hdparm is a Linux shell utility for viewing and manipulating various IDE drive and driver parameters. Most drives can benefit from improved performance using a command similar to "hdparm -qm8 -qu1 -qc1 -qd1 /dev/hda".License: BSD License (original)Changes:
A major code overhaul was made. Support for libata SATA/PATA drives was significantly expanded. Much better compliance with the SCSI-ATA-Translation specification was achieved. The -A, -W, and -M flags can now be used without a parameter to query the current setting. Several enhancements to the -I information were made. New flags "--make-bad-sector", "--repair-sector", and "--read-sector" were added. The "-N" flag was added to get/set max address/HPA. Many other fixes and enhancements were made.

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