System and method for rapid boot of secondary operating system

Abstract

The primary operating system of a computer such as a notebook computer is stored on disk in a hard disk drive and a smaller, secondary operating system such as an email operating system, wireless phone operating system, DVD player operating system, etc. is stored on disk and is transferred to flash memory within the HDD upon power-down of the primary operating system. In this way, should the user subsequently elect to power up the computer only for a limited secondary purpose, the user can elect to boot the associated secondary operating system from flash memory of the HDD without having to spin up the disks, saving energy and reducing boot time.

1 - 4 . (canceled) 
     
     
         5 . A computer system, comprising:
 at least one processor;   at least one computer memory accessible by the processor;   at least one hard disk drive (HDD) accessible by the processor and including at least one disk and at least one non-volatile solid state memory (NVM);   at least one primary operating system stored on the disk for booting thereof under control of the processor into the computer memory in a first condition; and   at least one secondary operating system on the disk and on the NVM for booting the secondary operating system from the NVM under control of the processor into the computer memory in a second condition, wherein the disk is not spun up when the secondary operating system is booted from NVM.   
     
     
         6 . (canceled) 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 5 , wherein the first condition is initiated by a first power on signal and the second condition is initiated by a second power on signal. 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 5 , wherein the NVM is flash memory. 
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 5 , wherein the computer includes at least a first manipulable power on element and a second power on element, a power on signal indicating that the primary operating system is to be booted being generated when the first power on element is manipulated, a power on signal indicating that the secondary operating system is to be booted being generated when the second power on element is manipulated. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 9 , wherein the power on elements are buttons. 
     
     
         11 . (canceled) 
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 5 , wherein the secondary operating system is copied into the NVM as part of power down from the first condition. 
     
     
         13 . A computer, comprising:
 processing means for booting;   disk means for storing a primary operating system and a secondary operating system; and   non-volatile solid state memory (NVM) means for storing the secondary operating system, the processing means booting the primary operating system from the disk if a first power on signal is received, the processing means booting the secondary operating system from the NVM means without spinning up the disk if a second power on signal is received.   
     
     
         14 . The computer of  claim 13 , wherein the processing means includes a processor, the disk means includes at least one disk in a hard disk drive (HDD) housing, and the NVM means includes at least one NVM in the HDD housing. 
     
     
         15 - 16 . (canceled) 
     
     
         17 . The computer of  claim 14 , wherein the NVM is flash memory. 
     
     
         18 . The computer of  claim 14 , wherein the computer includes at least a first manipulable power on element and a second power on element, a power on signal indicating that the primary operating system is to be booted being generated when the first power on element is manipulated, a power on signal indicating that the secondary operating system is to be booted being generated when the second power on element is manipulated. 
     
     
         19 . The computer of  claim 18 , wherein the power on elements are buttons.