Patent attributes
A computing system and method has a pre-boot operating system stored in an encrypted form according to a first key on a first portion of a non-volatile data storage drive and a main operating system stored in an encrypted form according to a second key on a second portion of the non-volatile data storage drive. A system built in operating system (BIOS) chip is configured to initiate a first authentication process, obtain the first key after successful completion of the first authentication process, load and decrypt the pre-boot operating system into dynamic memory, and cause the pre-boot operating system to run. The pre-boot operating system is configured to initiate a second authentication process, obtain the second key after successful completion of the second authentication process, load and decrypt the main operating system into dynamic memory, and cause the main operating system to run.
