Microsoft KB Archive/208048

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SAMPLE: SmartApp.exe Accesses SMART Stats in IDE Drives

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Q208048

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The information in this article applies to:


 * Microsoft Win32 Device Driver Kit (DDK), on platform(s):
 * Microsoft Windows 98
 * Microsoft Windows 95

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SUMMARY
SmartApp.exe is a sample Win32 application that demonstrates how to access the SMART (Self Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) capabilities built into IDE disk drives.

SMART technology is used to monitor disk drive degradation, in an effort to predict future catastrophic disk failure. For more information about SMART technology, see the REFERENCES section at the end of this article.

While this article primarily centers on using SMART technology with Windows 95 and Windows 98, it also includes information about how to modify SmartApp.exe to work with Windows NT and Windows 2000.

MORE INFORMATION
The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:

"SmartApp.exe" Release Date: Feb-04-1999

For additional information about how to download Microsoft Support files, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

"Q119591 How to Obtain Microsoft Support Files from Online Services" Microsoft used the most current virus detection software available on the date of posting to scan this file for viruses. Once posted, the file is housed on secure servers that prevent any unauthorized changes to the file.

  FileName                Size -

SMARTAPP.C             17776 SMARTAPP.H              1613 SMART.H                 9857 SMARTAPP.DOC           74240

Using the SMARTAPP sample code
SmartApp.exe is a console application that you run from a DOS command prompt. You should set up your command prompt window for 43 or 50 lines or direct the program's output report to a file (for example, type SmartApp.exe >c:\print.txt) because SmartApp.exe can report over 25 lines of text data. Following is a sample report produced by SmartApp.exe:

SMARTVSD opened successfully DFP_GET_VERSION returned: bVersion       = 1 bRevision      = 2 fCapabilities  = 0x7 bReserved      = 0x0 bIDEDeviceMap  = 0x1 cbBytesReturned = 24 SMART Enabled on Drive: 0 cbBytesReturned: 12 Drive 0 is an IDE Hard drive that supports SMART #Cylinders: 4960, #Heads: 16, #Sectors per Track: 63 IDE TASK FILE REGISTERS: bFeaturesReg    = 0x0 bSectorCountReg = 0x1 bSectorNumberReg = 0x1 bCylLowReg      = 0x0 bCylHighReg     = 0x0 bDriveHeadReg   = 0xA0 Status          = 0x50 Model number: WDC AC22500L Firmware rev: 40.44T40 Serial number: WD-WM3493798728 cbBytesReturned: 512 Data for Drive Number 0 Attribute Structure Revision         Threshold Structure Revision 5                                     5       -Attribute Name-      -Attribute Value-     -Threshold Value- 1 Raw Read Error Rate             200                   51 4 Start/Stop Count                100                   40 5 Reallocated Sector Count        200                    0 A Spin Retry Count                100                   51 B Calibration Retry Count         100                   51 C7 (Unknown attribute)             200                    0 C8 (Unknown attribute)             100                   51 The Attribute fields are defined (and refined) solely by the disk drive OEM manufacturers.

The source code (that is, Smart.h, SmartApp.h, and SmartApp.c) was compiled and tested using Visual Studio with Microsoft VC++ 5.0 as a console application.

Common Windows 95 Problems

 * SMARTVSD packs the structures for the DeviceIoControl in and out buffers differently from the default packing used by MSVC. The application needs to specify #pragma pack(1) to get the structure packing to match SMARTVSD.
 * SMARTVSD subtracts 1 from the size of the SENDCMDOUTPARAMS when it validates the size of the SENDCMDOUTPARAMS passed to it by the application. Using the above packing, the size of the structure in the SMART VSD doc would be 17 bytes long. SMARTVSD apparently compares the buffer size passed in DeviceIoControl to 16. This is presumably to discount the variable size buffer array at the end of the structure, which is defined as 1 byte long in the docs. The sizes of the SENDCMDINPARAMS and SENDCMDOUTPARAMS structures specified in the DeviceIoControl call should not include the variable size buffers located at the end of each structure.

Compiling and Using SmartApp.exe with Windows NT or Windows 2000
To compile SmartApp.exe for Windows NT or Windows 2000, comment out or delete the following line located at the beginning of SmartApp.c:

#define WINDOWS9X  // Define this to compile for Windows 9x For Windows NT and Windows 2000, the IOCTL call for SMART_GET_VERSION always returns a bIDEDeviceMap value of 1. You must select the target physical drive using the CreateFile function. Note that for Windows 95 and Windows 98, the target physical drive is selected after inspecting bIDEDeviceMap. When the symbol WINDOWS9X is not defined (for example, when you are compiling SMARTAPP for the Windows NT or Windows 2000 environment), SMARTAPP currently only opens and reports the first physical drive, using the following:

CreateFile("\\\\.\\PhysicalDrive0",GENERIC_READ | GENERIC_WRITE, FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, 0, NULL) To view other drives, change the PhysicalDrive parameter to a value other than 0. Note that you can also open a drive by specifying the drive letter. For example:

CreateFile("\\\\.\\c:",GENERIC_READ | GENERIC_WRITE, FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, 0, NULL)

SMARTVSD Troubleshooting Checklist
If opening SMARTVSD fails in Window 95 or Windows 98, one of the following might be the cause:


 * You are using the original version of Windows 95, which does not support SMART (the SDI_506.PDR port driver does not contain IDE PASSTHROUGH functionality).
 * SMARTVSD.VXD is not installed in the \windows\system\iosubsys directory.
 * You did not restart after installing SMARTVSD.VXD.
 * Your filesystem is running in Compatibility Mode (see the System Properties dialog box, click the Performance tab). This means that the protected mode IOS subsystem, containing SMARTVSD, is being bypassed.
 * Your system does not have any IDE drives. ESDI_506.PDR does not remain resident if there are no IDE drives.
 * Your IDE drives are using a third-party SCSI miniport driver instead of Microsoft's ESDI_506 driver.
 * Windows 98 inadvertently omitted SMARTVSD.

If SMARTVSD opens, but you fail to get meaningful data, the IDE drive might not support SMART (especially older drives).

Common Questions
 How does IDE hardware report that it supports SMART functionality?

This information is described in detail in the ATA3 or ATA4 specifications (see References at the end of this article). Specifically, Word 82 Bit 0 in the Identify Device structure indicates the drive supports SMART.  How does SMARTVSD communicate with the hard drive(s)?

SMARTVSD is an IOS layered-hierarchy VSD (Vendor Supplied Driver). At the "top" side, SMARTVSD provides the DeviceIoControl functionality to communicate with WIN32 applications. At the "bottom" side, SMARTVSD communicates with the IDE device driver (ESDI_506.PDR) using an API called IDE Passthrough.

IDE Passthrough was added to the OPK1 version (and later) of Windows 95. For additional information about this mechanism, please see the following article(s) in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

"Q196550 HOWTO: Access IDE Controller Registers Using IDE Passthrough" You can use IDE Passthrough to read or write the IDE controller's registers, from your own IOS layer VSD (Vendor Supplied Driver). 

Additional Considerations
Microsoft does not recommend replacing SMARTVSD with your own implementation. For example, if you want to make your own SCSI miniport respond to the SMART API (SMARTVSD works only with devices on the IDE bus, ignoring devices on the SCSI bus). If you do this, you will disable SMART functionality for other third-party IDE devices that use ESDI_506.

Small Form Factor Committee (SFF) specifications:
ftp://fission.dt.wdc.com/pub/standards/SFF/specs/

SFF-8035i (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology, Version 1.0 May 3, 1995)

INF-8055i (S.M.A.R.T. Applications Guide for the ATA and SCSI interfaces)

ATA Specifications:
ftp://fission.dt.wdc.com/pub/standards/ata/

ftp://fission.dt.wdc.com/pub/standards/ata/ata-3/ata3-r6.doc

Microsoft Smart IOCTL API Specifications:
http://premium.microsoft.com/msdn/library/specs/d4/iocltapi.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/download/respec/iocltapi.rtf

Miscellaneous Resources:
Check out the web sites of companies that manufacture IDE drives, such as Western Digital, IBM, and Seagate to obtain additional manufacturer-specific information about SMART technology.

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbfile kbtool kbStorageDev kbOSWin95 kbOSWin98

Issue type : kbhowto

Technology : kbAudDeveloper kbWinDDKSearch kbWin32sSearch kbWin32DDKSearch