Re: [gentoo-user] Re: [Waaay OT] Defrag tool for windoze

[BRM]

----- Original Message ----

> From: Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com>
> To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
> Cc: Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@×××××.com>
> Apparently, though unproven, at 17:34 on Tuesday 16 November 2010, Grant
> Edwards did opine thusly:
> > On 2010-11-16, J. Roeleveld <joost@××××××××.org> wrote:
> >  >> spinrite claims to make the head do other things than what the  drive
> > >> firmware makes it do.
> >
> > I'm afraid I'll  have to call bullshit on that.  I don't see how some
> > bit of PC  software can make a drive head move.  The firmware on the
> > drive  controller board is the only thing that can make the head move.
> > Does  spinrite claim they _replace_ the drive firmware with their own
> > custom  version?
>
> Firmware is nothing more than high-level software that wraps  low-level
> commands on the drive. High and low are to be taken here within  the context of
>
> a drive and it's controls, so don't be thinking it's on the  same level as
> fopen()
>
>
> SOMETHING makes the head move. That  something is the servos, and they are
> under software control (how could it  be otherwise?) If the registers and
> commands that control that can be  exposed, fine control is possible. The
> firmware does not itself define the  only things the head can do, in the same
> way that a file system does nto  define the only things that can be written to

> a disk

While I am no hard drive expert - I would suppose that only the firmware would 
have
access to the registers and commands that actually control the internals of the
hard drive; though it could be possible to utilize some lesser published 
functionality
in the firmware, I would find it hard to believe that they would allow the 
internals
of the hard drive to be controlled by anything other then their own software 
(e.g. the firmware).

The primary responsibility of the firmware is to act as the control software and
present the software interfaces that are desired - e.g. support the commands 
recieved
via the hardware bus interface (e.g. PATA, SATA, etc.).

There are probably some extra functions there for diagnostic purposes, but they 
are likely
to be things only known by the manufacturer, things you could only expect 
software from
the manufacturer to support or even possibly be aware of. In such case you 
wouldn't be
bypassing the firmware - just using it in a slightly different, unpublished, 
manufacturer-only
mode - user beware - e.g. firmware update.

Thus I'd have to agree with the BS-call.
 
Again, I am no hard drive expert.

$0.02

Ben