Patent ID: 7308569

Claim:
A method for specifying a boot order for a plurality of mass storage devices within a computer system, each of the plurality of mass storage devices being a one of one or more mass storage device types, the method comprising: determining for each of the plurality of mass storage device types whether more than one mass storage device exists within the computer system; providing a boot order menu including one or more menu items comprising a menu item corresponding to a mass storage device type for which more than one device of the device type exists, the menu item corresponding to a mass storage device type being included in the boot order menu responsive to determining that more than one mass storage device exists for the mass storage device type, the menu items of the boot order menu being orderable to specify the boot order for the computer system; providing a device type menu for at least one of the menu items of the boot order menu corresponding to the mass storage device types for which more than one mass storage device exists within the computer system, the device type menu including entries corresponding to each of the mass storage devices of the device type, and the entries of the device type menu being orderable to specify the boot order for each of the mass storage devices of the device type; and attempting to boot the computer system from the plurality of mass storage devices in the order specified by the boot order menu.