Patent ID: 7096300

Claim:
A method of communicating information relating to a disk drive through a bus in use between the disk drive and a host adapter, comprising: receiving a reset signal at a gateway between the disk drive and the bus, the reset signal sent from the host adapter as a result of a reset bit of a status control register of the host adapter being set; in response to receiving the reset signal over the bus, isolating the disk drive from the bus at the gateway to interconnect a shadow register of the gateway with the bus, wherein the disk drive is electrically connected to the gateway while isolated from the bus, and wherein an address of the shadow register is an address of a register of the disk drive that is isolated from the bus; and communicating between the host adapter and the gateway through the bus by utilizing the shadow register after isolating the disk drive from the bus, wherein communicating between the host adapter and the gateway comprises receiving control signals at the gateway directing at least one activity of the disk drive.