Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory – Storage accessing and control – Control technique
Reexamination Certificate
1998-07-06
2001-03-20
Yoo, Do (Department: 2187)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory
Storage accessing and control
Control technique
C717S152000, C714S006130
Reexamination Certificate
active
06205527
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to intelligent backup systems, and more particularly to methods and apparatus for intelligently backing up selected data from a host computer's main storage drive to prevent loss of data or user productivity.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, personal computers have become an integral necessity in both the work and home environment. For many people, personal computers have become their main communication system, which can be used for sending and receiving electronic mail (i.e., e-mail), transferring files over a local area network (LAN), and communicating over the world wide web via the Internet. Because people have placed such a high level of dependence on their personal computers, when a failure (i.e., crash) to either a hardware or software component occurs, the user will generally suffer greatly in terms of productivity loss.
Many times, failures to either hardware or software components can lead to the complete loss of personal data, which many times cannot be recovered using standard data recovery tools. In efforts to remedy the severity of such data loss, many people perform routine backups of there entire hard drives or files. In this manner, if an unrecoverable failure were to occur, the user would only lose the data that was created between the last backup operation and the unrecoverable failure.
Unfortunately, relying on periodic backups of a computer's storage drives (i.e., hard drives) does not eliminate the loss in productivity suffered while the failure is being attended to, and the need to reconstruct all of the lost data that was created between the last backup and the failure. To further complicate the reconstruction process, most of today's computer software products have to be installed using complex installation software that is designed to place each component of the software product in the correct system folder location, registry file, startup files, etc., in order to preserve proper functionality with the computer's operating system. As a result, even though the entire contents of a backup can be retrieved from the backup media, the restoring of a subsequently repaired storage drive will require a substantial amount of reconstruction.
Although the restoration of failed storage devices can sometimes be a trivial process when only a minor number of programs are re-installed onto the failed computer system, most of today's computer systems use a wide number of programs, each requiring custom installation for proper operation. Furthermore, because most computer users purchase, update and modify computer programs over the Internet, it is often impossible to reconstruct the original state of all programs, patches or executables that are loaded onto a computer without keeping detailed logs of where each component was acquired. As a result, when attempts to reconstruct a user's computer system are attempted, many of the originally installed software programs or components may not be installed because they are no longer available or supported by the original supplier.
In spite of the fact that most failures that are a result of a hardware malfunction or a software problem can be fixed, either by complete replacement or by performing repairs, users still experience data losses that produce harsh penalties in productivity or require significant down time. That is, even if users systematically backs up their system regularly, some amount of data will be lost between the time of the last back up and the subsequent restoration. In certain circumstances, even if only a small amount of data is lost, that small amount may translate into many hours of reconstruction time. Furthermore, if the lost data was a time sensitive piece of data, reconstruction over many hours or days may not be acceptable.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for an intelligent backup system and method for implementing the system to protect data of a computer's storage drive in case a system failure occurs. There is also a need for a system and a method for implementing the system that will enable a user to continue working from the intelligently backed-up data after a system failure occurs, and then restore the failed system after the system failure is intelligently identified and repaired.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Broadly speaking, the present invention fills these needs by providing an intelligent backup and restore system that prevents downtime productivity losses, and assists the user in trouble shooting the failure, repairing the failure if possible, and restoring the failed system back to its pre-failure condition. All of these functionalities are provided to the user through a user friendly graphical user interface that helps the user resume his or her normal computer use by booting to a peripheral storage device (that holds an intelligently backup data set) while the failure is remedied. It should be appreciated that the present invention can be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus, a system, a device, a method, or a computer readable medium. Several inventive embodiments of the present invention are described below.
In one embodiment, a method for protecting data of a computer system is disclosed. The method includes: (a) connecting a peripheral storage device to the computer system; (b) preparing a storage media of the peripheral storage device to be a protection enabled media; (c) selecting a backup set of data stored in a hard drive of the computer system, the backup set of data includes a default set of boot files and operating system files; (d) creating a spare tire by copying the backup set of data from the hard drive of the computer system to the storage media of the peripheral storage device using a file-based copying scheme; (e) enabling peripheral storage device to incrementally copy portions of the backup set of data from the hard drive of the computer system during normal use; (f) determining whether a failure occurs with the hard drive that disables booting to the hard drive; and (g) booting the computer system from the peripheral storage device using the spare tire. In this manner, the user can resume uninterrupted work from the peripheral storage device while the hard drive failure is repaired.
In another embodiment, a system is disclosed for protecting a user's productivity upon detecting a failure with a storage media of the user's computer system, and the computer system has a peripheral storage device connected thereto. The system includes a removable storage media that is configured to be placed into the peripheral storage device. The removable storage media is formatted to be a protection enabled media and is configured to contain a backup set of data including a default set of boot files and operating system files, and the backup set of data is substantially continuously backed up on a schedule. The system further includes a spare tire launcher that may be launched when the failure with the storage media of the user's computer system occurs to enable the user to re-boot to the peripheral storage device which contains a selected duplicate image of contents of the storage media of the user's computer system.
In yet a further embodiment, an apparatus for protecting data of a computer system that has a peripheral storage device connected thereto is disclosed. The apparatus includes: (a) means for preparing a storage media of the peripheral storage device to be a protection enabled media; (b) means for selecting a backup set of data stored in a hard drive of the computer system, the backup set of data includes a default set of boot files and operating system files; (c) means for creating a spare tire backup set by performing a file-based copying operation that transfers the backup set of data to the storage media of the peripheral storage device even when the storage media of the peripheral storage device is different than a media of the hard drive; (d) means for enabling periph
Bui Thanh T.
Coleman David A.
Fu Tony
Goshey Michael M.
Hudson Robert S.
Adaptec, Inc.
Martine Penilla & Kim LLP
Moazzami Nasser
Yoo Do
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