Abstract: The present invention provides an independent set of processes and data structures that allow data transfer between differently formatted disks of files specified by the user. The processes identify the file format of the disks, retrieve the files in the source file format, store the source files in a common format in memory that allows the directory hierarchy of the disks to be maintained, translates the files to the format of the destination file system disk, creates index information for the destination disk, and stores the files, directories and indexes on the destination disk in the destination file format. The user can then access and modify the files and transfer the modified files back to the foreign disk in the foreign file format using the same transfer processes. The common memory format is a data structure which is a two dimensional list with one dimension maintaining the directory hierarchy of the source disk and the second dimension maintaining the hierarchy of the destination disk.

Abstract: Messages for an offline storage device having volumes of storage media mounted by a robot device, i.e., a jukebox, are transmitted from requestor processes to a robot control process using a general message format intended for directing messages to a human operator. An operator message interception process receives all messages in the general format and routes all properly formed messages to the robot control process. Messages not having predefined formats are routed to an operator message delivery process, or discarded if no messages need be sent to the operator. Using this technique, it is possible to add a jukebox-type offline storage unit to a computer system without any changes in the production of messages previously delivered to an operator.

Abstract: The present invention is a system and method which follows a directory tree of a random access disk 20 to obtain file location information and the contents for multiple files. For each file found an entry is created on a file description ring 90 and the file location information is stored in the entry. An insert pointer indicates the next available entry on the ring 90. The system then stores the different type location information (for example file headers, directories and directory headers are different types) for each of the files in corresponding segmented ring buffers 172, 176 and 192 dedicated to storing information of only a single type. The file content is also stored in a dedicated segmented file content ring buffer 132. Each time a ring is updated with information for a file, a corresponding operation pointer (96, 100 and 102) for the ring 90 is advanced.