System and method for remotely creating a physical memory snapshot over a serial bus

A two-computer crash dump scenario in which a snapshot of the physical memory of a target computer is extracted and stored by a host computer over an IEEE 1394 compliant serial bus. A host computer debugger remotely stops execution of the core operating system of the target computer. Handshake information is then provided from the target computer core operating system to the host computer debugger. The handshake information specifies, among other information, one or more address ranges at which physical memory is present on the target computer. The host computer debugger then directly accesses the physical memory of the target computer system over the IEEE 1394 bus in accordance with the handshake information. The host computer then stores the contents of the physical memory of the target computer system. Execution of the core operating system of the target system can then be resumed, and the core operating system of the target computer can be debugged in parallel with the resumed execution of the target computer core operating system.