Re: IDE-flash device and hard disk on same controller

[Jeff Garzik]

Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
> Well... x86 PCs with ordinary BIOSes did. Other firmwares,
> embedded devices, whatever.... may not, or eventually the firmware
> will have reset everything prior to booting the kernel (go figure
> why, but that happens).
> 
> It's not difficult nor harmful to wait for that dawn busy bit to
> go away, so why not do it ?

Basically think about the consequences of trying to handle a completely 
unknown state -- if you are going to attempt to handle this you would 
need to check for data, not just the BSY bit.  And read the data into a 
throwaway buffer, if there is data to be read, or write the data it's 
expecting.

So it's not just the busy bit :)