Patent ID: 8001544

Claim:
A method for changing self-description data of a functional device in a computing system, the method comprising: virtualizing the functional device to create a virtual functional device; and adding, changing, or removing information in the self-description data sent from the functional device as part of the virtualization of the device by a hypervisor; wherein adding, changing, or removing of the self-description data of the functional device occurs during transit from the functional device to the one or more programs; wherein a specific node element qualifier (NEQ) is injected into a self-description configuration record provided by the functional device before the record is presented to the program in a virtual machine, to create a virtualized configuration record; creating a virtual image of a storage device in which the virtual image presents a contiguous range of storage addresses, some of those addresses are for storage that is not accessible, and the accessible areas are non-contiguous areas in the virtual image while being contiguous areas in the functional device; wherein the storage device is a disk device or a minidisk, the disk device or minidisk having a number of cylinders or blocks, of which the one or more programs is aware and cannot access; wherein each disk device or each minidisk has one or more unique specific node element qualifiers (NEQ); wherein each specific NEQ has a starting cylinder or block number and an ending cylinder or block number for each minidisk.