Patent ID: 7949814

Claim:
A method for hot-swapping a fixed system hard disk installed with an operating system which is able to be run as a ram-disk-based operating system in a computer having a motherboard with a data bus which has the same interface type as a fixed mass storage device and an internal power supply which supplies power to said motherboard when said computer is operating, comprising the steps of: (a) connecting said fixed hard disk to said data bus of said motherboard through said interface; (b) connecting said fixed hard disk with a separate power supply which is different from said internal power supply and doesn't supply power to said motherboard and other components of said computer; (c) starting to run said computer with said fixed system hard disk; (d) bootstrapping the image of said operating system to run as a ram-disk-based operating system; (e) removing need for access as well as access to said fixed system hard disk from said computer and said operating system by the following steps: (e.0) placing all files needed to be accessed from said fixed system hard disk into RAM; (e.1) flushing software disk caches for said fixed system hard disk; (e.2) flushing hardware disk caches for said fixed system hard disk; (e.3) stopping said fixed system hard disk; and (e.4) logically removing said fixed system hard disk from said operating system; (f) leaving said computer in a normal running state; (g) disconnecting said fixed system hard disk from said data bus and said separate power supply; and (h) physically connecting another fixed hard disk or said fixed system hard disk with said data bus and said separate power supply.