System and method for data protection on a storage medium

1. A method for data protection comprising:

(a) mounting a virtual storage that combines a full access temporary storage and a local READ-only portion of a main storage, wherein the READ-only portion represents a protected area of the main storage that is frozen during a backup process, and wherein the temporary storage is initially empty and is written to incrementally;

(b) generating a bitmap for blocks of the virtual storage;

(c) redirecting virtual storage write requests to the temporary storage, wherein the redirection is performed on a block level, and providing an on-screen indicator, to the user, of the redirecting;

(d) marking, in the bitmap, blocks of the virtual storage corresponding to blocks of the temporary storage that are being written to;

(e) redirecting, to the READ-only portion, read requests for unmarked blocks;

(f) redirecting, to the temporary storage, read requests for marked blocks;

(g) upon an acceptance of a state of the virtual storage, merging the temporary storage with unmarked blocks of the READ-only portion of the main storage, to form an integral storage; and

(h) upon a rejection of a state of the virtual storage, terminating the redirecting,

wherein an initial state of the main storage is used by multiple operating systems.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein step (g) comprises copying marked blocks from the temporary storage to the main storage and unmarking corresponding blocks in the bitmap.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising creating a plurality of virtual storages, all of which use the same READ-only portion.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein blocks of temporary storage are “write-once-read-many times” blocks.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising creating the temporary storage on any of a hard disk drive, an optical drive, a tape and a network storage element.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising assigning free blocks of the main storage as blocks of the temporary storage.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the main storage and the temporary storage are located on the same computer system.

8. A method for protection of contents of a main storage, the method comprising:

(a) modifying, in an operating system, a main storage driver to act as a virtual storage driver, wherein the virtual storage driver redirects virtual storage access requests to one of the local main storage that is frozen during a backup process and a temporary storage and wherein the temporary storage is initially empty and is written to incrementally;

(b) generating a bitmap for blocks of the virtual storage, and redirecting, to the temporary storage, write requests, wherein the redirection is performed on a block level based on the bitmap, and providing an on-screen indicator, to the user, of the redirecting;

(c) redirecting read requests directed to modified blocks of the virtual storage to corresponding blocks of the temporary storage;

(d) upon an acceptance of a state of the virtual storage, merging temporary storage to the main storage; and

(e) upon a rejection of a state of the virtual storage, terminating read and write requests redirection.

9. The method of claim 8 ,

wherein the bitmap identifies blocks of the main storage subject to modification; and further comprising

redirecting read requests directed to the blocks indicated in the bitmap as corresponding to blocks of the temporary storage.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein step (d) comprises copying marked blocks of the temporary storage to corresponding blocks of the main storage.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the copying is a background process.

12. The method of claim 8 , wherein step (e) further comprising at least partially removing the virtual storage driver.

13. The method of claim 8 , further comprising hiding the temporary storage from the operating system.

14. The method of claim 8 , wherein the main storage and the temporary storage share partitions of the same physical storage drive.

15. The method of claim 8 , wherein free blocks of a physical storage drive are used as blocks of the temporary storage.

16. The method of claim 8 , wherein used blocks of the physical storage drive are used as the main storage.

17. The method of claim 8 , wherein blocks are assigned to the temporary storage in succession.

18. The method of claim 8 , wherein the virtual storage represents a partition of the disk drive, and wherein blocks of the temporary storage are recognized by the operating system as read-only blocks.

19. The method of claim 8 , wherein the temporary storage is implemented as any of a RAM, a DVD-ROM, a flash disk, a disk partition, a distributed storage, a network drive, and a hard disk drive.

20. The method of claim 8 , wherein blocks of temporary storage are “write-once-read-many times” blocks.

21. A system for data protection comprising:

(a) a virtual storage that combines a full access temporary storage and a local READ-only portion of a main storage, wherein the READ-only portion represents a protected area of the main storage that is frozen during a backup process, and wherein the temporary storage is initially empty and is written to incrementally;

(b) a bitmap representing blocks of the virtual storage, wherein blocks of the virtual storage corresponding to blocks of the temporary storage that are being written to are marked in the bitmap;

(c) a virtual storage driver that redirects virtual storage write requests to the temporary storage, wherein the redirection is performed on a block level, and providing an indicator, to the user, of the redirecting, redirects to the READ-only portion read requests for unmarked blocks, and redirects to the temporary storage read requests for marked blocks;

(d) wherein, upon an acceptance of a state of the virtual storage, the temporary storage is merged with unmarked blocks of the READ-only portion of the main storage, to form an integral storage; and

(e) wherein, upon a rejection of a state of the virtual storage, the redirecting is terminated, and

(f) wherein an initial state of the main storage is used by multiple operating systems.

22. The system of claim 21 , wherein the main storage and the executable for implementing the functionality of the system are located on the same physical computer system.

23. A computer program product for data protection, the computer program product comprising a computer useable storage medium having computer program logic recorded thereon that controls at least one processor, the computer program logic comprising:

(a) computer program code means that mounts a virtual storage that combines a full access temporary storage and a local READ-only portion of a main storage, wherein the READ-only portion represents a protected area of the main storage that is frozen during a backup process, and wherein the temporary storage is initially empty and is written to incrementally;

(b) computer program code means that generates a bitmap for blocks of the virtual storage;

(c) computer program code means that redirects virtual storage write requests to the temporary storage, wherein the redirection is performed on a block level, and providing an on-screen indicator, to the user, of the redirecting;

(d) computer program code means that marks, in the bitmap, blocks of the virtual storage corresponding to blocks of the temporary storage that are being written to;

(e) computer program code means that redirects, to the READ-only portion, read requests for unmarked blocks;

(f) computer program code means that redirects, to the temporary storage, read requests for marked blocks;

(g) computer program code means that, upon an acceptance of a state of the virtual storage, merges the temporary storage with unmarked blocks of the READ-only portion of the main storage, to form an integral storage; and

(h) computer program code means that, upon a rejection of a state of the virtual storage, terminates the redirecting.