Exabyte VXA-2, Product Manual, Page: 56 / 90

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Chapter 7 O
VERVIEW OF THE
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OMMUNICATION
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NTERFACE
Table 7-2 Supported ATA commands
ATA Command Hex Code Description
NOP 00h No operation. The tape drive responds as it does to an
unrecognized command. It sets Abort in the Error register, Error
in the Status register, clears BSY in the Status register, and asserts
INTRQ.
Read Sectors 20h When the tape drive receives an ATA Read command, it writes
the ATAPI signature into the Task File. This signature identifies the
tape drive as an ATAPI device. After writing the signature, the
tape drive returns an Aborted Command error.
Device Reset 08h Reset ATA device identified by the DRV bit.
Execute Device
Diagnostic
90h Perform internal diagnostic tests. This command initiates the tape
drive’s internal diagnostic tests. The DRV bit is ignored. If two
devices are present on the IDE bus, both devices execute the
command.
Packet Command A0h The command being sent is in the form of a Packet command.
The SCSI commands supported by the tape drive are transferred
from the initiator to the tape drive in the form of Packet
commands.
Identify Packet
Device
A1h Receive parameter information from the tape drive.The ATAPI
Identify Device command enables the host to receive parameter
information from the tape drive.
Flush Cache E7h Flush the write cache. This command is used by the host to
instruct the tape drive to flush the write cache. All data cached is
written to tape. The BSY bit remains set to one until all data has
been successfully written or an error occurs. The tape drive uses
all error recovery methods available to ensure the data is written
successfully. Flushing the write cache may take several seconds to
complete, depending upon the amount of data to be flushed and
the success of the operation.
Identify Device ECh When the tape drive receives an Identify Device command, it
writes the ATAPI signature into the Task File. This signature
identifies the tape drive as an ATAPI device. After writing the
signature, the tape drive returns an Aborted Command error.
Set Features EFh Set parameters for the device. The Set Features command is used
to set some interface timing and protocol modes. These modes
are set at initialization by many BIOSes. The content of the ATAPI
Features register indicates the function to be performed.