Patent ID: 7363632

Claim:
An external back up hard drive for connection to a computer, the hard drive comprising: means for sending a request signal from the external back up hard drive to an operating system of the computer; means for detecting an acknowledgement by the operating system of the request issued from the external back up hard drive; means for responding with a message indicating and presenting the external back up hard drive to the operating system as both a dummy storage device as well as an external hard drive, wherein said operating system enables the external hard drive and the dummy storage device, and further indicating to said operating system that there is an auto-run file in said dummy storage device; means for checking, by the host operating system, if the operating system can automatically execute the auto-run file stored in the dummy storage device; means for installing, by the operating system, an external hard drive driver stored in the dummy storage device when an auto-run function of the operating system is active; means for binding, by the host operating system, the external hard drive driver to the external hard drive; and means for reverting, by the host operating system, to a manual operation procedure when the auto-run function is inactive.