Abstract: A method of incremental backup of a storage device includes reading descriptors of logical storage units of the storage device; comparing the descriptors of the logical storage units of the storage device with descriptors of archived logical storage units; for logical storage units of the storage device whose descriptors are not identical to the descriptors of the archived logical storage units, backing up contents of physical storage units that correspond to those logical storage units of the storage device; and, for logical storage units of the storage device whose descriptors are identical, performing a comparison step to check if these logical storage units need to be backed up. The logical storage units can be files. The comparison step can be, e.g., (1) bit-wise comparison of the logical blocks, (2) comparing control sums of the logical blocks, and (3) comparing log files relating to the logical storage units The physical storage units can be blocks. The descriptors can be, e.g.

Abstract: A method of restoring a storage device includes creating an image of the storage device of a computer system; during execution of a boot loader, starting an initialization application that at least partially restores to the storage device, operating system data from the image; modifying a disk driver of the operating system to form a driver that redirects unexecutable storage device read requests to the image; rebooting the computer system using the at least partially restored operating system data; and restoring unaltered portions of remaining data from the image as a background process.

Abstract: A system for data backup includes a storage device, a backup storage device, and an intermediate storage device. Backup procedure is performed on-line and copies data blocks from the storage device into the backup storage device. When a write command is directed to a data storage block identified for backup that has not yet been backed up, the identified data storage block is copied from the storage device to the intermediate storage device, the write command is executed on the identified data storage block from the storage device, and the data storage block is copied from the intermediate storage device to the backup storage device. In case of an error accessing a block on the storage device, the block is marked as invalid. The intermediate storage device can be external to a file system of a computer that includes the storage device, or can be located in the storage device, or can be a separate partition of the storage device, or can be a file within a file system.