---

Mass Storage Driver Matching and Loading

Before a mass storage device can be used, the I/O Kit must find and load several drivers for it. In the transport driver layer, the required drivers are a protocol services driver and a logical unit driver. The only required driver in the device services layer is the generic block storage driver but if there is media present in the device, there may be partition and filter-scheme drivers, as well. Like all I/O Kit drivers, these drivers must declare what devices they are suited to drive by placing device-specific or device type-specific information in special dictionaries called personalities. In a process called driver matching, the I/O Kit compares this information to values reported by the device to find the most suitable driver.

This chapter first describes the driver matching process in general and then focuses on the matching semantics of the protocol services drivers, the logical unit drivers, and the optional filter-scheme drivers.

Contents:

Driver Personalities and the Matching Process
Protocol Services Driver Matching
Logical Unit Driver Matching
Filter-Scheme Driver Matching

---