Re: attach & detach drives under Linux

Simson,

I think if you post your question to linux-ide@vger.kernel.org someone
will be able to help.

Officially the above list serve is for sata controllers/drives, but I
see a lot of ide issues there as well.

If you are specifically having issues with IDE drives in USB and
Firewire enclosures, then Linux Kernel issues are supported at
linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org

I don't think either of those require you to subscribe to post, and
the Linux Kernel Mailing List etiquette is to do a reply all, so you
should have no issues just posting your questions on either of the
above.

HTH
Greg

On 10/18/05, Simson Garfinkel <simsong@eecs.harvard.edu> wrote:
> As some of you know, I am developing a new drive imaging program. It
> runs pretty well under FreeBSD and I'm trying to get it to work under
> Linux.
>
> One of the problems I'm having under Linux is the difficulty of
> attaching and detaching IDE drives .(I've discovered that imaging
> failing drives with a firewire or USB write-blocker is a disaster.)
>
> With FreeBSD this is quite easy: the atacontrol command has an
> "attach" and a "detach" sub-commands, which allow you to attach and
> detach devices on the IDE interface.
>
> The Linux hdparm command has a -U option or unregister an ATA device
> and a -R option to register one. The problem is this: it also needs
> to have a /dev/hda device if you are, for example, trying to register
> or unregister device /dev/hda. But if you are using devfs, /dev/hda
> disappears when it is unregistered and it's not there to register.
>
> Is there a simple way around this? (Other than booting knoppix, that
> is.)


--
Greg Freemyer
The Norcross Group
Forensics for the 21st Century