E00133r2 - Sept 30, 2000
D1367 Letter Ballot Comments Resolution
Letter ballot comments accompanying Maxtor yes vote to forward T13/1367D revision 2.
1m. Pages preceding the table of contents should not have page numbers. The first page of the table of contents should be page number i.
a. OK
2m. On the title page numbered iv, remove the ? after “American National Standard For Information Systems”.
a. I don’t have a ?
3m. On the title page numbered iv, change “American National Standard For Information Systems” to “American
a. Change For to for
4m. On page numbered v, in the patent statement why do I want to see clause 2?
a. I will incorporate the patent statement from Gene M.
5m. On page vi, include only clause X and X.X subclauses in the table of contents.
a. I will set the TOC to only 2 levels
6m. On page viii, need table of tables.
a. Will add a list of tables
7m. On page 1, remove ? following “American National Standard for Information Systems” and “Information Technology
a. OK
8m. Page 1, Scope, second paragraph, second sentence, should say “The SET MAX command is defined in NCITS ……”
a. Will remove the extra words
9m. Page 1, Scope, fourth paragraph, ?? should be bulleted items. First bulleted item shouls end with “;”, the second with a period.
a. OK
10m. Page 1, Scope, the note should begin “NOTE ˜ “ and not be bolded.
a. OK
11m. Page 2, 2.1 Approved references, can a TR be a normative reference?
a. Yes
12m. Page 3, 3.2.4 Boot device, the end of the second sentence should be “the initial program load device (floppy drive, hard drive, etc.).
a. I will fix the parens
13m. Page 4, 3.2.10 INT 13h, do not capitalize “floppy and hard drives”.
a. OK
14m. Page 4, 3.2.11 INT 40, should be “3.2.11 INT 40h”.
a. I will add the h’s throughout for hex numbers
15m. Page 4, 3.2.13 LBA, doesn’t define LBA.
a. OK, but rejected. This matches the definition in EDD and is very close to ATA/ATPI-5
16m. Page 4, 3.2.14 NV memory, should say “Non-Volatile memory is memory that retains its content even when the
a. OK
17m. Page 4, 3.2.15 O/S, tells me where it comes from but not what it is.
a. OK, how about: An operating system is the initial program that is loaded from an IPL device when that device is selected for booting
18m. Page 4, 3.2.18 Host protected area is not in alphabetical order.
a. Will put things in alphabetical order
19m. Page 5, 3.2.21 MAX Address is not in alphabetical order. Should be “Max address”
a. OK
20m. Page 5, 3.2.22 Standard Floppy DRIVE should be Standard floppy drive.
a. OK
21m. Page 5, 3.2.24 Trusted code, what is a Conventional Area?
a. Change conventional to user
22m. Page 5, 3.2.25 User area, MAX Address should be max address.
a. OK
23m. Page 5, clause 4 Overview, globally change MAX Address to max address.
a. Good idea
24m. Page 6, clause 4 Overview, last sentence of the second paragraph. I don’t believe that this sentence is correct.
a. I agree, let’s delete the sentence
25m. Page 6, clause 5 Initialization requirements, fourth sentence should say “Following the BEER entry may be the optional BEER Directory of Services, which is a table with 64 byte entries.”
a. OK
26m. Page 6, 5.1 Diagnostic services, the third sentence should read “In some circumstances such as a faulty cable or host bus, accessing a failing device may reduce the chance of data recovery using special procedures”.
a. OK
27m. Page 6, 5.1.1 Built In Boot Device Integrity Check, what does the second sentence of the second paragraph say? Are you saying that the SMART READ DATA command returns a status byte that indicates the results of a self-test?
a. Delete the second sentence
28m. Page 6, 5.1.3 Recommended check sequence, change ˜ bullets to ˜ bullets.
a. Global change bullets to dashes
29m. Page 7, 5.1.3 Recommended check sequence, fifth from last bullet, “Unlock Set Max” should be “SET MAX”
a. OK
30m. Page 8, 5.2.1 Offset 0-1, doesn’t this go in the last sector on the device?
a. Change in a sector to in the sector
31m. Page 9, 5.2.8 Offset 22-29, should say “This field is mandatory. On ATA devices, the contents of this field matches the contents of IDENTIFY DEVICE words [61:60] if these words are valid. This value shall be greater than or equal to the product of Reported Cylinders (C), Reported Heads (H), and Reported Sectors (S). If the IDENTIFY DEVICE words [61:60] are not valid this field shall be the product of Reported Cylinders (C), Reported Heads (H), and Reported Sectors (S). In the case of an empty removable media device, this shall be the max value the device supports.
a. OK
32m. Page 10, 5.2.13 Offset 46-53, in the second sentence, spell out “equal to or greater than”.
a. OK
33m. Page 10, 5.2.15 Offset 56-57, is Julian date zero based? Also needs to state “when the record was last updated”.
a. Rejected
34m. Page 10, 5.2.19 Offset 72-79, what is the flag word?
a. You are right, this should read capabilities word
35m. Page 10, 5.2.22 Offset 85, what specification?
a. Change the word specification to standard
b. Change to: This is the PARTIES revision level used to describe the BEER sector
36m. Page 11, table 2, where is the format of a string described?
a. In the text (section 5.3.6)
b. Change the table to remove “string” type and add byte
37m. Page 11, 5.3.1 Offset 0, should say “The directory flags are a bit map, that enables several different boot options and
a. OK
38m. Page 12, 5.3.2 Offset 2-9, should say “This is the address of the first sector in the Service Area. When the BIOS boots this service area, sectors are loaded starting at this address.
a. OK
39m. Page 12, 5.3.3 Offset 10-17, should say “This is the number of sectors allocated to the service area.”
a. OK
40m. Page 12, 5.3.4 Offset 18-21, should say “This is the number of sectors the BIOS loads to boot the system.”
a. OK
41m. Page 12, 5.3.5 Offset 22-25, the first sentence should say “This is the 64-bit linear host memory address.
a. OK
42m. Page 12, 5.3.8 Offset 62-63, delete the first sentence.
a. OK
43m. Page 12, Clause 6 Runtime services, Last sentence should say “Runtime services provided by a system BIOS for operating mass storage devices are beyond the scope of this standard (see BIOS Enhanced Disk Drive Services (EDD) T13/1386D).
a. OK
44m. Page 16, 6.10 Get Drive Change Status, the sentence under the table should say “Since this is a hard disk and a floppy drive is being emulated, this function shall always return 0.
a. OK
45m. Page 17, 6.14 Check Extensions Present, second sentence after the table should say, “See BIOS Enhanced Disk Drive Services (EDD) T13/1386D for a full definition.” The third sentence should say “If CX is set to zero on return then INT 13h FN 48h is the only function that shall be supported.”
a. OK
46m. Page 18, 6.15 Get Drive Parameters, the first sentence under the table should say “This function is mandatory regardless of the interface subset that is supported.”
a. OK
47m. Page 18, 6.15 Get Drive Parameters, table 3, Offset 0 description should say “Result Buffer Size, shall be 26 bytes or greater. The caller sets this value to the maximum buffer size. If the length of this buffer is less than 30 bytes, this function does not return the pointer to the Enhanced Disk Drive structure (EDD). If the Result Buffer Size is 30 bytes or greater on entry, it shall be set to 30 bytes on exit. If the Result Buffer Size is between 26 bytes and 29 bytes, it shall be set to 26 bytes on exit. If the Result Buffer Size is less than 26 bytes on entry an error is returned.
a. I will insert the text we agreed on for EDD…
48m. Page 18, 6.15 Get Drive Parameters, table 3, Offset 2 description should say “Information Flags In the following table, a bit set to one indicates that the feature is available; a bit cleared to zero indicates the feature is not available and shall operate in a manner consistent with the conventional INT 13h interface.”
a. OK
49m. Page 18, 6.15 Get Drive Parameters, table 3, Offset 26 description third sentence should say “This field points to a temporary buffer that the BIOS may re-use on subsequent INT 13h calls.”
a. OK
Quantum’s comments for the letter ballot of T13/1367D, rev 2 (PARTIES)
1q. Global - Is Times New Roman an acceptable font? All other draft standards for T13 and T10 that I’ve seen have been Arial or
a. I will change it all to Arial
2q. front page (PDF page 1), header: I’d recommend that you make this have a “different first page” so that the header doesn’t appear on the front page.
a. If you want…
3q. front page (PDF page 1), reference number: I know that this number will ultimately be assigned by NCITS, but it surely won’t be “199x”.
a. OK, I will set it up for Y10k
4q. front page (PDF page 1), page number: I don’t think this should be page i. I think page i should be the first page of the table of contents.
a. I will fix the page numbering to start with i on the TOC.
5q. Global (first occurrence, PDF page 4, first sentence of the Abstract) Replace “drive” with “device”, as appropriate. Each occurrence of “drive” will have to be checked as I found many occurrences that may be correct.
a. OK, these are littered throughout. If the group wants to trust me I will
6q. PDF page 4, Abstract: I don’t understand the last sentence (“This standard provides these capabilities using the existing ATA/ATAPI-4 command set, therefore it does not require changes to existing devices that support the optional SET MAX ADDRESS command.”) Does the author intend to say that devices don’t have to support the subcommands for this command code (SET MAX PASSWORD, et al.) first defined in ATA/ATAPI-5? This should be clarified.
a. Nuke the sentence
7q. Page v (PDF page 5), CAUTION: Change "holder's" to "holders" to represent plural form of noun.
a. I will insert the latest patent wording…
8q. page vii (PDF page 7), Table of Contents, 5.2 The Boot Engineering Extension Record (BEER): The first occurrence of the letters B, E, E, and R in the title words are in a different font size. I think that this should be changed so that the font size is consistent. Because of the word processing program used to generate this document, this actually should be fixed in the body of the document where it occurs.
a. I will fix it
9q. Global (first occurrence page vii (PDF page 7), Table of Contents, 5.2 The Boot Engineering Extension Record (BEER)): The first letters of BEER are underlined. I don’t think underling is allowed in NCITS standards. If not, all underlining should be deleted.
a. OK
10q. Page ix (PDF page 9), Foreword: In the second sentence change "In the vast majority…use" to "The vast majority…uses" to correct the grammar.
a. OK
11q. Global (first occurrence on page x (PDF page 10), Foreword, paragraph one): The term “specification” is used in the third sentence. This should be changed to “standard” throughout the document as appropriate.
a. OK, I will change it throughout
12q. page x (PDF page 10), Foreword: At the time this document was submitted for letter ballot, Dan Colegrove had resigned from T13 and Mark Evans was the secretary.
a. Gene will provide a new membership list
13q. Global (first occurrence, page 1, PDF page 12): It appears as if some of the characters did not translate properly from the Word document to the PDF document. At least dashes and bullets appear as one or two question marks in the PDF document.
a. OK
14q. page 1 (PDF page 12), Scope, first paragraph: I’m uncomfortable with the way the first two sentences read. For example, I might consider one to be an “unacceptably large number” of returned drives. I would recommend that these sentences be reworded to be, “Analysis of hard disk drives returned to their manufacturers as “defective” devices has determined that the majority of these drives are without defects and fully functional. Further analysis reveals that, for a significant percentage of the returned drives that did have defects, the defects were exclusively the result of damage incurred during shipment back to the manufacturer.”
a. Move the first 3 sentences to the beginning of the forward
15q. page 1 (PDF page 12), Scope, second paragraph, first sentence: Is BIOS firmware implemented “on” a disk drive? I would have thought it was implemented “for” a disk drive.
a. Point taken
16q. Page 1 (PDF page 12), 1 Scope: Sentence 5, beginning with "The purpose" should lose its only comma to improve grammar.
a. OK
17q. Page 1 (PDF page 12), 1 Scope, Note: Add to first sentence of note to make sentence read, "This standard only describes BIOS implementations using x86 processor architectures."