Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 08:49:17 -0800 From: Jason Dictos <jason.dictos@yosemitetech.com> To: 'Sergey 'DoubleF' Zaharchenko' <doublef@tele-kom.ru>, Jason Dictos <jason.dictos@yosemitetech.com> Cc: "''freebsd-questions@freebsd.org' '" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: Using int 13 while BSD is running Message-ID: <E50A109EE98AA049BAA09D725DB0714F01AD3BB3@mail.tapeware.com>
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> To Jason: take care not to *write* anything to the disk via int 13h. > I still don't think I understand why you are using FreeBSD for this specific purpose. Why if you just >spend time escaping from the OS? We actually _like_ protected mode, it allows us to be more flexible and our code doesn't have to be bastardized with 16 dos compilers ;). However in dos we have garanteed hard drive support via int13 (Well almost garanteed, but if an os can boot of the computer, we can access the disk), and I'm looking for the same sorta garantee in BSD. People will be using this with raid controllers, scsi hard disks, and ide drives (Server recovery), so there will be many times when the hardware running the hd requires specific support, which BSD may or may not have, point is we dont' want to manage that. Make sense? -Jason -----Original Message----- From: Sergey 'DoubleF' Zaharchenko [mailto:doublef@tele-kom.ru] Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2004 5:51 AM To: Jason Dictos Cc: Dan Nelson; ''freebsd-questions@freebsd.org' ' Subject: Re: Using int 13 while BSD is running On Tue, 9 Mar 2004 22:12:31 -0800 Jason Dictos <jason.dictos@yosemitetech.com> probably wrote: > Aren't the nodes "/dev/ad[0-9] (ide) or /dev/da[0-9] (scsi/usb)" > created by their device drivers, i.e. protected mode device drives? > That would mean that I would have to make sure that the hardware is > supported by a device driver, whereas if I had raw int 13 access I > would be garanteed access to the drive the system booted from, and any > other bios addressable device, without having to load any driver for the hardware. > > -Jason Argh, I didn't get your point first. I thought your hardware wasn't supported by int 13h, and you were trying to get FreeBSD drivers to work for you in real mode... Any real HDD's out there not supported by FreeBSD but supported by BIOS'en? Somewere around then Dan Nelson <dnelson@allantgroup.com> probably replied: > I guess it's possible, since you have to use the bios to make VESA > video calls, and they work. /sys/i386/isa/vesa.c has most of the > stuff you would need. Also see the i386_vm86() userland function; you > may not even need to mess around inside the kernel. That's v86 mode, not real mode. Sometimes it makes a difference. It depends on how that particular BIOS was written. To Jason: take care not to *write* anything to the disk via int 13h. I still don't think I understand why you are using FreeBSD for this specific purpose. Why if you just spend time escaping from the OS? -- DoubleF All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________
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