Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support – Digital data processing system initialization or configuration
Reexamination Certificate
1999-01-26
2002-04-09
Butler, Dennis M. (Department: 2182)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support
Digital data processing system initialization or configuration
C713S100000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06370641
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
The disclosures herein relate generally to computer systems, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for determining the drive letter assignment of CD-ROM drive during initial setup of a computer system.
This application relates to co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/919,959, filed on Aug. 29, 1997, entitled “Software Installation And Testing For A Built-to-Order Computer System”, naming Richard D. Aniberg, Roger W. Wong and Michael A. Brundridge as inventors. The co-pending application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, and is assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
This application relates to co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/920,773, filed on Aug. 29, 1997, entitled “Software Installation And Testing For A Built-to-Order Computer System”, naming Richard D. Amberg, Roger W. Wong and Michael A. Brundridge as inventors. The co-pending application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, and is assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
This application relates to co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/921,438, filed on Aug. 29, 1997, entitled “Database For Facilitating Software Installation And Testing For A Built-To-Order”, naming Richard D. Amberg, Roger W. Wong and Michael A. Brundridge as inventors. The co-pending application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, and is assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
During an initial start and setup of a computer system by a customer, including an initialization and setup of the operating system (e.g., Windows95™, Windows98™, etc.), the drive letter of the CD-ROM is not known to the operating system (O/S). If there are additional devices installed in the computer system, such as a removable cartridge hard disk drive or ZIP™ drive, the drive letter of the CD-ROM will change, i.e., be different from that of a computer system not having a removable cartridge hard disk drive. A problem results in a built-to-order computer manufacturing process with respect to the computer manufacturing applications which implement a factory download of software to a target computer system being built. The manufacturing applications need the drive letter of the CD-ROM drive to do binding of CD based applications to shortcuts and menu selections. Without correct binding, the computer system will fail to operate in a desired manner.
One prior method for determining the drive letter of a CD-ROM drive included finding all hard drive letters in a given computer system and then guessing that the CD-ROM drive letter would be next in a row of hard drive letters. This particular method determining of the assignment of drive letters is broken (i.e., fails) if a removable cartridge hard disk drive is added to the target computer system.
Another method includes the use of a DOS driver to assign a drive letter to the removable cartridge hard disk drive during a customer's initial boot up of the computer system. In such an instance, during a system setup, the CD-ROM drive letter would be assigned correctly. However, this particular method is problematic in that the driver is supplied by an outside vendor, furthermore, wherein the driver is highly likely to cause severe disk corruption on disk drives larger than 8.4 gigabytes. In addition, this method fails to work under WindowsNT™ and Windows98™ operating system environments.
Yet another method would be to hard code the CD-ROM drive letter, to be well beyond any drive letters that would normally be used by other devices. Such a method however is not a preferred way because network drive connections may need to use the drive letter that is hard coded.
In a custom built-to-order manufacturing environment, the computer systems being built always have the potential to be different from each other. The computer systems can differ in hardware and software according to a particular customer order. For example, software applications can be installed on custom built-to-order computer systems during manufacturing. The applications are typically installed from CD-ROM. The software applications may also need access to a CD-ROM once a customer gets his/her machine. For operability, the applications need to know what the drive letter of the CD-ROM is.
In prior computer system manufacturing, a CD-ROM drive letter was decided upon and then stored until needed. In the custom built-to-order environment, a problem occurs when the list of peripherals in a given computer system and the list of peripherals that an operating system of the computer system recognizes is different. For instance, a removable cartridge hard drive may be installed in the computer system, however the operating system does not recognize it. At the time of installing software applications in the custom built-to-order manufacturing environment, if the operating system (O/S) were queried whether or not a CD-ROM drive is on the system, the O/S would respond that a CD-ROM is not present. This is because at that point in the manufacturing process the O/S doesn't know about any CD-ROM yet. In other words, it is not there, however, it can be assumed what the drive letter for a CD-ROM drive is. The assumption can be made according to a method of counting the hard disk drive, the number of drive letters, and adding one. The resultant number count is then correlated with the alphabet, wherein the corresponding letter is assumed to be the CD-ROM drive letter. As computer systems have begun being built with multiple CD-ROM drives, multiple removable cartridge hard disk drives, and the like, the assumption of counting up to the last hard drive and adding one no longer results in the appropriate CD-ROM drive letter.
One possible way to remedy the above problem could include modifying every software application being loaded onto the custom built-to-order system for figuring out what the CD-ROM drive letter of the computer system is. Such a modification would be required from each application vender. Alternatively, the CD-ROM drive letter could be fixed at a given drive letter designation and made unchangeable. Such remedies are not suitable for high volume custom built-to-order computer manufacturing.
It would thus be desirable to provide an improved method and apparatus for the determination of the drive letter assignment of a CD-ROM drive, especially for use during a custom built-to-order computer system manufacturing process.
SUMMARY
According to one embodiment, a computer system includes at least one processor, at least one computer-readable media drive, and manufacturing process code. The manufacturing process code includes executable instructions for causing the processor to determine a drive letter designation of the at least one computer-readable media drive. The computer system further includes an operating system and a system descriptor record, wherein the operating system includes a desktop suitable for implementation of shortcuts and menu selections to computer-readable media drive based software applications. The drive letter designation of the computer-readable media drive is further a function of the operating system and the system descriptor record. Still further, the manufacturing process code enables a determination of the computer-readable media drive letter designation by the processor to be operable prior to the operating system desktop becoming fully initialized, further for enabling a binding of computer-readable media drive based software applications in an establishing of the shortcuts and menu selections on the desktop.
The embodiments of the present disclosure advantageously provide a dynamic link library functionality for determining drive letter designations based on the operating system, the installed components, and how those components are installed in the target computer system.
The embodiments of the present disclosure further advantageously provide for determining of computer-readable media drive letter designations during a target computer system setup by building an expected drive type list which includes
Butler Dennis M.
Dell USA L.P.
Haynes and Boone LLP
LandOfFree
Method and apparatus for determining the drive letter... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Method and apparatus for determining the drive letter..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Method and apparatus for determining the drive letter... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2838554