[ECOS] IDE + fatfs issues

Jürgen Lambrecht J.Lambrecht@televic.com
Fri Sep 3 07:00:00 GMT 2010


  On 16/06/2008 20:58, Frank Pagliughi wrote:
> Hey All
>
> I'm revisiting my attempt to read a CompactFlash card using IDE/fatfs, 
> and am still looking at these same issues...
>
> David Brennan wrote:
>> I have a couple of questions about the implementation "rules" that are
>> checked on both IDE and fatfs "devices".
>>
>> IDE:
>> On or about line 372 of ide_disk.c within function ide_disk_init()
>> after identifying the disk, the "Type" is verified:
>>     if (((ide_idData->general_conf>>8)&0x1f)!=2) {
>>         diag_printf("IDE device %d:%d is not a hard disk!\n",
>>                     info->port, info->chan);
>>         return false;
>>     }
> Looking at ATA specs, even going back a few years, it appears that the 
> bits used to make this test are considered "retired". Therefore this 
> test appears to be invalid and should be removed.
Could be.
For Compact Flash support, we just added an extra check to be 4, and it 
works already for many years now for many types of CF cards:

     //JL: standard CF has 0x848A ID, but not all types
     if ( (((ide_idData->general_conf>>8)&0x1f)!=2) &&
          (((ide_idData->general_conf>>8)&0x1f)!=4) ) {
         diag_printf("IDE device %d:%d is not a hard disk or compact 
flash card!\n",

(maybe I should mail a patch?)
>
>> fatfs:
>> On or about line 1885 of fatfs_supp.c within function fatfs_init()
>> after reading the boot record, a number of fields are validated:
>>     // Check some known boot record values
>>     if (0x29 != boot_rec.ext_sig       ||
>>         0x55 != boot_rec.exe_marker[0] ||
>>         0xAA != boot_rec.exe_marker[1])
>>         return EINVAL;
>>
>> I believe the first test is not always valid. On my Compact Flash
>> card, formatted with FreeDOS v0.9 beta, this field is 0x00. According
>> to Microsoft's documentation for fatfs, Windows NT requires this to be
>> either 0x28 or 0x29. I found other documentation that states that if
>> it is 0x29, then the next 3 fields are valid, but 0x00 was also valid.
>> As a temporary fix, I just hacked out the first check. I can submit a
>> "true" patch for this if requested. But I thought I would look for
>> some opinions first.
> To me it appears that the code is reading the disk's MBR and *not* the 
> FAT boot sector of the first partition. For a hard drive, doesn't the 
> code need to read the first sector of the drive (the MBR), parse the 
> partition table contained therein, then read in the sector indicated 
> by the partition table? Or am I reading this wrong?
You are right, see my next mail.
Kind regards,
>
> - Frank
>


-- 
Jürgen Lambrecht
R&D Associate
Tel: +32 (0)51 303045    Fax: +32 (0)51 310670
http://www.televic-rail.com
Televic Rail NV - Leo Bekaertlaan 1 - 8870 Izegem - Belgium
Company number 0825.539.581 - RPR Kortrijk



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