Patent ID: 8200952

Claim:
A system comprising: a platform memory comprising at least one of a BIOS portion or an EFI portion comprising: a block device emulator configured to execute firmware to: detect a block device coupled to the system; search a hierarchical file system of the block device, for a master file and at least one dedicated file subordinated to the master file, the search directed at locating an elementary file designated as virtual file attribute table (VFAT) to indicate that the elementary file contains information to allow execution of a boot process; access the elementary file, while expressly not accessing other files that are not identified as VFAT, thereby preventing exposure of the other files stored in the block device; open the elementary file to extract at least one key for allowing execution of the boot process of the platform; and use the at least one key to generate a virtual block device on the platform memory for allowing execution of the boot process of the platform, the virtual block device containing a folder hierarchy that replicates the hierarchical file system of the block device; delete the generated virtual block device after the boot process is completed and an operating system of the platform is loaded; and a block device driver configured to access information on the block device.