Phoenix Technologies Ltd.

Albert E Rickey

A high capacity computer article of manufacture to be loaded into a drive of a computer that includes a memory, comprising: a computer usable medium including at least one partition area and a boot sector, with the computer usable medium having computer readable program code means embodied therein, comprising: first computer readable code means fixed in the boot sector including a first BIOS parameter block for setting parameters for the medium if inserted in a floppy drive of the computer; and second computer readable code means fixed in the boot sector comprising a Partition Table for organizing the medium to include at least one partition and for designating an active partition. In a further embodiment of the invention, the article of manufacture includes: third computer readable code means fixed in the active partition area on the computer readable medium and including a second BIOS parameter block, and DOS boot record code for locating operating system files, loading the operating system files into the memory of the computer and causing the computer to execute them; and fourth computer readable code means fixed in the boot sector comprising a master boot record code for loading into the memory of the computer the third computer readable code means comprising the second BIOS parameter block and the DOS record code of the active partition listed in the Partition Table, and causing the computer to execute the DOS boot record code using parameters from the BIOS parameter blocks in accordance with whether the DOS boot record code was loaded from a floppy drive or a hard drive.

Dual use master boot record

A method and computer system including a bootable storage media, preferably a CD-ROM, having a single bootable disk image that allows multiple emulations. A hard disk boot image including an MBR is provided at the beginning of the bootable disk image. A floppy DBR is provided at a predetermined sector boundary in the hard disk image so that the computer system can use either the hard disk or the floppy disk emulation at boot time. A computer article of manufacture embodying a single bootable disk image that allows both a hard disk or a floppy disk emulation is also provided.

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Lake Forest, CA, United States of America

Albert E Rickey