Patent ID: 7953914

Claim:
A method for using an interrupt handler to reduce the severity of an unrecoverable memory error, comprising: attempting to access a memory address while executing an instruction; detecting an occurrence of a memory error while attempting to access the memory address; and invoking the interrupt handler, wherein the interrupt handler is configured to: (i) determine, from a set of saved state information, that the instruction was executed as part of an operating system critical task, (ii) upon determining that the operating system task was being performed on behalf of a user process, determine whether the memory address is part of an ejectable memory region, (iii) upon determining that the memory address is in an ejectable memory region, perform a discard procedure for the memory region and perform a restore procedure, wherein the restore procedure reloads data stored in the ejectable memory region, including data for the accessed memory address, before a reoccurrence of the memory error, and (iv) upon determining that the operating system task was not being performed on behalf of a user process, terminate a running instance of the operating system.