The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 27, 2000
Filed:
Nov. 04, 1997
Randy Marc Arnott, Mont Vernon, NH (US);
Adaptec, Inc., Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
A data processing computer system and virtual partitioning method for creating a multi-level container in the computer system are disclosed. The computer system enables the creation of multi-level containers including primary and secondary containers without including specific knowledge of the primary containers in the secondary containers. The computer system builds the primary containers in a container structure and stores the partition structures for the primary containers in Partition Table entry. Then, if primary containers are part of a multi-level container structure, the system builds a virtual partition that represents these primary containers are thereafter created from these virtual partitions. The virtual Partition Table structure for the secondary containers includes pointers to the entry points of the primary container drivers. By storing only pointers to the primary container drivers in the secondary container's partition structures, the computer system enables a method for creating multi-level containers without including specific knowledge of the primary containers in the secondary container's partition structures and uses the same method to create single-level containers and multi-level containers. The computer system includes an input/output (I/O) unit or subsystem that configures storage devices into multi-level containers by copying partition structures for primary containers into the partition table and that enables reconfiguration of storage devices into containers while still online.