Patent ID: 7454561

Claim:
A method for operating a system used to control a disk drive, comprising: setting a disk access inhibitor flag whenever the system places the disk drive in an inaccessible condition; in the absence of such disk access inhibitor flag, the disk drive being accessible to the system; operating the disk drive to have such disk drive set a bit therein when the disk drive has placed itself in a by-pass; and wherein during each of a sequence of polling event, the system determines: (1) whether the bit has been set; and (2) whether the disk access inhibitor flag has been set, and wherein if the bit has been set and such disk access inhibitor flag has been set, the system maintains the disk drive in the inaccessible condition; otherwise, the disk drive is accessible to the system; and wherein if, during a polling event, the bit has been set but that disk drive has not had a bit set during a relatively long period of time, maintains the disk drive accessible to the system unless the disk drive sets the bit during a subsequent predetermined wait period, after which the system sets the disk access inhibitor flag and places the disk drive in the inaccessible condition.