Patent ID: RE43437

Claim:
A system for accessing computer-readable files stored on a source device, by a plurality of target computers comprising: means a controller for creating a disk image of the source device, wherein said source device is a physical storage volume on which said computer-readable files to be accessed by said plurality of target computers are located, and for storing said disk image on a storage device that is accessible to said plurality of target computers, wherein said disk image is a virtual representation of said physical storage volume such that it includes volume format information that reflects the format of said physical storage volume, and which enables said disk image to be mounted at each of said plurality of target computers; and a disk image driver at each of said plurality of target computers , having access to file format information which enables said target computers to read files, which exhibit different file formats, contained on said disk image , and wherein the image driver includes an index that identifies correspondence between address locations in the storage volume and address locations in the disk image .