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Well I get requests from UK, Germany, and all over all the time. They want all data and information in logs and various places. They also ask how to decode and use several patented issues around ATA host side. They will supply the patent documents, and ask how to use the technology. The funny part is there are lots of open secrets in the patent office about ATA, which are not in the spec. I forgot where they are and who owns them, but have fun searching. Cheers, Andre Hedrick LAD Storage Consulting Group On Thu, 14 Aug 2003, Hale Landis wrote: > This message is from the T13 list server. > > > I have commented on this before at T13 meetings but it seems to > becoming more and more common all the time. If I were in the disk > drive business I think I would be concerned. > > I get inquiries all the time from people that are "in the data > recovery or repair business", usually they are outside the USA, > asking about reading/writing the hidden data on a disk drive - the > drive's zone and defect tables and the drive's firmware. > > It seems there are web sites that document how to "unlock" access to > this data on most disk drives. I hear there are full descriptions of > the zone and defect table layouts for most disk drives at these web > sites. And I hear that even disassembly listings of some drive's > firmware can be found. > > If I were making disk drives I'm not sure I would want these people, > who may have good intentions, to be reading and writing this > information. But mostly I would not want some virus that destroyed > this data to pop up one day. > > As I have said many times before, I don't understand why the commands > that would allow access to this drive data is even in a shipping > drive's firmware. > > Anyway, if you are a device manufacturer you may want to be concerned > about this issue before it becomes a big problem. > > Hale > > > > *** Hale Landis *** www.ata-atapi.com *** > > >
