Patent ID: 8615666

Claim:
An information processing apparatus communicating with one or more information processing apparatuses, comprising: a storage having thereon a business operating system and associated business user data and a personal operating system and associated personal user data; a processor having processor executable logic that: transmits a request signal to each of the one or more information processing apparatuses that inquires if each of the one or more information processing apparatuses are capable of receiving one or more pieces of partial data from the information processing apparatus, wherein the information processing apparatus and the one or more information processing apparatuses are geographically apart and are interconnected and communicate via a communication network; determines, based on a received response to the inquiry from each of the one or more information processing apparatuses, a number of the one or more information processing apparatuses that is capable of receiving one or more pieces of partial data from the information processing apparatus; and in response receiving an instruction to shut down the information processing apparatus: archives the business operating system data and associated business user data to an archive data; divides the archive data stored on the storage of the information processing apparatus to a first number of pieces of partial data in accordance with a secret sharing scheme, wherein the secret sharing scheme requires a minimum number of pieces of partial data to restore the archive data, wherein the first number of pieces of partial data is equal to or larger than the minimum number of pieces, and wherein the information processing apparatus sets the first number and the minimum number based on the determined number of information processing apparatuses that are capable of receiving the one or more pieces of partial data; transmits one or more pieces of partial data from the first number of pieces of partial data to at least one of the one or more information processing apparatuses; deletes, from the storage, the one or more pieces of partial data that were transmitted; wherein the business operating system and the personal operating system are both concurrently installed and operational when the business operating system is present on the storage, and only the personal operating system is physically installed on the storage and operational when the business operating system is not functional; wherein the business operating system of the information processing apparatus is not physically present and cannot be accessed or used in a state where the one or more pieces of partial data are removed from the storage; and wherein the personal operating system of the information processing apparatus can be used in the state where the one or more pieces of partial data are removed from the storage.