The utility is inteneded for management and enumeration of ATA controllers and connected devices. You can find list of command line switches below. If no UniATA driver is installed, the utility is capable of listing IDE, ATAPI and SCSI devices only.

Since the utility itself appeared to be useful, now you can download it separately. (See below)

Usage:
  atactl -<switches> c|s<controller id>:b<bus id>:d<device id>[:l<lun>]
Switches:
  l         (L)ist devices on SCSI and ATA controllers bus(es)
              Note: ATA Pri/Sec controller are usually represented
              as Scsi0/Scsi1 under NT-family OSes
  x         show e(X)tended info
  a         show (A)dapter info
  s         (S)can for new devices on ATA/SATA bus(es) (experimental)
  S         (S)can for new devices on ATA/SATA bus(es) (experimental)
              device, hidden with 'H' can be redetected
  h         (H)ide device on ATA/SATA bus for removal (experimental)
              device can be redetected
  H         (H)ide device on ATA/SATA bus (experimental)
              device can not be redetected until 'h' or 'S' is issued
  m [MODE]  set i/o (M)ode for device or revert to default
              available MODEs are PIO, PIO0-PIO5, DMA, WDMA0-WDMA2,
              UDMA33/44/66/100/133, UDMA0-UDMA5
  d [XXX]   lock ATA/SATA bus for device removal for XXX seconds or
              for 20 seconds if no lock timeout specified.
              can be used with -h, -m or standalone.
  D [XXX]   disable device (turn into sleep mode) and lock ATA/SATA bus
              for device removal for XXX seconds or
              for %d seconds if no lock timeout specified.
              can be used with -h, -m or standalone.
              * Appeared since UniATA 0.43c4 (experimental)
  pX        change power state to X, where X is
              0 - active, 1 - idle, 2 - standby, 3 - sleep
              * Appeared since UniATA 0.43c4 (experimental)
  r         (R)eset device
  ba        (A)ssign (B)ad-block list
  bl        get assigned (B)ad-block (L)ist
  br        (R)eset assigned (B)ad-block list
  f         specify (F)ile for bad-block list
  n XXX     block (n)ubmering radix. XXX can be hex or dec
------
Examples:
  atactl -l
    will list all scsi buses and all connected devices
  atactl -m udma0 s2:b1:d1
    will switch device at Scsi2, bus 1, taget_id 1 to UDMA0 mode
  atactl -h -D 30 c1:b0:d0:l0 
    will hide Master (d0:l0) device on secondary (c1:b0) IDE channel
    spin down disk and lock i/o on this channel for 30 seconds to ensure
    safity of removal process
------
Device address format:

s<controller id> number of controller in system. Is assigned during hardware
                   detection. Usually s0/s1 are ATA Pri/Sec.
                   Note, due do NT internal desing ATA controllers are represented
                   as SCSI controllers.
b<bus id>        For ATA controllers it is channel number.
                   Note, usually onboard controller is represented as 2 legacy
                   ISA-compatible single-channel controllers (Scsi9/Scsi1). Additional
                   ATA, ATA-RAID and some specific onboard controllers are represented
                   as multichannel controllers.
d<device id>     For ATA controllers d0 is Master, d1 is Slave.
l<lun>           Not used in ATA controller drivers, alway 0

# Comment
; Still one comment
hex: switch to hexadecimal mode
<Bad Area 1 Start LBA> <Block count 1>
<Bad Area 2 Start LBA> <Block count 2>
...
dec: switch to decimal mode
<Bad Area N Start LBA> <Block count N>
...

#model: ST340016A           
#rev:   3.05
#s/n:   3HS0E2TR            
#ST340016A_______________________________-3HS0E2TR____________
#Starting LBA	Num. of Blocks
hex:
F00	100
dec:
32768   48

Fixed SATA mode report.

Fixed disk size info for CHS disks.

Added channel-specific transfer rate info.

Added experimantel power management.

Now atactl can show controller information with -a switch.

Fixed bugs in transfer rate adjustment commands.

Added device hide/re-detect support. This feature can be used for hot plug/unplug and for giving excclusive access to hardware to diagnostic and/or recovery tools.

Added support for bad block lists generated by Victoria.

Added extended ATA device information support. Information is obtained from device passport via ATA_IDENTIFY command. Extended info is enabled with -lx.

Added bus scan command -s. Also added device hiding command -h (for UniATA driver only).

Added defect list management commands: -ba, -br, -bl, -f.

Controllers serviced by UniATA driver are listed with corresponding message, e.g.

Scsi0: [UniATA]
  b0:d0:l0    ST340016A               3.05  UDMA5

1st standalone version

See also:

• smartmontools
• mhdd
• victoria, HDD-911
• Active SMART