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ATACT Device Testing Program

ATACT - ATA Command Test

Current version: 4N

Brief description: A random location and random data write/read test for ATA hard disk drives but it also issues all the other "standard" ATA commands including power management commands. ATACT uses the ATADRVR to perform the actual low level ATA I/O functions.

Note: If you are testing SATA devices you really should be using AHCCMDT.

ATACT uses all of the ATA mandatory commands and some of the optional commands (if the device supports them) while testing. ATACT expects a device to fully support the ATA-x and ATA/ATAPI-x standards including large data transfers, changes to the CHS geometry and sectors per multiple block, enable/disable read/write caching and unusual command sequences without corrupting data.

48-bit LBA commands are supported with data transfers up to 65536 sectors in PIO and DMA mode.

ATACT supports a wide range of PCI Bus Mastering ATA host adapters. And all PCMCIA PC Card ATA I/O and memory interface modes are supported. Please download the free/demo version. Also downlowd the full ATACT documentattion.

ATACT has been updated to support Serial ATA (SATA) devices. SATA seems to have lots of problems and ATACT seems to be able to find many, if not all, of these problems. These problems appear as timeout errors, data corruption errors and other strange events. If you are testing SATA ATA devices you need ATACT!

Sample ATACT log files: Here are two sample ATACT log files. The first is from a 94 hours run on a SATA drive. As you can see SATA has many problems - 31 errors! The second is from a 30 hour run on a PATA drive - a very normal run with no errors.

• ATACT log file for SATA run.
• An analysis of the ATACT SATA log file.
• ATACT log file for PATA run.

Full version price: $500.00

CLICK HERE to get the free/demo version of ATACT.

CLICK HERE to get the full ATACT documentation.

Go to the How To Order page.

Page updated 05 Sep 2008.