[OT?] Finding out EOL for flash drive

From the manufacturer of the IDE flash drives that we use
(SimpleTech) we have received a paper describing an ATAPI-
command that retrieves the amount of bad memory cells in
the flash drive. They were not, however, able to provide a
program that does this.

Does anyone here know of a utility that can send and
receive ATAPI-commands, or how to go about this otherwise?

I guess that to write a program that does this, one has to
do some device driver programming, something that I have
never done and which seems to include a non-insignificant
learning curve...

Thanks and regards
Jesper Hansson

P.S. This is a repost, since my first post a few days ago
seems to have disappeared into void..

Hi Jesper,

I have responded to your first question, have you seen this?
Answer is not what you want, but it is there.

Could you please tell us what news reader do you use for reading this group.
Since I think that Outlook Express started working OK.

Check this:
http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=...-8&threadm=OhAr
F39kDHA.2616%40TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl&prev=/groups%3Fdq%3D%26num%3D25%26hl%3De
n%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26group%3Dmicrosoft.public.windowsxp.emb
edded%26start%3D50


Best regards,
Slobodan

"Jesper Hansson" <jesper.hansson@spam.begone.balthazar.se> wrote in message
news:075801c396e3$83696190$a101280a@phx.gbl...
> From the manufacturer of the IDE flash drives that we use
> (SimpleTech) we have received a paper describing an ATAPI-
> command that retrieves the amount of bad memory cells in
> the flash drive. They were not, however, able to provide a
> program that does this.
>
> Does anyone here know of a utility that can send and
> receive ATAPI-commands, or how to go about this otherwise?
>
> I guess that to write a program that does this, one has to
> do some device driver programming, something that I have
> never done and which seems to include a non-insignificant
> learning curve...
>
> Thanks and regards
> Jesper Hansson
>
> P.S. This is a repost, since my first post a few days ago
> seems to have disappeared into void..

Hi Slobodan

Thank you for your replies. Now I found your first reply,
using your link. Normally I use Google to browse the
group, and Microsofts web based interface for posting.
This is because Google won't let you put any anti-spam
stuff in the e-mail address when posting. Using a news
reader such as OE is unfortunately not an option, since
the sysadmin won't allow usenet access.

I don't know why, but the post hadn't shown up (neither at
Microsoft groups nor at Google groups) on Friday (posted
on Thursday), even though I searched the group for all
posts with my name in them. Possibly a cache problem in
the proxy, or, maybe more probable, a case of plain old
(as we say in Sweden) SBS (sh*t behind the controls) at my
side.

Anyways, as you said, your answer is not what I would have
preferred. Of course it would be fun to take a dive into
the DDK, but unfortunately the time schedule makes that
impossible at the moment.

Probably we will just have to let this go for now, unless
somebody else has a tip regarding this...?

Thank you, and best regards
Jesper Hansson


>-----Original Message-----
>Hi Jesper,
>
>I have responded to your first question, have you seen
this?
>Answer is not what you want, but it is there.
>
>Could you please tell us what news reader do you use for
reading this group.
>Since I think that Outlook Express started working OK.
>
>Check this:
>http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-
8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=OhAr
>F39kDHA.2616%40TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl&prev=/groups%3Fdq%3D%
26num%3D25%26hl%3De
>n%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26group%
3Dmicrosoft.public.windowsxp.emb
>edded%26start%3D50
>
>
>Best regards,
>Slobodan
>
>"Jesper Hansson"
<jesper.hansson@spam.begone.balthazar.se> wrote in message
>news:075801c396e3$83696190$a101280a@phx.gbl...
>> From the manufacturer of the IDE flash drives that we
use
>> (SimpleTech) we have received a paper describing an
ATAPI-
>> command that retrieves the amount of bad memory cells in
>> the flash drive. They were not, however, able to
provide a
>> program that does this.
>>
>> Does anyone here know of a utility that can send and
>> receive ATAPI-commands, or how to go about this
otherwise?
>>
>> I guess that to write a program that does this, one has
to
>> do some device driver programming, something that I have
>> never done and which seems to include a non-
insignificant
>> learning curve...
>>
>> Thanks and regards
>> Jesper Hansson
>>
>> P.S. This is a repost, since my first post a few days
ago
>> seems to have disappeared into void..
>
>
>.
>