Computer system with operating system on a ram-disk
OwnerGordon Ritchieinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of configuring a computer to run an operating system from RAM includes creating a copy of the operating system on a hard disk at a first address (116), the operating system being configured to run from a second address (112). A RAMdisk is created having a RAMdisk address and the operating system is copied from the hard disk to the RAMdisk. The computer is reconfigured (118,120) so that the second address, from which the operating system copy is configured to run is the RAMdisk address or is treated by the computer as being the RAMdisk address, so that the operating system copy can be run on the RAMdisk.
Claims28
A method of configuring a computer to run an operating system from RAM, the method comprising:
- [1] creating a copy of the operating system on a hard disk at a first address, the operating system being configured to run from a second address;
- [2] creating a RAMdisk having a RAMdisk address;
- [3] copying the operating system copy from the hard disk to the RAMdisk;
- and
- [4] reconfiguring the computer so that the second address, from which the operating system copy is configured to run is the RAMdisk address or is treated by the computer as being the RAMdisk address, so that said operating system copy can be run on the RAMdisk.
The method of any preceding claim wherein the RAMdisk address is the second address.
The method of any preceding claim wherein step [4] comprises reconfiguring the hardware or software of the computer so that the second address is treated as, or actually becomes, or was at installation of the operating system, the address of the RAMdisk.
The method according to any preceding claim including the step of configuring the computer's start up sequence to implement creation of the RAMdisk and copying of the operating system from the hard disk to the RAMdisk.
The method of any preceding claim further including a step of providing means for copying back whereby changes made within the operating system during running thereof from the RAMdisk are copied back to the hard disk in order to preserve them for subsequent re-booting of the computer.
The method of any preceding claim further including a step of providing swapping means operable for allowing a user to swap backwards and forwards between running the operating system on the RAMdisk and running the operating system on the hard disk.
The method of any preceding claim wherein the operating system is any version of any operating system capable of running Microsoft Word 2000, Access 2000, Excel 2000, and Frontpage 2000.
The method of any preceding claim wherein the operating system is any version of Windows 95 or any version of Windows 98.
A computer comprising a hard disk, a CPU and RAM, characterised in that the computer further comprises:
- a copy of an operating system installed on a hard disk at a first address, the operating system being configured to run from a second address;
- means for creating at a second address a RAMdisk in said RAM;
- means for copying the operating system copy from the hard disk to the RAMdisk;
- and
- means for configuring the computer so that the second address, from which the operating system copy is configured to run is the RAMdisk address or is treated by the computer as being the RAMdisk address, so that the operating system copy can be run from the RAMdisk.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.