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H XHDI - eXtended HardDisk Interface (Version 1.30)

The purpose of the XHDI (`eXtended HardDisk Interface') specification is to enhance the communication with drivers for block-oriented mass storage media. We started with the thought of creating a uniform interface for some additional driver features. One goal was to create a standard method for virtual memory systems to lock the eject button of Syquest hard disk drives (you don't want the user to remove the cartridge with the swap partition).

After further discussion, it was clear that the information available via the PUN_INFO structure just wasn't enough and that the missing information should be available with the help of this XHDI specification. Reasons:

For these reasons, the purpose of the XHDI specification is:

The XHDI specification doesn't define new driver features - it should be easy to retrofit it into existing drivers.

See also:
XHDI cookie   XHDI terminology   Partition types   Arbitration   XHDI functions   SCSI specification



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