Patent ID: 7730233

Claim:
A data transfer control device comprising: an ATA device-side interface that transfers data between the data transfer control device and an ATA host through a first ATA bus; an ATA host-side interface that transfers data between the data transfer control device and an ATA device through a second ATA bus; a switching circuit including first to Nth switching elements that connect or disconnect first to Nth signal lines of the first ATA bus and first to Nth signal lines of the second ATA bus; a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface that transfers data through a USB bus; a transfer controller that controls data transfer among the ATA device-side interface, the ATA host-side interface, and the USB interface; and a processing section that performs protocol control processing of USB, when the processing section has determined that the data transfer control device has been set in a hard wired mode, the processing section turning ON the first to Nth switching elements to connect the first to Nth signal lines of the first ATA bus and the first to Nth signal lines of the second ATA bus, and in the hard wired mode, data being transferred directly between the first ATA bus and the second ATA bus without passing through the ATA device-side interface and the ATA host-side interface.