Patent ID: 7062517

Claim:
A data management method for a local disk drive in a personal computer (PC) comprising: in a remote disk drive element associated with the personal computer, modifying one or more data blocks including recording first information indicating that the one or more data blocks of the remote disk drive element have been modified; communicating at least some of the first information to the PC; selectively communicating second information contained on the remote disk drive element to the PC based on said at least some of the first information so that the PC performs a boot up sequence using the second information; subsequent to the PC booting up, receiving one or more read requests from the PC to read the one or more data blocks from the remote disk drive element; in response to the one or more read requests, communicating the one or more data blocks from the remote disk drive element to the PC, the PC storing the one or more data blocks in its local disk drive so that a disk image stored on the remote disk drive element is reproduced on the local disk drive; during operation of the PC, modifying one or more data blocks on the local disk drive; and transmitting the one or more data blocks on the local disk drive to the remote disk drive element, thereby maintaining a disk image of the local disk drive on the remote disk drive element.