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- This file describes the Western Digital utility rd_ide.com.
-
- rd_ide.com is a simple program that interrogates a Caviar drive and reports
- relevent information about the drive's capabilities and its currently set
- features.
-
- Below is an example RD_IDE.COM screen display
-
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
- read_ide.com - Copyright (c) 1994 Western Digital Corp.
- Information for Drive C:
-
- Controller Model Number ............ = QUANTUM LP240A GM240A01X
- Drive Serial Number ................ = 142234631107
- Firmware Revision .................. = 6.3
- Number of Cylinders ................ = 723
- Number of Cylinders To Report....... = 723
- Number of Heads .................... = 13
- Sectors Per Track .................. = 51
- Bytes Per Sector ................... = 512
- Disk Buffer Size ................... = 256kb
- Read/Write Multiple Sector Count ... = 8
- Current R/W Multiple Sector Count .. = 4
- Drive Supports IORDY ............... = No
- Drive Supports LBA ................. = No
- Drive Supports DMA Types B & F ..... = Yes
-
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Following is a field by field explanation.
-
- Controller Model Number
- This is vendor specific. WD drives will show the model number that
- appears on the label.
-
- Drive Serial Number
- Self Explanatory
-
- Firmware Revision
- The revision level of the control programs contained in ROM chips
- on the controller.
-
- Number of Cylinders
- The number of logical cylinders the drive can support.
-
- Number of Cylinders To Report
- The number of cylinders the drive will say it has when interrogated
- by software in response to an Identify Drive Command. This number
- can be reduced so that software such as Windows FastDisk Device
- will accept the drive.
-
- Number of Heads
- The number of logical read/write heads.
-
- Sectors Per Track
- The number of logical sectors per track.
-
- Bytes Per Sector
- The number of bytes per sector after formatting.
-
- Disk Buffer Size
- The size, in kilo bytes, of the drive's transfer buffer
-
- Read/Write Multiple Sector Count
- The maximum number of sectors the drive will transfer in
- response to a read multiple/write multiple sector command.
-
- Current R/W Multiple Sector Count
- The current number of sectors to transfer, as set by software,
- when a read multiple or write multiple command is executed.
-
- Drive Supports IORDY
- Drive can perform hardware flow control using the bus line IORDY.
- When used, the Caviar series can transfer up to 11 Mega bytes/second.
-
- Drive Supports LBA
- Whether the drive supports Logical Block Addressing. LBA is an
- alternate way of addressing individual sectors on the drive. LBA must
- be used to break the BIOS imposed 1,024 cylinder limitation.
-
- Drive Supports DMA Types B & F
- Whether the drive supports EISA Type B DMA transfers and PCI Type F
- DMA transfers. These are special high rate DMA transfers that are not
- available on the ISA bus.
-
-
- RD_IDE.COM was designed to interrogate Western Digital Caviar drives.
- It will work on IDE drives from other manufacturers but expects to find
- data in ATA/CAMS compliant locations.
-
-
- Revision History
-
- 4/7/94 RJS First Public Release
- 4/9/94 RJS Added Currently set R/W Multiple sector count
-