Patent ID: 6035395
Filing Date: 2000-03-07
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
A computer system including a plurality of disk drives as boot devices for bootstrapping operating systems, comprising:a removable disk drive which is arranged to allow loading or exchange of a storage medium, has a first state in which a user can load or exchange said storage medium, and a second state in which the user cannot load or exchange said storage medium, and is mechanically set in one of the states, said removable disk drive being usable as a boot device for bootstrapping an operating system;means for storing boot priority order information representing, of a plurality of disk drives usable as said boot device, a disk drive from which the bootstrap is preferentially performed;bootstrap control means for executing a bootstrap process in accordance with the boot priority order information when said computer system is powered up, said bootstrap control means including:storage medium detection means for detecting whether said storage medium is loaded in said removable disk drive when said removable disk drive is designated as a top-priority boot device by the boot priority order information; andmeans for, when said storage medium detection means detects that no storage medium is loaded in said removable disk drive, controlling said removable disk drive to shift a state of said removable disk drive from the second state to the first state, thereby providing the user with a physical environment capable of loading said storage medium in said removable disk drive, before a shift to a bootstrap process from a disk drive having a next higher priority.