Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2000 07:02:54 +0530
Message-Id: <200007080132.HAA00918@www.midpec.com>
From: Prashant TR <tr AT eth DOT net>
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
In-reply-to: <smchd2hcnu52@corp.supernews.com> (nunnayod@mbiz.nez)
Subject: Re: direct hard drive controll?
References: <smbdmlcsnu98 AT corp DOT supernews DOT com> <200007071558 DOT VAA00953 AT midpec DOT com> <smchd2hcnu52 AT corp DOT supernews DOT com>
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> >You could do that using the BIOS calls, or access the IDE controller
> >directly (which is not a wise thing to do if you aren't familiar with
> >it). Check out the interrupt 13h in the Ralf Brown's interrupt list.
> >
> 
>  I've been looking through it and I havn't found anything about moving the
> head to a specific track... maybe Im just missing it. Im not to worried about 
> damaging the hard drives, seeing as how they are torn all to peices 
> anyways... could directly accessing the IDE controller hurt the computer?
> If someone could give me a snippet of code to send the head to track 'n'
> I'd greatly appreciate it. 
> 
>  I don't want to read any data (infact the platter will probably be removed),
> and I need the operation to be fast because I need to switch between tracks
> really really fast (to move the mirror Im gonna glue to it back and
> forth). 

The "Disk Seek" is what you're looking for. It moves the head to a
specific area without reading data. But most advanced drives don't let
you seek unncessarily unless data is actually transferred.

To access IDE drives directly, you could have a look at my "System
Information" software sources available from:

http://www.midpec.com/software.html

-- 
Prashant TR <tr AT midpec DOT com>
Web: http://www.midpec.com/