README - WDTBLCHK (C) Copyright 1994-95, Western Digital Corporation PROGRAM SUMMARY: This program reports the number of drives physically detected, the number of drives defined by the BIOS, and the characteristics of the drive parameter table for each drive detected. This program was written for OEMs and end users. OEMs can use this program to verify BIOS drive parameter table compatibility for supporting IDE drives greater than 528 MB. End users can use this program to report drive configuration information to Western Digital Technical Support personnel over the phone when discussing disk drive related issues. TO RUN THE PROGRAM: To run the program, type WDTBLCHK at the DOS prompt. TO QUIT THE PROGRAM: To quit the program, hit ESC. To scroll through the different screens, any of the following keys can be used: PGUP, PGDN, HOME, END, ENTER, TAB, BACKSPACE. At the end of the program, the user is asked if a log file should be created. The user can respond with Y for YES, or N or ESC for NO. COMMAND LINE OPTIONS: -L Causes a log file to be created. No information is shown on the screen. LOG FILE: When quitting the program, the user is given the option to store the results to log file WDTBLCHK.LOG. This log file contains the same information displayed on the screen. ERROR LEVELS Always 0. DRIVES SUPPORTED: All AT-IDE interface drives. ADDITIONAL PROGRAM INFORMATION: WDTBLCHK does not change any drive or system settings so this program can safely be run on any system. WDTBLCHK only issues Identify (direct I/O) and Read Verify (INT 13) commands to the drives. SUMMARY OF INFORMATION REPORTED BY THIS PROGRAM: DRIVES PHYSICALLY DETECTED - Number of drives found at primary and secondary baseports. A count in the range 0-4. DRIVES REPORTED BY INT 13 FUNCTION 8 - A count in the range 0-4. DRIVE INFO: Drive model, firmware, cyls, heads, spt reported by Identify command for each drive. INT 13 INFO: Drive cyls, heads, spt, and size for each drive. The drive size is reported in MB (megabytes), where 1 MB equals 1,000,000 bytes. INT 41/46 INFO: Logical cyls, heads, and spt. Drive cyls, heads, and spt (drive values only valid for Enhanced Drive Parameter Tables). Signature byte (A in upper nibble indicates enhanced table). Checksum (only required for enhanced tables - reported as valid or invalid. Enhanced Table: NO or YES (YES if signature byte upper nibble = A). TRANSLATE MODE FOR EACH DRIVE: One of the following messages is reported for each drive: DRIVE NOT ACTIVE - drive not active according to INT 13. NO TRANSLATION - no drive parameter translation detected. LBA - BIOS is performing translation using LBA addressing. CHS TO CHS - BIOS is performing translation using C/H/S addressing. REVISION HISTORY: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- rev 1.00, 6/8/94, dms Initial release. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- rev 1.10, 6/21/94, dms Change translation descriptions: NOW: WAS: No Translation Direct CHS To CHS Other ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- rev 1.20, 8/10/94, dms Added -L option to create log file without showing info on screen. Fixed bug so INT13 drive count is shown as 4 instead of 0. Added display of drive serial numbers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- rev 1.30, 5/23/95, dms Fix bug - Now shows model info instead of garbage on IBM Pentium. Also shows values of 0 for Drive Cyls Heads and SPT for INT 41/46 if the table is not an enhanced table. Detects drive from 4 baseports instead of 2. Uses different numbering scheme for displaying screens. Shows section and subsection instead of just page number. This change was needed since the number of pages varies based on the number of drives present. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- rev 1.40, 9/22/95, dms Fix bug - Correctly show number of heads when heads are > 127. Fix bug - Correctly show drive size in bytes when size is > 2.1 GBytes. Fix bug - Sets log filename to WDTBLCHK.LOG instead of WDCHECK.LOG. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- rev 1.50, 10 Oct 95, dms Fix bug - Correctly show drive size in log file. Now shows drive size in MB instead of bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- rev 1.60, 2 Nov 95, dms Fix bug - No longer falsely detects drives at secondary baseport on some systems. More quickly screens secondary baseport for ATAPI devices (was sometimes taking 10 seconds before showing screen - now takes 2 seconds max). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- rev 1.70, 6 Nov 95, dms Fix bug - Finds slave drive even if master is not present. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------