Patent ID: 6978363

Claim:
A system to enable a legacy BIOS based system to boot from a disk that includes EFI GPT partitions, comprising: a master boot record including a GPT-aware boot strap code within the master boot record, wherein the GPT-aware boot strap code is loadable by the legacy BIOS, based system the master boot record further including a legacy partition table; a boot program area including at least one GPT boot program, wherein the at least one GPT program is executed prior to booting the legacy BIOS based system; and a main partition that includes at least one legacy boot program, wherein the GPT-aware boot strap code initially checks the boot program area for existence of the at least one GPT boot program, and transfers control to the at least one GPT boot program in a case where at least one GPT boot program exists in the boot program area, and wherein the GPT-aware boot strap code then checks the legacy partition table to transfer control to the legacy BIOS based system in a case where there does not exist at least one GPT boot program in the boot program area.