JP2000082014A - Information processing apparatus, information processing method, and storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [PROBLEMS] To reduce the time required for writing memory contents to a hard disk drive by a hibernation function. SOLUTION: In a hibernation process, when storing the contents of a memory in a hard disk device, an error detection code (such as a CRC value) of the memory is obtained for each block.
5) Compare it with an error detection code (CRC value, etc.) already stored in the hard disk drive (S6), and save the actual memory contents in the hard disk drive only when it is different (S7, S8-). S10).

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a storage medium, and more particularly, to an information processing apparatus having a hibernation function, an information processing method applied to the information processing apparatus, and The present invention relates to a storage medium storing a program for executing the information processing method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Hitherto, in an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer, there is a hibernation (hibernation state) function as one of power management functions. This means that when the power of the information processing device is turned off, the current operation state of the information processing device (such as the contents stored in the register and the memory) is stored in a nonvolatile hard disk device, and then the power is actually turned off. When the power is turned on next time, the original operation state can be restored.

[0003]

However, in recent years,
The capacity of memory mounted on personal computers has been increasing rapidly, and 16 MB and 32
It is not uncommon for a memory having a memory capacity of about MB to be mounted with a 96 MB or 128 MB memory, which is four to five times as large as that of the conventional memory.

In the hibernation function, it is necessary to save all of the memory contents in the hard disk device before the power of the information processing apparatus is turned off. Therefore, as the memory amount increases, the memory contents are written to the hard disk device by the hibernation function. On the other hand, the time required to read the data from the hard disk device and restore the memory contents is extremely long.

The present invention has been made in view of such a problem, and an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a storage method that reduce the time required for writing memory contents to a hard disk device by a hibernation function. The purpose is to provide a medium.

[0006]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, in an information processing apparatus having a hibernation function, an error detecting code of data to be stored in a memory is provided. Calculating means for calculating, and storing means for storing the error detection code calculated by the calculating means together with the data of the memory in block units in the external storage device when the data of the memory is first stored in an external storage device. When storing the memory data in the external storage device from the next time onward, an error detection code already stored in the external storage device, a comparison unit that compares the error detection code calculated by the calculation unit this time, As a result of the comparison by the comparing means, the error detecting code already stored in the external storage device matches the error detecting code calculated by the calculating means this time. Only if you did not have, and having a storage control means for storing the memory data to the external storage device.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information processing method applied to an information processing apparatus having a hibernation function, comprising: a calculating step of calculating an error detection code of data to be stored in a memory; When the data of the memory is first stored in an external storage device, a storage step of storing the error detection code calculated in the calculation step together with the data of the memory in a block unit in the external storage device; When storing data in the external storage device, a comparison step of comparing the error detection code already stored in the external storage device with the error detection code calculated this time in the calculation step; As a result, the error detection code already stored in the external storage device is compared with the error detection code calculated this time in the calculation step. Only when the code and does not match, and having a storage control step of storing the memory data to the external storage device.

Further, according to the present invention, in a computer-readable storage medium storing an information processing method applied to an information processing apparatus having a hibernation function as a program, the information processing method is provided. Is calculated by the calculation step of calculating an error detection code of data to be stored in the memory, and when the data of the memory is first stored in an external storage device, the calculation step is performed together with the data of the memory in block units. A storage step of storing an error detection code in the external storage device, and an error detection code already stored in the external storage device when memory data is stored in the external storage device in the next and subsequent times. A comparing step of comparing the calculated error detection code, and a result of the comparison by the comparing step A storage control step of storing the memory data in the external storage device only when the error detection code already stored in the external storage device does not match the error detection code calculated this time in the calculation step. And characterized in that:

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an information processing apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a CPU which is a central processing unit;
RAM, 3 ROM, 4 hard disk controller, 5 hard disk device, 6 keyboard controller, 7 keyboard, 8 display controller, 9 display device such as CRT or LCD panel, 10 video memory, 11 power supply Controller, 1
Reference numeral 2 denotes an AC adapter for supplying power.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a memory arrangement of a general information processing apparatus. As shown in the center of the figure, a normal memory is linearly arranged up to an area of 0 to over 1 MB. However, the video memory is A000
The memory is arranged in a bank structure in a memory space from 0 to BFFFFh, and the system management memory is arranged in a space of 64 KB from D0000h.
These special memories share the same address as the normal memory, and are switched and used.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a partition-like bear of a hard disk drive in an information processing apparatus having a hibernation function. For example, one hard disk drive has two hibernation areas and a DOS area.
There are three partitions, and the hibernation area includes three pieces of control information, CRC information, and memory information.

FIG. 4 shows a BIOS (Basic Input / Output System) when the state of the memory is written to the hard disk drive by the hibernation function to which the present invention is applied.
It is a flowchart which showed the procedure of the process of m).

First, in step S1, the BIOS saves register information of various devices in the system management memory. For example, the state of the hard disk controller 4 is read from a register and stored in the system management memory. These pieces of information are written back to the registers of each device at the time of resume (return), and restore the original state.

Next, in step S2, all data on the video memory 10 is saved in the hard disk device 5. This data is also written back to the video memory 10 again when resuming, and the screen is restored. Next, the contents of the system management memory are stored in the hard disk device 5 in step S3.

Next, in steps S4 to S12, all memories are stored in the hard disk device 5. First, in step S4, the segment counter is initialized to 0 in order to handle the memory in segments (64 KB). Next, in step S5, a CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Code Check) value of the 64 KB memory content in the corresponding segment is calculated. The details of step S5 will be described later with reference to FIG.

Next, in step S6, the obtained C
The RC value is compared with the CRC value of the data already written in the hard disk device 5. If the CRC values match, it can be considered that the data already written in the hard disk device 5 matches the current contents of the memory, so that steps S8, S9, and S10 are performed.
Is skipped. Thereby, the processing can be speeded up.

If the CRC values do not match, the sector position is calculated from the head of the hibernation information area in step S8, and the memory contents of the corresponding segment are stored in the corresponding position of the hard disk device 5 in step S9. Next, in step S10, the CRC value calculated previously is stored in the hard disk device 5. This value will be referred to at the next execution of hibernation.

Next, in step S11, it is determined whether or not the processing for the last segment has been completed. If not, in step S12, 1 is added to the count value of the segment counter, and the next segment is processed. Steps S5 to S12 are repeated. If it is completed, all the contents of the memory have been saved, and in step S13, the information processing apparatus is turned off and the process ends.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the C performed in step S5 of FIG.
FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a process for obtaining an RC value. In this example, a 16-bit CRC value is obtained.

First, in step T1, an initial value of the CRC value is set. In step T2, the value of the pointer for specifying the target memory for calculating the CRC value is set to 0 and initialized.

Next, in step T3, the previous CRC
The exclusive OR of the value and the value of the first byte of the target memory is calculated, and the calculation result is adopted as the CRC value. Next, in step T4, the bit counter is initialized to zero.

First, at step T5, it is determined whether or not the least significant bit of the CRC value is 1. If it is 0, the current CRC value is shifted right by one bit, and this is adopted as the CRC value (T6). In the case of 1, 1
After bit shifting (T7), the current CRC value and CR
The exclusive OR with the C constant (8408h) is calculated, and this is adopted as the CRC value (T8). This CRC constant is the X.T. The 17-bit CRC polynomial value (11021h) defined by the 25 standard is the reverse of the bit arrangement in accordance with the bit feed direction of this algorithm.

Next, at step T9, the counter value of the bit counter is incremented by one, and at step T10, the processing of steps T5 to T9 is repeated a number of times corresponding to one byte, that is, eight bits (eight times).

Next, at step T11, the value of the memory pointer is increased by one. One segment is 64 KB or 65
Since it is 536 bytes, the process of step T3 to step Tll is repeated by this number of bytes in step T12. When all processes are completed, a CRC value of 64 KB of memory is obtained.

(Second Embodiment) The configuration of the second embodiment is the same as that of the first embodiment, and therefore the description thereof will be omitted, and the configuration of the first embodiment will be used. A second embodiment will be described.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the BIOS when executing hibernation in the second embodiment of the present invention. This flowchart is
Since it is basically the same as the flowchart shown in FIG. 4,
The same steps are denoted by the same step numbers, and their description is omitted.

Generally, in an information processing apparatus, when the system itself is restarted, all the contents of the memory are once erased. Therefore, the contents of the memory used by an application or the like are significantly different from the state immediately before. I will. When the process of the first embodiment is executed in this restart state, the probability that the CRC values match is extremely low, and there is a high risk that the CRC values may erroneously match.

Therefore, in the second embodiment, all the CRC values in the hard disk device are temporarily erased (initialized to 0) when the information processing device is started (when POST is performed). Then, by adding the processing of step S5 'in FIG. 6, it is determined whether or not the CRC value in the hard disk drive is 0 at the time of executing the hibernation. If the CRC value is 0, the CRC value is not compared and the memory of the corresponding segment is always saved. If the CRC value is not 0, the restart has not been performed, so that the CRC values are compared (S6, S5).
7) To speed up the hibernation operation.

(Third Embodiment) The first and second embodiments described above
In the embodiment, it is assumed that the sector of the hard disk device in which the content of the specific segment is stored always exists at a fixed position, and that the position can be calculated from the head of the hibernation information storage area. However, if there is a damaged sector in the hard disk device, the continuity of the sector is lost, so that the position cannot be specified by such calculation from the beginning.

Therefore, in the third embodiment, in order to solve this problem, if a damaged sector occurs,
The position of the replacement sector is recorded at the same time as the RC value to ensure the continuity of the sector.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a data structure of a hibernation area in a hard disk drive according to the third embodiment. In the figure, the sector position is recorded in the hibernation area simultaneously with the CRC value. If all sectors are normal, all 0s are written as sector position information. However, when a damaged sector occurs, the position of the substitute sector in the spare area is written at the corresponding position. That is, as shown in FIG. 7, when a damaged sector occurs in the portion corresponding to the CRC value of YYYYh, the position 1234h of the substitute sector in the spare area is written as sector position information.

Since the configuration of the third embodiment is the same as that of the first embodiment, a description thereof will be omitted, and the third embodiment will be described by diverting the configuration of the first embodiment.

FIGS. 8 and 9 are flowcharts showing the processing procedure of the BIOS when executing hibernation in the third embodiment of the present invention. Since this flowchart is basically the same as the flowchart shown in FIG. 4, the same steps are denoted by the same step numbers and description thereof is omitted. In the third embodiment, step S7 '
And steps S9a to S9c are added.

First, in step S9, after writing the memory contents of the corresponding segment to the corresponding position of the hard disk device 5, it is determined in step S9a whether the writing has been completed normally. Here, if the writing fails, it can be inferred that there is some defect in the sector. For this reason, when the writing has failed, the position of the alternative sector in the spare area is searched by referring to the "sector position" column in the hard disk device shown in FIG. 7 (S9b), and the position information is stored in the hard disk device. (S9c). Then, in step S9, the memory contents of the pertinent segment are written into this alternative sector again. If the writing is completed normally, the obtained CRC value is written to the hard disk drive in step S10.

In the hibernation process after the above process has been performed and the replacement sector has been set, in step S7 ', information on the sector position in the hard disk device is first read before writing to the hard disk device. If the read value is other than 0, the contents of the memory are stored at the sector position calculated from the head position as in the conventional case (S9). However, if the sector position information is 0, it is determined that an alternative sector has been set, and the contents of the memory are stored in the read alternative sector position (S8, S9).

At the time of resuming, the memory is similarly restored while reading the sector information in the hard disk drive. If an alternative sector is set, data is read from the alternative sector in the spare area. By assigning an alternative section to a damaged sector in this way, continuity of other sectors can be ensured.

Note that the present invention may be applied to a system including a plurality of devices, or to an apparatus including a single device.

A storage medium storing software program codes for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments is supplied to a system or an apparatus, and a computer (or CPU or MPU) of the system or apparatus stores the storage medium in the storage medium. It goes without saying that the present invention is also achieved by reading and executing the program code thus set.

In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention.

As a storage medium for supplying the program code, for example, a floppy disk, hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, CD-ROM, CD
-R, a magnetic tape, a nonvolatile memory card, a ROM, or the like can be used.

When the computer executes the readout program code, not only the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized, but also an OS or the like running on the computer based on the instruction of the program code. It is needless to say that the present invention includes a case where a part or all of the actual processing is performed and the function of each embodiment described above is realized by the processing.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written to a memory provided in a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, the program code is read based on the instruction of the program code. It is needless to say that the present invention includes a case where the CPU or the like provided in the function expansion board or the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments. .

[0045]

As described above in detail, according to the first, fourth or seventh aspect of the present invention, in the hibernation processing, when storing the memory contents in the hard disk device, the memory contents are stored in units of blocks. Error detection code (C
RC value, etc., is compared with an error detection code (CRC value, etc.) already stored in the hard disk drive, and only when it is different, the actual memory contents are stored in the hard disk drive. As a result, in the hibernation process, the process of writing the memory contents to the hard disk device can be speeded up, and the time required for such a write process can be reduced.

Further, claim 2, claim 5, or claim 8
According to the invention described above, the error detection code already stored in the hard disk device is deleted at the time of restart. This prevents erroneous data from being restored.

Further, according to the third, sixth or ninth aspect of the present invention, when there is a damaged sector in the hibernation area of the hard disk device for storing the memory, a substitute sector is allocated. This makes it possible to maintain the high-speed processing of writing the memory contents to the hard disk device.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an information processing apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a memory arrangement of a general information processing apparatus.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a partition-shaped bear of a hard disk device in an information processing apparatus having a hibernation function.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a BIOS processing procedure when writing a memory state to a hard disk device by a hibernation function to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a process of obtaining a CRC value performed in step S5 of FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a BIOS processing procedure when performing hibernation in the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a data structure of a hibernation area in a hard disk device according to a third embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating a BIOS processing procedure when performing hibernation according to the third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart continued from FIG. 8;

[Explanation of symbols]

1 CPU 2 RAM 3 ROM 4 Hard Disk Controller
5) Hard Disk Drive 6 Keyboard Controller 7 Keyboard 8 Display Controller 9 Display Device 10 Video Memory 11 Video Controller 11 Power Controller 12 AC Adapter

Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. An information processing apparatus having a hibernation function, comprising: a calculating means for calculating an error detection code of data to be stored in a memory; and a block for first storing data in the memory in an external storage device. A storage unit for storing the error detection code calculated by the calculation unit together with the data in the memory in the external storage device; and when the memory data is stored in the external storage device in the next and subsequent times, the external storage device has A stored error detection code, comparison means for comparing the error detection code calculated by the calculation means this time, and a result of the comparison by the comparison means, the error detection code already stored in the external storage device, Only when the calculation means does not match the error detection code calculated this time, the memory data is stored in the external storage device. The information processing apparatus characterized by having a storage control unit. 2. A detecting means for detecting that the information processing apparatus has been restarted, and erasing an error detection code already stored in the external storage device when the restarting is detected by the detecting means. 2. An erasing means, further comprising:
An information processing apparatus according to claim 1. 3. A damaged part detecting means for detecting a damaged part in the external storage device, and a substitute for allocating a replacement storage area in the external storage device when the damaged part is detected by the damaged part detecting means. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: an area allocating unit; and a failure storage unit that stores memory data in an alternative storage area allocated by the alternative area allocating unit. 4. An information processing method applied to an information processing apparatus having a hibernation function, comprising: a calculating step of calculating an error detection code of data to be stored in a memory; and storing the data in the memory in an external storage device. A first storage step of storing the error detection code calculated by the calculation step in the external storage device together with the data of the memory in block units in the external storage device; and A comparison step of comparing the error detection code already stored in the external storage device with the error detection code calculated this time in the calculation step; and a result of the comparison in the comparison step, which is already stored in the external storage device. If the detected error detection code does not match the error detection code calculated this time in the calculation step, The information processing method characterized by only has a storage control step of storing the memory data to the external storage device. 5. A detection step for detecting that the information processing apparatus has been restarted, and erasing an error detection code already stored in the external storage device when a restart is detected by the detection step. 5. The information processing method according to claim 4, further comprising an erasing step. 6. A damaged part detecting step of detecting a damaged part in the external storage device, and a substitute for allocating a replacement storage area in the external storage device when the damaged part is detected by the damaged part detecting step. 6. The information processing method according to claim 4, further comprising: an area allocating step; and a damage saving step of storing memory data in the alternative storage area allocated by the alternative area allocating step. 7. A computer-readable storage medium storing an information processing method applied to an information processing apparatus having a hibernation function as a program, the information processing method comprising: A calculation step of calculating an error detection code; and when the data of the memory is first stored in an external storage device, the error detection code calculated in the calculation step is stored in the external storage device together with the data of the memory in block units. A storing step of comparing the error detection code already stored in the external storage device with the error detection code calculated this time in the calculation step when the memory data is stored in the external storage device from the next time. And, as a result of the comparison in the comparing step, the data is already stored in the external storage device. And a storage control step of storing the memory data in the external storage device only when the error detection code currently calculated in the calculation step does not match the error detection code calculated in the calculation step. Medium. 8. The information processing method, comprising: a detecting step of detecting that the information processing apparatus has been restarted; and, when a restart is detected by the detecting step, the information processing apparatus has already stored the information in the external storage device. 8. The storage medium according to claim 7, further comprising an erasing step of erasing the error detection code. 9. The information processing method according to claim 1, further comprising: a damaged portion detecting step of detecting a damaged portion in the external storage device; and when the damaged portion is detected by the damaged portion detecting step, the damaged information is stored in the external storage device. 9. The method according to claim 7, further comprising: an alternative area allocating step of allocating an alternative storage area; and a failure storage step of storing memory data in the alternative storage area allocated by the alternative area allocating step. 10. Storage media.