Patent ID: 7870332

Claim:
A method for retaining access to one or more data pools after a data storage drive resident within a first data storage device is communicatively decoupled from said first data storage device and communicatively coupled into a second data storage device, said method comprising using metadata stored within said data storage drive when said second data storage device is operated, wherein said metadata comprises: data located within: dual partition tables of said data storage drive, said dual partition tables comprising a first partition table and a second partition table, said first partition table being a mirror image of said second partition table, said dual partition tables used to specify partitions in said data storage drive, wherein either said first partition table or said second partition table is made active by way of a flag located in a disk header of said data storage drive; and dual pool information data blocks within each of said partitions, said dual pool information data blocks comprising a first pool information data block and a second pool information data block, said first pool information data block being a mirror image of said second pool information block, said dual pool information data blocks used for identifying and concatenating said partitions to construct each of said one or more data pools, wherein access to said one or more data pools is provided by one or more share access mechanisms based on values of one or more variables of a text file stored within its corresponding data pool.