. 5 is a flow diagram showing an embodiment of the setup procedure of
this invention where the PC features multiple versions of IBM OS/2 on
various hard drive partitions. This typically occurs where an older and a
newer version of the operating system are needed to be simultaneously
present on the same PC. In such a case, the hard drive is partitioned into
separate logical drives, each supporting a different version of the OS/2
operating system.
As in the single operating system case, the PC is first loaded and
configured (300) and a full backup operation (302) is run to generate a
set of backup tape media (303). Next, the latest version of the "fix disk"
FDISK.COM utility is copied (304) from the hard disk to the recovery
diskette.
A "spare" diskette is then inserted (306) into the PC and a directory is
setup on this spare diskette for each version of OS/2 present on the hard
disk. That is, one directory for each partition. Next, the FORMAT.COM and
UHPFS.DLL files from each OS/2 version is copied (308) from the hard drive
into the corresponding OS/2 directory of the spare diskette. The remainder
of the setup procedure proceeds as shown in FIG. 3 beginning with copying
the operating system configuration files (104) to the recovery diskette.
FIG. 6 is a flow diagram showing an embodiment of the invention for
restoring multiple versions of the IBM OS/2 operating system onto the PC.
First, the PC is booted (402) with the latest version of the OS/2
operating system to be restored on the system. This can be accomplished,
for instance, by booting the system from the appropriate OS/2 installation
diskette.
Next, the recovery diskette (404) containing the necessary system
configuration files and device drivers is inserted into the PC. The
operator then determines if the hard drive being restored is to be
partitioned (406). If partitioning is desired (408), then the FDISK.COM
program is run (410), the standard OS/2 boot manager program is invoked
(412), and the desired partitions (414) are recreated on the hard drive.
When recreating partitions, the new partitions should be at least as large
as the original partitions when the backup tape of the partition was made.
The system is then configured by the boot manager (416) to boot from the
C: disk drive.
Whether the hard disk was repartitioned (406) or not (418), the PC is next
booted (420) with the earlier version of OS/2 to be restored on the
system. Thus, if partitioning was desired, the hard drive has now been
partitioned using the most recent OS/2 partitioning utilities.
Next, the operator determines whether or not to format (422) the hard drive
prior partitions to restoring the operating system to that partition. If
formatting of the partition is desired (424), the spare diskette
containing the FORMAT.COM utility for the earlier OS/2 version is inserted
(426) into the PC. This file is found in the diskette directory
corresponding to the earlier OS/2 version. The FORMAT.COM program is run
(428) to format the partition corresponding to the earlier OS/2 version
format process.
Whether the hard disk was reformatted (424) or not (430), the backup tape
containing the earlier OS/2 version is inserted (432) into the system
backup tape drive and the recovery program (434) is run to recover the
earlier OS/2 version onto the hard disk.
Next, the PC is rebooted (436) with the later OS/2 version, and the
operator determines (438) whether to format the hard disk partition prior
to restoring this OS/2 version to that partition. If formatting is desired
(440), the spare diskette containing the FORMAT.COM utility for this later
OS/2 version is inserted (442) into the PC. This file is found in the
diskette directory corresponding to the particular OS/2 version. The
FORMAT.COM program is run (444) to format the partition corresponding to
the later OS/2 version format process.
Whether the hard disk was reformatted (440) or not (446), the backup tape
containing the later OS/2 version is inserted (448) into the system backup
tape drive and the recovery program is run (450) to restore the later OS/2
version to the hard drive.
FIG. 7 is a flow diagram showing one embodiment of the invention for
efficiently factory loading multiple PC's with operating system and
application software. Initially, the hard drive of a "model" PC system is
fully loaded and configured (500) with all the operating system files,
system configuration files, device driver files, and application software
files to be factory loaded onto the target production PC systems. A full
backup operation of the model hard drive is then performed (502) to copy
all files from the hard drive to backup media, such as magnetic tape or
optical disk. The operating system configuration files, system
configuration files and device driver files needed for the system
configuration are copied (504) from the hard drive of the model PC to the
recovery diskette. At this point, all media necessary to fully load
multiple PC systems, i.e., the backup media and the recovery diskette, are
available (506).
The factory loading of the hard drive of a target PC system is begun by
inserting (508) the backup media, previously prepared from the model PC,
into a backup media drive connected to the target PC. The backup media
drive can be either installed in the target PC or may be temporarily
connected to the PC for the loading operation through, for instance, the
PC parallel data port. Next, the target PC is booted (510) from the
recovery diskette to install a temporary operating system, configuration
files, device drivers and a recovery software application program for
loading the hard drive of the target PC from the backup media.
The factory loading procedure of this invention can implement a security
device for monitoring and controlling the quantity of PC systems that can
be factory loaded by using a particular recovery diskette. A copy counter
installed on the recovery diskette can track the number of times the
diskette has been used to load a PC system, thus limiting the number of
factory loads available from the diskette. The recovery application
program running on the PC system checks (512) the copy counter on the
recovery diskette, and if the counter equals zero (514) then the factory
loading process is terminated and a message is displayed to the PC
operator that no more copies are available for loading the present PC.
If the copy counter is greater than zero (518), then the loading process
continues and the hard drive of the target PC is loaded (520) from the
backup media. This loading process results in a PC system having a hard
drive loaded and configured identical to the hard drive of the model PC.
This load operation can typically take as little as five to ten minutes,
rather than the three to five hours typically needed to manually install
the same files and configuration onto the PC. After the target PC is
successfully loaded from the backup media, the recovery application
program decrements (522) the copy counter on the recovery diskette by one,
and the entire process is repeated (524) to load the hard drive of another
target PC.
While this invention has been particularly shown and described with
reference to embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled
in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein
without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by
the appended claims. For instance, the backup tape drives described in the
embodiments can be replaced by an optical laser disk backup device, or
another device suitable for backing up a computer system. The hard drive
of the PC described in the embodiments can be replaced by another type of
high capacity storage device such as flash memory, optical laser disk, or
another suitable device. Furthermore, | | |
