Patent ID: 8019696

Claim:
A method for operating a postage meter and a removable storage medium for storing data coupled to the postage meter, the method comprising: determining if the storage medium is assigned to the postage meter; if the storage medium is assigned to the postage meter, performing an initialization of the storage medium and the postage meter and using the storage medium to store data generated by the postage meter; if the storage medium is not assigned to the postage meter, determining if operational parameters set for the storage medium are compatible with operational parameters set for the postage meter; if the operational parameters set for the storage medium are not compatible with the operational parameters set for the postage meter, providing a signal indicating that the storage medium can not be used with the postage meter; if the operational parameters of the storage medium are compatible with the operational parameters of the postage meter, entering the postage meter into a catalog of postage meters on the storage medium, allocating space on the storage medium to store data generated by the postage meter and using the storage medium to store data generated by the postage meter; entering a power recovery mode after a power interruption; determining if a serial number of the storage medium coupled to the postage meter after the power interruption matches a serial number of a storage medium coupled to the postage meter before the power interruption; if the serial numbers match, determining if any portion of data intended to be written to the storage medium before the power interruption was not received by the storage medium; and rewriting any portion of data intended to be written to the storage medium that was not received by the storage medium.