Method and system for graceful recovery from a fault in peripheral

Abstract

A method and system for resetting a peripheral device which could use a variety of buses have been disclosed. The method and system determine what bus type the peripheral device has. The method and system then automatically execute a reset process capable of resetting the peripheral device having that bus type. A beneficial aspect of this invention is allowing a peripheral device to gracefully recover from a fault. In this aspect, the method detects whether a peripheral device fault has occurred. Where the fault has occurred, the method determines whether any of a plurality of processes executable by the peripheral device is being executed. The processes comprise those processes which could result in significant loss of data, loss of connection to a network, or adversely affect performance if the peripheral device is reset during execution. If none of the processes is being executed, the method automatically resets the peripheral device. The automatic reset process determines the bus type of the peripheral device. The automatic reset process then automatically executes a reset process capable of resetting the peripheral device having that bus type. According to the method and system, a peripheral device which may use a variety of buses can be reset or made to recover from faults without user intervention, without loss of connection to any networks, and with minimal loss of data.