Patent ID: 7634629

Claim:
A computer system comprising: a storage device; a chipset having an embedded controller to authenticate a storage device access request and to manage configuration of the storage device; and a device controller including: lock registers having values that correspond to ranges of locked sectors of the storage device, the lock registers to verify if a storage device access request is targeted for ranges of sectors of the storage device that are locked; Sector Security (SS) firmware to manage the lock registers to unlock a first range of sectors of the storage device by accessing a first set of lock registers corresponding to the first range of sectors and to lock a second range of sectors of the storage device lock registers by accessing a second set of lock registers corresponding to the second range of sectors; and comparator logic to compare sector ranges included in a storage device access request received from the chipset with the lock registers, wherein the controller rejects the request if the lock registers indicate that the corresponding range of sectors is locked.