Patent ID: 7584334

Claim:
An improved tailgate device comprising: a storage interface; a primary interface; a secondary interface; logic and circuitry coupled to the storage interface, primary interface and the secondary interface; wherein both the primary interface and the secondary interface are not the same interface type as the storage interface; wherein the storage interface is coupled to a storage device, comprising a controller; wherein a first host, connected to the primary interface, communicates with the storage device in a manner that is transparent to an operating system (OS) of the first host, using a first set of commands; said first set of commands are Tailgate commands, where the Tailgate commands are for communicating between the primary interface and the storage interface and are a subset of said storage device's command set; wherein a second host, connected to secondary interface, issues said Tailgate commands and a second set of commands to the storage device transparent to the operating system of the first host, wherein the second set of commands comprise: IDENTIFY DEVICE, commands for setting or changing the Host Protection Area (HPA) thereby allowing the entire drive to be examined, commands for reading sectors of data that are unavailable through the primary interface, and commands for modifying a DEVICE CONFIGURATION OVERLAY setting in the controller in order to access hidden data on the storage device; wherein the storage device's command set includes said second set of commands; wherein the second set of commands do not comprise an equivalent command in the Tailgate commands; and wherein in response to a particular command, data returned by the storage device to the improved tailgate device, is sent to one of the first host or second host that issued the particular command.