> Jim,
>
> Thanks for the info, comments interleaved below
>
[snip]
>
> But, that's kind of the point I'm driving at if the OS can't correctly
access the
> IDE interface it shouldn't do it at all.
Right. It's possible that your BIOS may be letting the kernel write. While
I don't write the kernel, it's probably best for Linus to answer this one,
but it's possible that the kernel is making a BIOS call, and the BIOS does
not refuse to write data (which it should just say "no IDE drives are on the
system right now") with the IDE setting to <NONE> in your BIOS. OTOH, the
kernel may be making calls of it's own or as you say, there may be a broken
driver. I seem to remember there was a "bug workaround" option in the
kernel for the CMD640 chipset.
> > Are you getting IDE corruption with the BIOS set to <AUTO> for your IDE
> > drive?
>
> None whatsoever.
Then AFAIK, it's definitely a BIOS issue. There might be (if not there
already) a kernel option to check to see what the BIOS setting is for number
of IDE drives (of course set to <NONE> would mean 0 drives), and refuse to
write it. This workaround (if any) would be required for buggy BIOSes (I'm
sure yours isn't the only one <grin>).
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