Loading patent…
AssigneeCompaq Computer Corporation
InventorsStephen M. Schultz, David S. Schmenk, David L. Flower, E. David Neufeld
Estimating the term…
A method for detecting the presence of a replacement disk in a fault tolerant, intelligent mass storage disk array subsystem having a microprocessor based controller in a personal computer system and rebuilding the replacement disk independent of the computer system processor. The method calls for the microprocessor controller to run a disk array check at system powerup or at specified intervals to detect the existence of a replacement drive. The microprocessor then builds a series of disk drive commands which attempt to read every sector on the replacement disk. The read commands will return a null data read, indicating that the sector must be restored. The microprocessor controller converts the replacement read commands for all sectors on the replacement disk to write-restore commands. The microprocessor executes the write commands and restores the data to the replacement drive.
For use with a computer system having a fault tolerant, intelligent mass storage disk array subsystem, the disk subsystem having a microprocessor based controller, a method for rebuilding a replacement disk drive within the array without system processor supervision or suspension of system operations comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.