The present invention provides an improved method and system for link
detection and handling. The method includes detecting one of the plurality
of link sectors; generating an interrupt signal; determining a buffer
method selection; buffering the plurality of data sectors only, if a link
skip buffer method is selected; and buffering the plurality of data
sectors and the plurality of link sectors, except for a link block, and
allocating a sector in a buffer for the link block, if a link buffer
method is selected. The present invention provides a hardware approach to
link sector detection and handling. Instead of passing the data to a
system software prior to link sector detection, the method and system in
accordance with the present invention performs the link sector detection
in the controller hardware. When the controller detects the link sectors,
it automatically either skips or buffers the link sectors depending upon
the configuration of the controller. By performing the link sector
detection in hardware, significant processing time is saved.
