Abstract: A system component manages the system view of hardware for a set of devices, containing information about each hardware device including the device id, the location of the device, and the system resources allocated to the device. This system component is responsible for enumerating all devices present when the system is resumed from a suspended state, including the reconfiguration of devices which were present at the time the system was suspended. An accurate system view of devices present when the system resumes from a suspended state is thereby created. The configuration of devices present when the system was suspended is restored faster and more efficiently than through utilization of individual device drivers.

Abstract: A computer system which utilizes a "static" peripheral device driver that recognizes configuration changes only on system initialization is modified to provide hot insertion capability. In particular, in order to provide hot insertion capability, software which allows operation with PCMCIA compatible peripherals is loaded into the computer and the static peripheral device driver is modified to communicate directly with the PCMCIA software. In this manner the conventional PCMCIA software recognizes hot insertions and removals and these vents are communicated to the static driver by means of internal data packets.