Adaptec, Inc.

Tony G Kwan

Vincent J Bastiani

Guido Maffezzoni

Michael M Goshey

Yafu J Ding

Yen-Chung Lin

David A Coleman

Gilbert Chang-Tying Wu

Thanh T Bui

Kristine N Luong

Robert S Hudson

Tony Fu

John D Nguyen

Dennis M Sumners

Roger A Stoller

A peripheral device having a protocol communication chip is provided. The protocol communication chip is configured to manage communication between the peripheral device and a host computer over a serial bus. The protocol communication chip includes a bus interface and a link control and status register. The link control status register is provided for setting link parameters, and is configured to be either read or written by the host computer by the transmission of a 16 byte packet having a DataType . The 16 byte packet is an OUTDATA packet for control and an INSTART packet for status. The peripheral device is configured to receive device command information from the host computer using a DataType packet, and host computer being configured to access data resident on the peripheral devices using a DataType packet.

Methods and apparatus for implementing a device side advanced serial protocol

Disclosed is a system for establishing a communication link between a client computer and a peripheral device that is remotely networked to the client computer. The system includes a translation adapter that is networked with the client computer through a first network adapter of the translation adapter. The translation adapter includes a SCSI controller that connects to the peripheral device. The system also includes a SCSI-to-TCP/IP driver that is loaded on the client computer and is configured to detect when the translation adapter is networked to the client computer, and is further configured to generate a TCP/IP packet. In addition, the system includes a second network adapter that is connected to the client computer and configured to receive the TCP/IP packet that is generated by the SCSI-to-TCP/IP driver. The second network adapter is further configured to transmit the TCP/IP packet to the first network adapter of the translation adapter, and the translation adapter is configured to translate the TCP/IP packet into a SCSI command that is communicated to the peripheral device that is connected to the translation adapter.

System for sharing peripheral devices over a network and method for implementing the same

A host controller for enabling communication between a host computer and a device over a serial link is provided. The host controller includes a bus interface circuit that is connected to a system bus of the host computer. The host controller further includes host controller registers to enable code configuration of the host controller for operation, initialize the device, and send commands to the device. A packet generator/decoder circuit is also provided for generating poll packets to be sent to the device and for sending and receiving packets to or from the device. The host controller also has a serializer/deserializer for converting parallel data received from the bus interface circuit and to be sent over the serial link to the device into serial data and converting serial data received from the serial link to parallel data to be sent to the bus interface circuit and to the host computer.

Methods and apparatus for implementing a host side advanced serial protocol

A method for communicating data and control from a host computer to a device is provided. The method includes generating a packet at the host computer and transmitting the packet to the device. The device responding to the packet with a handshake, and the handshake includes one of an ACK, a NACK, and an ALERT. The ACK is indicative that the packet was received without errors and a next packet in a sequence of packets can be sent to the device, the NACK is indicative that the packet was received without errors but a re-transmission should be attempted, and the ALERT is indicative of an error condition at the device and a re-transmission should not be attempted. In this example, the packet has a packet format including: (a) a synchronization field; (b) a packet type (PT) field following the synchronization field; (c) a byte count (BC) field for defining a length of data for the packet; (d) a data type (DT) field for defining whether the data is one of link control, device control, and device data; and (e) a data field.

Host and device serial communication protocols and communication packet formats

Disclosed is an apparatus, a system, a computer readable media, and a method for protecting data of a computer system. The method includes: (a) connecting a peripheral storage device to the computer system; (b) preparing a storage media of the peripheral storage device to be a protection enabled media; (c) selecting a backup set of data stored in a hard drive of the computer system, the backup set of data includes a default set of boot files and operating system files; (d) creating a spare tire backup using file-based copying from the hard-drive of the computer system to the storage media of the peripheral storage device; (e) enabling the peripheral storage device to incrementally copy portions of the backup set of data from the hard drive of the computer system during normal use; and (f) booting the computer system from the peripheral storage device when a failure occurs with the hard drive that disables normal booting. In this manner, the user can resume uninterrupted work from the spare tire backup of the peripheral storage device until the hard drive failure is repaired.

Intelligent backup and restoring system and method for implementing the same

A method for booting a computer system from a selected disk is provided. The selected disk is one of two or more disks that may be connected to the computer system. The method includes reading into memory a first boot select code and reading into memory master boot record (MBR) sector data from an MBR sector location of a primary disk of the computer system. The method then proceeds to merging partition table information of the MBR sector data with the first boot select code to produce boot select MBR sector data. Then, the method moves to where the boot select MBR sector data is written into the MBR sector location to replace the MBR sector data. The method now proceeds to read a second boot select code into memory and then write it to one or more sectors of the primary disk. The boot select MBR sector data is configured to work with the second boot select code to provide a user the ability to boot from any one of the disks connected to the computer system.

Hard disk bootstrap redirection

Disclosed is an apparatus, a system, a computer readable media, and a method for protecting data of a computer system. The method includes: (a) connecting a peripheral storage device to the computer system; (b) preparing a storage media of the peripheral storage device to be a protection enabled media; (c) selecting a backup set of data stored in a hard drive of the computer system, the backup set of data includes a default set of boot files and operating system files; (d) creating a spare tire backup using file-based copying from the hard drive of the computer system to the storage media of the peripheral storage device; (e) enabling the peripheral storage device to incrementally copy portions of the backup set of data from the hard drive of the computer system during normal use; and (f) booting the computer system from the peripheral storage device when a failure occurs with the hard drive that disables normal booting. In this manner, the user can resume uninterrupted work from the spare tire backup of the peripheral storage device until the hard drive failure is repaired.

A system for enabling booting to a desired drive of a computer system having a floppy drive, an IDE/EIDE storage drive, and a SCSI storage drive. The system includes a floppy disk that is configured to be inserted into the floppy drive. The floppy disk contains a media containing program instructions that are configured to be executed upon initiating a system BIOS of the computer system. The execution of the program instructions includes executing a boot code stored on the media of the floppy disk. The boot code is configured to scan a number of PCI buses of the computer system to identify host adapters that are connected to respective ones of the number of PCI buses. Further, the system includes executing a BIOS code for each of the host adapters which causes an assignment of drive numbers to devices connected to the host adapters and the computer system. Then, swapping the assignment of drive numbers such that the desired drive is assigned a drive number 80h. The master boot record (MBR) of the desired drive will then be accessed upon an INT 13 call, which causes the completion of the boot process that enables an operating system (OS) stored in the desired drive.

Growing community of inventors

Milpitas, CA, United States of America

Tony G Kwan