Patent ID: 7353433
Filing Date: 2008-04-01
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method of addressing data errors in a computer system, comprising: pre-determining a software-programmable data poisoning policy to control actions to be taken based on different classes of data poisoning events by a user; error-checking a unit of data by an error-control decoder; detecting an uncorrectable error in the unit of data by the error-control decoder; if the uncorrectable error is detected in the unit of data, based on the pre-determined data poisoning policy, determining if the detected uncorrectable error is a data poisoning event; marking the unit of data containing a data poisoning event with a software-visible bit by the error-control decoder which software-visible bit is a status bit to indicate to an operating system that the data unit contains the data poisoning event; determining, based on the pre-determined data poisoning policy, if the unit of data containing the poisoning event is to be acted upon; handing over the data units including the detected uncorrectable errors including data poisoning events from the error-control decoder to the operating system; detecting by the operating system whether the software-visible bit is present in the data unit; and based on the detected software-visible bit and the pre-determined data poisoning policy, acting, by the operating system of the computer system, to address the presence of the uncorrectable error in the unit of data, including: