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Disk drive controller accepting first commands for accessing composite drives and second commands for individual diagnostic drive control wherein commands are transparent to each other

  • US 5,530,960 A
  • Filed: 04/06/1994
  • Issued: 06/25/1996
  • Est. Priority Date: 12/17/1991
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. A method for accessing a plurality of individual physical disk drives which are part of a least one of a plurality of composite disk drives (CDDs), through a disk drive controller which is interfaced to a host computer, wherein each of said physical disk drives comprises a plurality of sectors, wherein each of said plurality of composite disk drives comprises a logical configuration of one or more of said disk drives recognizable by host software wherein the host software includes first diagnostic software and second software other than the diagnostic software, the method comprising the steps of:

  • (a.) recognizing and executing a first set of access commands recognizable by host software which conform to at lest one of said plurality of composite disk drives (CDDs) for reading and writing data between said host computer and said at least one CDD, wherein said at least one of said plurality of composite disk drives comprises only a subset of said plurality of sectors of one or more of said physical drives;

    (b.) recognizing and executing a second set of access commands, which are concerned with configuration and maintenance of said individual physical disk drives, and which do not conform to any of said plurality of CDD standards, but which conform to a standard specific to said individual physical drives, and which provide access by said host computer, through said controller, directly to said individual physical drives, wherein said second set of commands can access any of said plurality of sectors in said physical disk drives, and said second set of commands are executed by said controller in response to the diagnostic software and said second set of commands are executed transparently to the second software other than the diagnostic software;

    (c.) wherein said controller can intersperse execution of commands from said first set with execution of commands from said second set.

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