| 摘要 |
An intelligent controller of a peripheral device such as a disk drive which stores utility algorithms. In a first embodiment, the utility algorithms are transferred from the peripheral device to a host computer in order to eliminate the need to have utility software pre-loaded into the computer. In a second embodiment, the algorithm stored within the peripheral device is executed by processing circuitry within the peripheral device in order to free the host computer to perform other tasks as the utility is being executed by the peripheral device. Exemplary utilities which may be executed by the peripheral device include data compression, data format conversion, automatic disk error correction, back-up of the disk's file allocation table or other vital disk or file information into a secondary file allocation table within the peripheral device, automatic file back-up or any other desired utility. A variation of the second embodiment performs stand-alone formatting of a disk to free up a host computer to perform other activities.
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