[<<Previous Entry]
[^^Up^^]
[Next Entry>>]
[Menu]
[About The Guide]
INT 13h, 03h (3) Write Sectors from Memory all
Writes one or more sectors from memory to a fixed or floppy disk.
On entry: AH 03h
AL Number of sectors to write
CH Cylinder number (10-bit value; upper 2 bits
in CL)
CL Starting sector number
DH Head number
DL Drive number
ES:BX Address of memory buffer
Returns: AH Status of operation (See Service 01h)
AL Number of sectors written
CF Set if error, else cleared
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Writes the specified number of sectors from the buffer at ES:BX to the
specified location (head, cylinder, and track) on the disk.
Notes: Values in DL less than 80h specify floppy disks;
values greater than 80h specify fixed disks. For
example, 0 means the first floppy diskette, while
80h means the first fixed disk.
The cylinder number is a ten-bit quantity (0 through
1023). Its most significant two bits are in bits 7
and 6 of CL; the remaining eight bits are in CH. The
starting sector number fits in the low-order portion
(lower 6 bits) of CL.
The value returned in AL (number of sectors read)
may not give the correct number of sectors, even
though no error has occurred. Use the results of the
Carry flag and AH (status flag) to determine the
status of the operation.
+ The sectors written must all be on the same cylinder
and same side for diskettes, while a hard disk can
write at most 128 sectors at one time.
If an error is encountered writing a sector, use
Service 0h to reset the drive and retry the
operation. It is recommended that at least 3 retries
be attempted before an error is signalled, since the
error may have resulted from the diskette motor not
being up to speed.
Because of the architecture of the DMA channel, an
error will occur if the buffer in memory for the
sectors overlaps a 64K page boundary. A 64K page
boundary is a memory location which is one of the
following (10000h, 20000h, 30000h, etc.). Ensure
that no part of your buffer falls on such a
boundary. If it does, then create a new buffer or
start the buffer just after the boundary.
This service differs from the DOS INT 26h (Write
absolute sector) in that the DOS INT 26h works with
logical devices (RAM disks, Bernoulli drives, etc.).
It is much more flexible. Also INT 26h works with a
linear address, whereas this service works with 3
coordinates to address a disk location. INT 26h
doesn't have the DMA problem mentioned above, and
there is no limit on the number of sectors that can
be written in a single operation. In addition, INT
26h will do all of the error-retry attempts itself.
INT 26h should be used instead of this service for
obtaining absolute sector control. Programs that may
need to use this service rather than INT 26h include
partition table modifiers, system software, and disk
cache software.
For the AT, XT-286, and PC Convertible, the BIOS
executes INT 15h, Service 90h (Device Busy), for the
diskette (Type = 01h) and the fixed disk (Type =
00h) prior to waiting for the interrupt. INT 15h,
Service 91h (Interrupt Complete), is executed upon
completion. Also diskette operations that require
the diskette motor to be on will call INT 15h,
Service 90 (Device Busy), with the type equal to
"Diskette Drive Motor Start" (Type = FDh). This
allows the system to perform another task while the
drive motor is waiting to get up to speed.
See Also:
INT 13h, 01h
INT 26h
INT 13h, 0Bh
INT 13h, 02h
This page created by ng2html v1.05, the Norton guide to HTML conversion utility.
Written by Dave Pearson