Computer operating booting system making use of multi
Contents
1. if the indicator value represents the value 2 the BIOS then loads the MBR2 and determines whether it exists If the MBR2 to be set exists the DPT is loaded thereafter to boot the OS2 other wise a MBR and DPT are loaded for protection purposes and the selection of the OS to boot is given to the user according to a default mode A method of determining whether the main boot record to be set existed can include first writing a single indicator string at a location of each main boot record and then looking up the indicator string For example setting the main boot record specific to the oper ating system of a game station can include adding the string game therein this known string then is looked up to determine whether the MBR exists In the embodiment of the invention the on switch button signals are coupled to the corresponding EC GPI so that the EC can receive on switch signals In the interruption service program of the EC firmware indicator values are written in the EC RAM specific to the different on switch buttons The indicator values can be predefined by the programmer each indicator value corre sponds to one on switch button In the BIOS program after the POST has been completed a main boot record is loaded according to the indicator value stored in the EC RAM which corresponds to the pushed on switch button The main boot record loaded from a non MBR area is evaluated If the main boot record effec tively exists2. systems according to a number of operating systems provided setting a plurality of corresponding main boot records detecting a signal change of the embedded chip caused by one on switch button pushing writing an indicator value in a RAM of the embedded chip corresponding to the signal change searching a main boot record corresponding to the indi cator value to be set corresponding to the indicator value stored in the RAM and a searched result of the main boot record to be loaded for accessing the main boot record loading the main boot record according to the result of the step of searching the main boot record corresponding to the indicator value wherein when the computer oper ating system is loading the main boot record each of the operating systems with its main boot record is respectively distinguished via the indicator data value the computer operating system then loads the main boot record corresponding to the indicator data value and determines whether the main boot record exists if the main boot record to be set exists the disk partition table is loaded thereafter to boot the corresponding operating system and according to the loaded main boot record booting the corresponding operating system wherein each computer operating system corresponds to one independent main boot record 9 The method of claim 8 wherein each on switch button corresponds to the activation of one operating system 10 The method of clai
3. OS undefined portion of the first cylinder step 503 It is then determined whether the main boot record to be set is present step 504 If the main boot record to be set is not present a MBR and DPT data are accessed step 505 otherwise the disk parti tion table of the main boot sector is loaded after the main boot record step 506 According to the main boot record and the disk partition table the corresponding operating system then is booted step 507 It will be apparent to the person skilled in the art that the invention as described above may be varied in many ways and notwithstanding remaining within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the following claims What is claimed is 1 A computer operating booting system using multiple buttons operable to selectively load different main boot records and thereby boot on different computer operating systems by pushing on different on switch buttons the system comprising an on switch button logic unit providing a plurality of on switch buttons and operable to generate an electrical signal corresponding to the pushing of one on switch button and allowing booting on different operating systems an embedded chip and its RAM being coupled to the on switch button logic unit wherein the embedded chip generates an interruption process in response to the electrical signal from the on switch button logic unit and writes an indicator data value in the RAM corre sponding
4. corresponding to the indicator data value in the RAM of the embedded chip and a loading module loading a main boot record according to the lookup status According to another embodiment a multi buttons boot ing method comprises providing a plurality of on switch buttons respectively connected to one embedded chip according to a number of operating systems provided setting 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 4 a plurality of corresponding main boot records detecting a signal change of the embedded chip caused by one on switch button pushing writing an indicator value in a RAM of the embedded chip corresponding to the signal change searching a main boot record corresponding to the indicator value loading a main boot record according to the result of the searching a main boot record corresponding to the indicator value and according to the loaded main boot record booting the corresponding operating system According to specific functions the system according to the invention therefore provides specific activation buttons According to the specific functionality required the user therefore can directly set the adequate operating system by pushing on the corresponding on switch button The booting speed therefore is faster and the system resource occupation is reduced Moreover given the fact that the service spec trum and the security strategy are initially set in the oper ating system the users manual se
5. to the pushing of the one on switch button a search module configured to search for a main boot record to be set corresponding to the indicator data value in the RAM of the embedded chip and a searched result of the main boot record to be loaded for accessing the main boot record and a loading module loading the main boot record according to a status of the search module wherein when the computer operating system is loading the main boot record each of the operating systems with its main boot record is respectively distinguished via the indicator data value the computer operating system then loads the main boot record corresponding to the indicator data value and determines whether the main boot record exists if the main boot record to be set exists the disk partition table is loaded thereafter to boot the corresponding operating system and wherein each computer operating system corresponds to one independent main boot record 2 The system of claim 1 wherein the on switch button logic unit comprises a plurality of on switch buttons each on switch button corresponding to the activation of one operating system 3 The system of claim 1 wherein each indicator data value corresponds to one on switch button 4 The system of claim 1 wherein each main boot record corresponding to each indicator data value includes one indicator string 5 The system of claim 1 wherein the different computer operating systems are booted by dif
6. 7 Sheet 1 of 5 US 7 234 055 B2 the system performs a power on self 101 testing process 102 access the partition records and the boot records 103 access the DOS boot record 104 install the system implicit documents 105 the DOS is configured 106 load the command interpreter program 107 the file Autoexec bat is executed 108 Load Win com FIG 1 PRIOR ART U S Patent Jun 19 2007 Sheet 2 of 5 on switch button logic unit Ss 2042 FIG 2 US 7 234 055 B2 U S Patent Jun 19 2007 Sheet 3 of 5 US 7 234 055 B2 301 Provide a plurality of buttons and connect to an EC chip 302 according to the number of operating systems set the corresponding MBR 303 detect a corresponding signal change from the EC chip mee 304 According to the electric signal from the EC chip write a specific indicator value in the EC RAM 305 According to the indicator value seek a specific MBR to be set 306 according to the search status load the corresponding MBR 307 According to the loaded MBR boot the corresponding operating system FIG 3 U S Patent Jun 19 2007 Sheet 4 of 5 US 7 234 055 B2 according to the indicator value load MBR FIG 4 U S Patent Jun 19 2007 Sheet 5 of 5 US 7 234 055 B2 one on switch button is pressed 501 Modify the corresponding EC GPI pin signal trigger an interruption event The interruption service program of 502 the EC firmware attributes one specifi
7. United States Patent US007234055B2 12 10 Patent No US 7 234 055 B2 Chiu et al 45 Date of Patent Jun 19 2007 54 COMPUTER OPERATING BOOTING 6 061 788 A 5 2000 Reynaud et al 0 0 0 0 713 2 SYSTEM MAKING USE OF 6 212 439 B1 4 2001 Cha essees lt 700 83 MULTI BUTTONS 6 430 663 B1 8 2002 Ding 711 162 6 550 006 B1 4 2003 Khanna essees 713 2 75 3 PAS 6 631 469 B1 10 2003 Silvester ee eee 713 2 75 Inventors Po ae n TW Amos 6 727 920 B1 4 2004 Vineyard et al 715 810 uang Shanghai CN 6 839 836 B2 1 2005 Cole et al ssscesssssseesseon 713 2 A ae 6 928 542 B2 8 2005 Wen etal oe 713 2 73 Assignee Inventec Corporation Taipei TW 6 957 286 B1 10 2008 Cohen 710 38 2003 0023844 A1 1 2003 Combe et al oe 713 2 Notice Subject to any disclaimer the term of this 2003 0088764 AI 5 2003 Wen et al i 713 2 patent is extended or adjusted under 35 2005 0015581 A1 1 2005 Chem v seseeesescsessteseeseeees 713 2 U S C 154 b by 421 days b by ae cited by examiner 21 Appl No 10 923 881 Primary Examiner Chun Cao 22 Filed Aug 24 2004 74 Attorney Agent or Firm Rabin amp Berdo P C 24 57 ABSTRACT 65 Prior Publication Data Y A multi buttons booting system comprises an on switch US 2006 0047340 A1 Mar 25 2006 button logic unit an embedded chip EC and its RAM a 51 Int CI lookup module and a loading module A plurality of on switc
8. c indicator value and stores it in the EC RAM 503 According to indicator value load the main boot record to be set T 504 S 505 a MBR and DPT data are accessed if the main boot record to be set is present the disk partition table of the main boot sector is loaded after the main boot record 507 OS is booted ya FIG 5 US 7 234 055 B2 1 COMPUTER OPERATING BOOTING SYSTEM MAKING USE OF MULTI BUTTONS BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1 Field of Invention The present invention generally relates to computer boot ing systems and methods thereof More particularly the invention provides a multi buttons booting system and method thereof implemented to boot on different computer operating systems 2 Related Art The activation of a computer and the load of an operating system usually are included in a so called bootstrap pro cess or more simply designated a booting process The activating process usually differs according to the specific operating system used FIG 1 is a flowchart of the conventional activating process of the operating system Win9x DOS In a first stage the system performs a power on self testing POST process step 101 The microprocessor executes the program stored at the address FFFFOH where is fixed a ROM program This program performs a checkup of the system hardware includ ing its memory In a second stage the partition records and the boot records are accessed
9. d disk Windows NT can run from a logic partition but its booting program must be put in an active partition of the first hard drive OS 2 can run from a logic partition but the extended partition including the logic partition must be within the first 2 GB of the hard drive and Linux can run from a logic partition as well as a main partition It should be noted that the MBR is created via a parti tioning program for example the program Fdisk exe of the operating system DOS The MBR sector may differ with different operating systems and the user can also freely modify the MBR as long as it is capable of achieving the aforementioned tasks In current techniques the MBR is usually modified to support multi booting processes There fore the user usually has to wait until the processing sequence reaches the load of the MBR to be able to select the desired operating system to run The invention provides a multi button booting method that uses a plurality of computer on switch buttons that allow booting on different operating systems FIG 2 is a block diagram of a multi button on switch system suitable for booting the computer on different oper ating systems according to an embodiment of the invention The system includes a CPU 201 a chipset 202 a system RAM 203 a BIOS 204 a searching module 2041 a loading module 2042 an embedded chip EC 205 an EC chip RAM 206 and an on switch button logic unit 207 The on switch button logic un
10. d to the user s demands However the user conventionally has to wait a certain time before the selection interface is displayed and the wanted operating system cannot be directly run A disad vantage of this technique is that it needs a manual interven tion in the booting process which decreases the system activation performance renders it more difficult to use and increases failure SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is therefore an objective of the invention to provide a computer multi buttons booting system and method that can overcome the prior problems In the system according to the invention the push of one specific on switch button acti vates one specific operating system so that the system resource occupation can be reduced the activation speed is increased and the user s intervention in the system activa tion is reduced To achieve the above and other objectives a multi buttons booting system comprises an on switch button logic unit providing a plurality of on switch buttons and operable to generate an electrical signal corresponding to the pushing of one on switch button an embedded chip and its RAM being coupled to the on switch button logic unit wherein the embedded chip generates an interruption process in response to the electrical signal from the on switch button logic unit and writes different indicator data in the RAM correspond ing to the pushed on switch buttons a look up module searching a main boot record
11. earch status the corresponding MBR is loaded step 306 According to the loaded MBR the corresponding operating system is booted step 307 A specific feature of the invention lies in the booting process in which different hardware signals are differenti 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 6 ated to boot the corresponding operating system Once the computer is switched on the firmware code of the EC in the 8051 core executes an initialization without activating the system The on switch buttons thereby can be distinguished from one another The EC includes a plurality of general purposes inputs outputs that can be set by the user The effective general purposes inputs GPI operate to interrupt the EC The interruption service program is described here after Current BIOS uses the interruption 19H to directly load the MBR of the main boot sector into the memory at the address 0 7C00H The use of one MBR in the invention is not sufficient because each operating system has to corre spond to one independent MBR FIG 4 is a diagram of the MBR loading process according to an embodiment of the invention When the BIOS is loading an MBR an additional determination step is performed whereby the main boot record to be set is loaded according to the indicator value written by the EC firmware in the RAM Each operating system with its main boot record is respectively distin guished via the digit 1 2 3 For example
12. ferent hardware signals differentiated when a computer with the different computer operating systems is switched on a firmware code of the embedded chip in a 8051 core executes an initialization 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 8 without activating the computer operating systems the on switch buttons thereby can be distinguished from one another 6 The system of claim 1 wherein the embedded chip includes a plurality of general purposes inputs and outputs that can be set by the user effective general purposes inputs GPI of the general purposes inputs operate to interrupt the embedded chip an interruption service program is described afterwards 7 The system of claim 1 wherein the computer operating system loads the main boot record corresponding to the indicator data value and determines whether the main boot record exists if the main boot record to be set does not exist a protective main boot record and a protective disk partition table are loaded for protection purposes and a selection of operating systems to boot is given to a user according to a default mode 8 A computer operating booting method using multiple buttons wherein different operating systems are respectively booted by pushing on different on switch buttons the method comprising providing a plurality of on switch buttons respectively connected to one embedded chip wherein the on switch buttons allow booting on different operating
13. h buttons are connected to the and corresponds to GO06F 9 00 2006 01 itch b d to the EC and pond 52 U S CI 713 2 713 1 a plurality of operating systems In response to the push on 58 Fi ld cl bet A feat A S Agi h aa on 4 1 a button the EC outputs a signal that writes an indicator 58 Field of Classification Search 713 2 value in the RAM According to the indicator value the Set applicator Aie ercomolei serch hisis corresponding MBR is sought and loaded The loaded MBR PP p ry then conducts the booting of a corresponding operating 56 References Cited system The system resource occupation is thereby reduced U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 9 1995 Oka sisirin 713 2 2 2000 Shim et al 713 2 5 448 741 A 6 032 255 A the activation speed is increased and the user s manual intervention is reduced 16 Claims 5 Drawing Sheets according to the number of operating 301 Provide a plurality of buttons and connect to an EC chip 302 systems set the corresponding MBR a 303 detect a corresponding signal change from the EC chip i r 304 According to the electric signal from the EC chip write a specific indicator value in 7 EC RAM According to the indicator value seek a specific MBR to be set according to the search status load the corresponding MBR 307 According to the loaded MBR boot the corresponding operating system U S Patent Jun 19 200
14. it 207 is used to provide a plurality of on switch buttons and outputs electric signals specific to the pushing of each on switch button The EC 205 and its RAM 206 are respectively connected to the logic unit 207 The EC 205 responds to the electric signals outputted by the on switch button logic unit 207 by generating corre sponding interruption processes and writes an indicator value into the EC RAM 206 specific to each pushed on switch button The searching module 2041 is operable to search the MBR to be set corresponding to the indicator value stored in the EC RAM According to the search status the loading module 2042 loads the corresponding MBR The on switch button logic unit 207 includes a plurality of on switch buttons each on switch button corresponds to the activation of one operating system FIG 3 is a flowchart of a method of activating one system belonging to a plurality of operating systems via a plurality of buttons A plurality of buttons is provided and is respec tively connected to an EC chip step 301 According to the number of operating systems the corresponding MBR are specifically set step 302 When one on switch button is pushed a corresponding signal change from the EC chip is detected step 303 According to the electric signal from the EC chip a specific indicator value is written in the EC RAM step 304 According to the indicator value a specific MBR to be set is sought step 305 According to the s
15. m 8 wherein the main boot records are initially placed at a specific location of a hard disk 11 The method of claim 8 wherein searching a main boot record corresponding to the indicator value comprises look ing up the indicator value in each main boot record and thereby determining whether the sought main boot record exists 12 The method of claim 8 wherein loading a main boot record according to the result of the searching a main boot record corresponding to the indicator value further com prises US 7 234 055 B2 9 if the main boot record is found loading a disk partition table after the main boot record to boot the correspond ing operating system 13 The method of claim 8 wherein loading a main boot record according to the result of the searching a main boot record corresponding to the indicator value further com prises if the main boot record corresponding to the indicator is not found loading main boot sector data 14 The method of claim 8 wherein the different computer operating systems are booted by different hardware signals differentiated when a computer with the different computer operating systems is switched on a firmware code of the embedded chip in a 8051 core executes an initialization without activating the computer operating systems the on switch buttons thereby can be distinguished from one another 15 10 15 The method of claim 8 wherein the embedded chip includes a plurality of general p
16. mand interpreter program Command com step 106 The sys tem installs the command management program to manage all the system operation commands the commands Dir Copy etc are usually provided by Command com In a seventh stage the file Autoexec bat is executed step 107 The computer executes one by one the com mands defined in the file Autoexec bat In an eighth stage Win com is loaded step 108 Win com is in charge of executing the driving programs and execution files of Windows The booting process is thereby completed After the PSOT process the hard drive is reset and the BIOS will proceeds to the booting process according to the sequence specified by the user i e from the floppy device 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 2 the hard drive or the optical disk drive For example if the booting process is to be conducted from the hard drive the system BIOS loads the main boot record into the memory Subsequently the control right is switched to the main boot record MBR and the disk partition table DPT is checked to find an active partition Lastly the main boot record hands the control right to the boot program of the active partition which loads the operating system The main boot sector starts at the location cylinder 0 side sector 1 of the hard disk and includes the main boot record MBR and the disk partition table DPT of the hard disk The mai
17. n boot sector has a size of 512 bytes wherein the MBR occupies 446 bytes 0000 h 01BDh the DPT 64 bytes 01BE 01FD and the end indicator 2 bytes 55AA The main boot record is used to verify whether the DPT is correct and which partition is the booting partition and when the program ends the main boot record loads the booting program for example IO SYS of the operating system DOS of the partition into the memory and turns the control right to it The partition table has 80H or OOH as start indicator and 55AAH as end indicator totally 64 bytes are located in the end portion of the sector The structure of the main boot sector is as follows 000H 0O8AH MBR booting program searching for the booting partition O08BH OD9H the MBR booting string ODAH 1BCH spare area 0 1BEH 1FDH disk partition table and 1FEH 1FFH end indicator 55AA The DPT occupies 64 bytes 01BE 01FD each partition occupies 16 bytes so four partitions can be represented This is the reason that each hard disk totally can include only four partitions including main and extension partitions The structure of each partition is defined as follows Length Offset bytes Description 0H 1 Partition type 00 means inactive partition 80 means active partition other means invalid partition 1h 3 Partition start address side sector cylinder conventionally the start address is side 1 sector 0 cylinder 1 and the corresponding combines
18. step 102 Once the microprocessor has found that the hardware is normal and is compatible to the CMOS settings the activation is performed from the device for example the hard drive corresponding to the CMOS settings The microprocessor then typically accesses to the disk partition record DPT and the main boot record In a third stage the microprocessor accesses to the DOS boot record step 103 If the main boot record and the partition table are tested correctly the microprocessor executes the main boot record and further accesses to the DOS main boot record being located in the first sector of each main partition Subsequently the microprocessor executes the DOS boot record In a fourth stage the microprocessor installs the system implicit documents step 104 The implicit document IO SYS of the DOS system is loaded in the memory as well as the basic document system FAT At this moment the monitor usually displays the words Starting Windows 9x IO SYS loads MS SYS in the memory processes the documents System dat and User dat and loads the disk compression program Ina fifth stage the DOS is configured step 105 Once the system implicit documents have been loaded the micropro cessor executes the system implicit documents and the system configuration document Config sys and loads the driving programs defined in Config sys In a sixth stage the microprocessor loads the com
19. the BIOS of the motherboard A final portion of the BIOS commands includes a booting program This booting pro gram accesses to the MBR of the first sector of the first hard disk The MBR includes a main booting program and a disk partition table indicating the partition status of the disk The BIOS executes the main booting program to terminate the booting process The main booting program accesses the disk partition table to obtain the active partition s If there is only one main partition the operating system installed therein is activated If one hard disk contains a plurality of main partitions each partition may include one operating system In this case the first sector of each partition includes its boot record Each of these boot records includes a booting program that executes the operating system stored in the corresponding partition After the active partition has been US 7 234 055 B2 5 found the main boot record executes the booting program of the active partition The booting program installs documents of the operating system and then runs the operating system Most of the conventionally known operating systems such as DOS Windows 3 x Windows 95 98 or Windows NT have to be booted from one active partition However different operating systems use different booting methods from the active partition For example the operating systems DOS Windows 3 x or Windows 95 98 must run from the active partition of the first har
20. the disk partition table data of the MBR is added after the main boot record to boot the corresponding operating system otherwise an MBR and DPT are loaded to conduct a user selection of an operating system which constitutes a protection measure against OS failure In addition the MBR has to be set at a specific location of the hard disk for example an OS undefined portion of the first cylinder The size of one main boot record specific to one operating system is 446 bytes the partition table data are commonly shared and do not need to be rewritten The core and modules of the operating system and the upper level application programs also need corresponding adjustment so as to only load necessary elements and achieve a fast activation process FIG 5 is flowchart describing the operation of the system according to an embodiment of the invention When one on switch button is pressed the corresponding EC GPI pin signal is modified which triggers an interruption event step 501 The interruption service program of the EC firmware attributes one specific indicator value and stores it in the EC US 7 234 055 B2 7 RAM each on switch button corresponding to one indicator value step 502 After the POST process has been com pleted the BIOS accesses to the to be set main boot record of a non MBR area in accordance with the indicator value in the EC RAM wherein the non MBR area is at a specific location of the hard disk for example an
21. to form the address 010100 4h 1 Operating system type of the partition 5h 3 Partition end address 8h 4 Partition start logic sector Ch 4 Partition occupation in number of sectors The operating system boot record OBR is convention ally located at cylinder 0 side 1 sector 1 which is the case for DOS For operating systems activated via multi booting modes the OBR is located at the first sector of the corre sponding main extended partition The OBR is the first sector the operating system can address to and also includes a booting program and a BIOS parameter block BPB Each logic partition has an OBR and its parameter differs depend ing upon the partition size and the type of operating system The booting program is executable to determine whether the two documents of the partition root directory are booting documents of the operating system for example the docu ments IO SYS and MSDOS SYS of MSDOS or Win9x Me If this is the case the first document is loaded into the memory and the control right is turned to the document in question The BPB parameters record the start sector the end sector the document storage format the hard disk US 7 234 055 B2 3 medium describing symbol the root directory size FAT number the allocution unit size etc The OBR is generated via a high formatting program for example Format com for the DOS operating system Recently computer appliances have become more m
22. ttings are reduced while the security is improved and attacks are reduced Further scope of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description given here inafter However it should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples while indicating pre ferred embodiments of the invention are given by way of illustration only since various changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed descrip tion BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The present invention will become more fully understood from the detailed description given hereinbelow illustration only and thus does not limit the present invention wherein FIG 1 is a flowchart of the conventional booting process of the operating system Win9x DOS FIG 2 is a block diagram of a computer multi buttons booting system for activating a different operating system according to an embodiment of the invention FIG 3 is a flowchart of a computer multi buttons booting method according to an embodiment of the invention FIG 4 is a schematic view of a MBR loading process according to an embodiment of the invention and FIG 5 is a flowchart of the operation of an embodiment of the invention DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Once the computer is switched on control is handed to the computer CPU The CPU then executes commands stored in
23. ulti functional incorporating many application programs Not withstanding the improved performance some disadvanta geous aspects of the computer may still remain This is the case of the operating system booting that starts at every on switch of the computer which is time consuming and occupies substantial system resources If some insecure services are activated the system may become vulnerable to attacks Moreover specific software programs have to be installed according to different functionality otherwise a normal working process cannot be conducted The manipu lation of the whole operating system usually requires a certain expertise and is not user friendly For example if the user only wants to watch a movie or listen to music on a computer he has to wait until the installation of the whole operating system has been com pleted This usually takes a long time and loads a lot of functionality that is not needed for the user s utilization To overcome the foregoing disadvantages an approach known in the art consists of using a boot installation program that can boot a plurality of operating systems When the on switch button is pushed on to power on the computer the boot installation program is executed During its execution a selection interface showing a plurality of operating sys tems is displayed to allow the user to choose a specific operating system that are provided with adequate function characteristics more adapte
24. urposes inputs and outputs that can be set by the user effective general purposes inputs GPI of the general purposes inputs operate to interrupt the embedded chip an interruption service program is described afterwards 16 The method of claim 8 wherein in the step of loading the main boot record the computer operating system loads the main boot record corresponding to the indicator data value and determines whether the main boot record exists if the main boot record to be set does not exist a protective main boot record and a protective disk partition table are loaded for protection purposes and a selection of operating systems to boot is given to a user according to a default mode
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