Accessing high capacity storage devices

Details Accessing high capacity storage devices Accessing high capacity storage devices

1997-12-15

2000-10-24

Cabeca, John W.

Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory

Storage accessing and control

Memory configuring

711 4, 711111, 711112, 711170, G06F 1200

Patent

active

061382221

ABSTRACT:
A computer system includes a non-removable disk drive that has a capacity that may exceed 7.875 GB. The computer system generally includes a processor, a disk drive controller, a display, an input device, and a non-volatile memory device that includes firmware that is executed during system initialization. The storage capacity of the drive is reported by the drive in terms of numbers of cylinders, sectors, and heads during system initialization. In response, the firmware informs the operating system of the capacity of the drive. The firmware translates the reported cylinder and head numbers. If the reported capacity of the drive is equal to or greater than 4,032 gigabytes, the firmware limits the number of heads reported by the drive to a predetermined value. In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the capacity reported by the drive is compared to a threshold value. If the reported capacity is less than the threshold value, the firmware informs the operating system of the highest head number reported by the drive. If, however, the reported capacity is greater than or equal to the threshold value, the firmware reconfigures the drive to use a number of heads that is less than the number of heads the drive initially reported. In the latter situation (capacity greater than the threshold value) the computer's operating system and firmware preferably implement a service to permit access to the drive's full capacity. Another aspect of the invention permits a computer's operating system that cannot access the fall capacity of a drive greater than 7.875 GB to fully access the first 7.875 GB of the drive by limiting the number of cylinders to 16,383 cylinders.

REFERENCES:
patent: 5721952 (1998-02-01), Lin et al.
patent: 5745115 (1998-04-01), Purple et al.
patent: 5757568 (1998-05-01), Greenberg et al.
"Information Technology-Enhanced BIOS Services For Disk Drives", Working Draft, T13, 1226DT, Revision 7, Oct. 23 1997.
Information Technology--Enhanced BIOS Services For Disk Drives, Working Draft, T13, 1226DT, REvision 7, Oct. 23, 1997.

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