Abstract: While restoring a preload image to a hard drive, the ability to boot the operating system on the hard drive is inhibited until the recovery process is complete. In one embodiment, a file that must be loaded in order to boot the operating system on the hard drive (for example, IO.SYS) is written to the hard disk only at the end of the recovery operation. If a user inadvertently attempts to start the operating system before the recovery operating is complete, the operating system will not boot until the recovery process is complete and the required file is written to the appropriate directory (usually the root directory) on the hard drive.

Abstract: While restoring a preload image to a hard drive, the ability to boot the operating system on the hard drive is inhibited until the recovery process is complete. In one embodiment, a file that must be loaded in order to boot the operating system on the hard drive (for example, IO.SYS) is written to the hard disk only at the end of the recovery operation. If a user inadvertently attempts to start the operating system before the recovery operating is complete, the operating system will not boot until the recovery process is complete and the required file is written to the appropriate directory (usually the root directory) on the hard drive.

Abstract: The character patterns of all kana (Japanese characters) or kanji (Chinese characters) to be displayed are divided substantially into halves in a horizontal direction (or alternately in a vertical direction) and stored in memory. Image codes corresponding to the divided character patterns thus obtained are assigned thereto, so that an image code is assigned to a corresponding portion of a kana or kanji. Accordingly, when the kana or kanji is displayed, the two image codes (character codes corresponding to the left and right sides of the same character) which are assigned to the above described character patterns are written to addresses of a buffer corresponding to the location on the screen the kana or kanji is to be displayed. Thus, the two portions of the kanji to be displayed are displayed in adjacent areas on the screen of a display device.