Origin of hard drive parameters

[jdow]

From: "stheg olloydson" <stheg_olloydson at yahoo.com>
> 
> On 9 Sep 2006 14:54:09 -0000 ihilt wrote:
> 
>>On Wednesday 06 September 2006 7:54 pm, jdow wrote:
>>
>>> >> Ok. Maybe the better question is: in either case, C/H/S or
> LBA mode,
>>> >> where are these parameters stored?
>>
>>> They flat out are not stored anywhere. There is a standard
> algorithm
>>> published by the VESA people, I believe, that provides the
> data for
>>> all SCSI drives and modern IDE/ATA/SATA drives.
>>
>>Do you know the name of this standard or where I can get it?
>>
>>Ian Graeme Hilt
> 
> Actually, the stardard is created by the T13 Technical Committee
> of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology
> Standards (INCITS), formerly the Accredited Standards Committee
> X3, Information Technology. Its standards are published by ANSI.
> The one you are looking for is ANSI INCITS 397-2005 AT
> Attachment - 7 with Packet Interface. You can download a pdf
> from techstreet.com for $30.00US. Just search for 397-2005. 
> You can also get a free copy of a working draft of a standard
> withdrawn in 2002, X3.298-1996, from t13.org. While the
> information you are looking is unlikely to have changed between
> 1996 and 2005, you are in a better position to weigh the benefit
> to your project of saving $30.00US versus using possibly
> horribly wrong information. (It is a _working draft_ from 1996,
> after all.)

It's probably cheaper to read the code for the GNU BIOS project
or for things like fdisk. It should be present in both places.

{^_-}