JP5822870B2 - Information processing device - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, and more particularly, to a technique for facilitating system recovery by enabling automatic startup in a recovery mode upon restart after an operating system startup failure in a normal mode.

  In the technical field of general-purpose computers such as personal computers (hereinafter referred to as “PCs”), a recovery program is provided in case of failure to start up the operating system. A technique for executing a program is conventionally known (for example, Patent Document 1).

JP 2008-071188 A

  When manufacturing a PC in which an operating system (hereinafter referred to as OS) or so-called preinstalled software is pre-installed in a hardware device, an OS image is created on a hard disk drive (hereinafter referred to as HDD) as in Patent Document 1. There is. If the OS image is built on the storage device, the installation work can be omitted.

  On the other hand, in a demo machine used for a demonstration in a retail store or the like, it is necessary to install an OS or preinstalled software suitable for the demo machine. Pre-installed software and settings may differ from retail store to retail store, requiring installation work corresponding to each.

  In order to simplify such work, conventionally, a bootable CD image conforming to the ISO9660 standard is built in advance on the HDD, and the BIOS selects a boot path using this CD image and starts it. It was done. A CD image is an archive file for an optical disc. Further, in this method, restart that is normally performed a plurality of times is also automated.

  However, activation / reactivation may fail for some reason. If it fails, an error screen will be displayed and the system will automatically shut down, etc., and the system will be silent, so there will be an error at some stage of the installation process, several times during the restart process. There was a problem that it was not possible to obtain information such as

  For example, an OS of Microsoft Corporation, Windows (registered trademark), etc. asks "Do you want to start normally?" When restarting after failing normal termination, but this is a message issued by the OS. It cannot be issued before the OS installation as described above is completed. Therefore, the present invention aims to enable OS startup in the recovery mode even before OS installation, but the invention disclosed below is not limited to the above-described OS setup. An invention applicable to OS activation after setup is also provided.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to allow an OS to be booted in a recovery mode without being conscious of a user even if the booting of the OS in a normal mode fails. To do.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an information processing apparatus for starting an operating system from a BIOS, wherein the BIOS sets a default boot path which is a starting condition for starting the operating system in a normal mode. Select by default, and when a predetermined condition is met, select a recovery boot path, which is a start condition for starting the operating system in the recovery mode, and save the operating system in the recovery mode in a nonvolatile storage means based on the normal bootable system state of being, the operating system to repair the operating system for booting correctly in the normal mode, the operating system of the normal mode, the system state to normal before the end not Characterized in that it saved to the storage means.

  According to the present invention, even if the OS activation in the normal mode fails, the OS can be activated in the recovery mode without being conscious of the user.

It is a block diagram which shows the hardware & software structural example of embodiment by this invention. It is a figure (the 1) which shows the recovery flow of the said embodiment. It is a figure (the 2) which shows the recovery flow of the said embodiment.

  Hereinafter, embodiments according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 shows a hardware & software configuration example of the present embodiment. The information processing apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment includes personal devices such as a personal computer (hereinafter, mainly referred to as “PC”), a slate PC, a tablet PC, a smartphone, and a portable information terminal (Personal Digital Assistance: PDA). As an example.

  The information processing apparatus 1 includes a hardware device connected to a system board 10, sometimes called a motherboard, an arithmetic device 11, a primary storage 12, a display device 13, a power supply device 14, a ROM 15, and a secondary storage 16. In addition to the illustration, an information input / output device such as a network interface, a user interface, or an optical input / output device may be included.

  There are various power saving and power supply control methods, but the information processing apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment is based on the provisions of the ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) specification. The power supply device 14 supports each ACPI power supply state (S0 to S5).

  The ROM 15 and the secondary storage 16 are nonvolatile memory devices. The ROM 15 is composed of, for example, a flash memory on the system board 10. In this embodiment, a rewritable memory is used. The secondary storage 16 is configured by, for example, an HDD or an SSD (Solid State Drive).

  The ROM 15 stores a BIOS (Basic Input / Output System) 151 that is firmware. Further, status information 152 is stored as setting information and option information used by the BIOS 151. The status information 152 includes a startup success / failure result 1521 that is information relating to a result of whether the OS startup in the normal mode is successful or successful. When the information processing device 1 is in the S5 state, when the power is turned on and power is supplied to the system board 10 from the power supply device 14, the arithmetic device 11 first reads the BIOS 151 from the ROM 15 and loads it into the primary storage 12 to load To do.

  In the state of FIG. 1, the information processing apparatus 1 has not yet been installed with an operating system (hereinafter “OS”). The secondary storage 16 stores an archive disk file for installing or starting up the OS. CD images 161 and 162. The CD images 161 and 162 are preferably bootable CD CD image files conforming to the ISO9660 standard, but need not be limited to this embodiment.

  The CD image 161 is a CD image file for normal installation, whereas the CD image 162 is a CD image file for starting the OS in the recovery mode. Although there is no limitation on the OS to be installed or activated in the present embodiment, an example is Windows (registered trademark) of Microsoft Corporation in the United States.

  In such an OS, startup in a recovery mode is provided as a startup option. When booting in recovery mode, the system settings can be restored to the state just before the error occurred. The state of the system immediately before the error occurs is stored in the secondary storage 16 as the system state 163. Here, the “recovery mode” is a mode for repairing or restoring the OS state. The OS started in the recovery mode can repair the OS state based on the system state immediately before the normal end stored in the nonvolatile storage device. The system state 163 is saved in the secondary storage 16 immediately before the normal mode OS ends normally.

  Next, a characteristic configuration and operation flow of the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3. 2 and 3 are diagrams illustrating the recovery flow of the present embodiment together with the functional configuration of the present embodiment. FIG. 2 is a flow at the normal time, and FIG. 3 is a flow when there is an abnormality such that the CD image 161 is damaged.

  In the present embodiment, as an example, a description will be given of booting in the recovery mode when booting fails due to an error in the automatic setup process of the OS. However, the startup process in the recovery mode according to the present invention is not limited to this embodiment, and can be similarly applied to the OS startup after the setup is completed.

  2 and 3, the default boot path 171 is a start condition for starting the OS in the normal mode. The recovery boot path 172 is a start condition for starting the OS in the recovery mode. These are stored in the ROM 15, for example. In parallel with these, various activation conditions such as a setup activation path for activating a demo machine for a retail store and a storefront activation path may be stored.

  The automatic setup process of the OS according to this embodiment involves a plurality of restarts. As shown in FIG. 2, the BIOS 151 is loaded when activated from the S5 state (sometimes referred to as “cold boot”). Next, the boot device is determined according to the firmware setting of the BIOS 151 (status information 152). In the present embodiment, the boot device is usually the secondary storage 16. Further, the activation success / failure recording unit 1511 which is one function of the BIOS 151 is configured by loading the BIOS 151.

  Next, the arithmetic device 11 loaded with the BIOS 151 firmware searches for a path. Specifically, the path is searched based on the status information 152. If the status information 152 is “default”, the computing device 11 follows the default boot path 171 to read the CD image 161 and tries to load the OS in the normal mode. The default boot path 171 is included in the status information 152.

  If startup is successful, the normal mode OS is started. After the normal mode OS is started, the recovery mode OS can be started by changing various settings by a user operation. Regardless of whether the startup of the OS in the normal mode is successful or unsuccessful, the startup success / failure recording unit 1511 stores information on whether the startup is successful or failed as a startup success / failure result 1521 in the nonvolatile storage unit 1515. The process proceeds to the OS startup step (FIG. 3) in the recovery mode.

  As shown in FIG. 3, if the activation success / failure result 1521 records that the activation has failed, the arithmetic unit 11 follows the recovery boot path 172, reads the CD image 162, and loads the OS in the recovery mode. Similar to the default boot path 171, the recovery boot path 172 is also included in the status information 152.

  Since this embodiment is configured and operates as described above, the recovery OS can be started from the BIOS 151. As a result, the system can be restored to the state immediately before the error occurred by the recovery OS, so that information on the occurrence of the error can be obtained. The effect that this error occurrence information can be obtained can be obtained even in the case of normal OS startup, but can also be obtained in the case where an error occurs during a process including a plurality of restarts (for example, automatic setup process). .

  If a sudden power failure occurs during automatic setup, it may not be possible to resume the automatic setup after recovery from the power failure. Not only when the power is turned off but also when the operation cannot be resumed when an irregular operation is performed, the status information 152 has the recovery boot path 172 information in the BIOS 151 as in this embodiment. In other words, the recovery OS can be started from the CD image 162 for the recovery OS based on the recovery boot path 172 at the time of restart. Therefore, even when an error occurs during the automatic setup process, error occurrence information can be obtained by referring to the system state 163.

  Further, during the automatic setup process, it is set to perform the fast startup from the S4 state at the time of restart, and the recovery boot path 172 is followed when the cold boot from the S5 state is performed. Such a configuration is also preferable. Further, the storage destination of the status information 152 is not limited to the ROM 15, but may be a master boot record of a boot device, for example.

  It is also preferable to configure the BIOS 151 to boot the recovery OS from the CD image 162 by following the recovery boot path 172 by performing key input while the power is turned on. In this case, the BIOS 151 rises from power-on and before the default boot path 171 is followed, a key is pressed and must be detected.

  FIG. 3 is a recovery flow when the CD image 161 for starting up the OS in the normal mode is damaged. Since the default boot using the default boot path 171 cannot be performed, it is not possible to determine whether or not the activation has failed (FIG. 2). A button indicating an option for starting the recovery OS cannot be displayed on the screen.

  In the case shown in FIG. 3, although depending on the OS specifications, an error message is displayed on the screen, and automatic shutdown is performed within 30 seconds to 1 minute. At this time, the BIOS 151 stores “recovery” in the status information and shuts down. After the shutdown, the cold boot from the S5 state is started and the recovery OS is started from the BIOS 151. Even in the case shown in FIG. 3, when an error occurs during the automatic setup process, error occurrence information can be obtained.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Information processing apparatus 10 System board 11 Arithmetic apparatus 12 Primary storage 13 Display apparatus 14 Power supply apparatus 15 ROM
151 BIOS
1511 Startup success / failure recording means 152 Status information 1521 Startup success / failure result 16 Secondary storage 161 CD image 162 CD image 163 System state 171 Default boot path 172 Recovery boot path

Claims (2)

An information processing apparatus for starting an operating system from a BIOS,
The BIOS is
Select by default a default boot path, which is a boot condition for booting the operating system in normal mode,
When a predetermined condition is met, a recovery boot path that is a start condition for starting the operating system in the recovery mode is selected,
The operating system in the recovery mode repairs the operating system so that the operating system can be normally booted in the normal mode based on a system state that can be normally booted stored in a nonvolatile storage means .
The information processing apparatus characterized in that the operating system in the normal mode stores the system state in the nonvolatile storage means immediately before normal termination . An activation success / failure recording means for storing success / failure of activation of the operating system as an activation success / failure result;
The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined condition is that the activation success / failure result is a failure.

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