Patent ID: 8250203

Claim:
A method, comprising: providing a host system with a host system memory and coupled to a host bus adapter (HBA) having a HBA memory; configuring the HBA to detect a trigger condition for a diagnostic mode during which the HBA is configured to operate at a different diagnostic levels for selectively collecting the diagnostic information based on a configured diagnostic level as well as a standard HBA transferring information to and from the host system over a network; initiating the diagnostic mode from the host system by assigning a portion of the host memory as a second memory; indicating the location of the second memory to the HBA; and indicating the initiation of the diagnostic mode to the HBA; assigning a portion of the HBA memory as a first memory upon initiation of the diagnostic mode; storing the diagnostic information in the first memory of the HBA; transferring the diagnostic information from the first memory of the HBA to the second memory in the host system while the HBA continues to operate as a standard HBA; and storing the diagnostic information at the second memory in a format such that an application executed by the host system can format the information for presentation to a user; and formatting the diagnostic information by the host system for presentation to the user.