Hello David,
Atapi is not a brand. Here is some info for you and a link
that will shed some light on this for you.

What are ATA, ATAPI, IDE, EIDE, ... ? 
ATA and ATAPI are the real names for the mass storage device interface that is frequently called IDE and EIDE. IDE and EIDE are mostly used by marketing people who do not know what they are selling and by writers for magazines who do not know what they are writing about. Please check out the list of GOOD and BAD information sources shown below.

What does ATA mean? It stands for AT Attachment but most people don't remember what an AT is anymore (anyone remember the IBM PC/AT?). And what about ATAPI? It stands for ATA Packet Interface.

ATA/ATAPI is the most popular device interface today. Of the approximately 140 million hard disk drives made in the last year, 90+ percent are ATA. The remainder are various types of SCSI inteface drives. And the vast majority of CD-ROM drives are ATAPI devices. Most PCMCIA and CFA mass storage devices are also ATA or ATAPI devices.

ATAPI? What is that?
ATAPI is the real name of the CD-ROM (EIDE CD-ROM) and tape (ATAPI tape or EIDE tape) interface. This interface was originally developed by a group of CD-ROM companies with lots of help from Western Digial and Oak Technology.

ATAPI did not start as an ANSI standard. It was a specification published by the Small Form Factor (SFF) committee. SFF is an ad hoc disk drive industry committtee that usually concerns itself with things like connectors, the location of mounting holes and other physical configuration stuff. The original SFF document for ATAPI was called SFF-8020 (now called INF-8020).

NOTE: SFF-8020 (INF-8020) is very OBSOLETE and should not be used! The correct documents to use for ATAPI are ATA/ATAPI-4 (or higher) and SCSI MMC or MMC-2.

ATAPI introduced a new command execution protocol for use on the ATA interface so that these new CD-ROM and tape drives could, in theory, be on the same ATA cable with an ATA hard disk drive. Basically, the ATAPI Packet command, command code A0H, is used to send what looks like a SCSI CDB across the ATA interface. The actual data transfer (from/to the device media) is done using the ATA PIO or DMA protocols.

If you want to know what "SCSI like" commands are accepted by ATAPI devices then you should probably read the appropriate SCSI-3 document(s) for back ground information. Then get the appropriate SFF document for the ATAPI device type, for example, SFF-8070 describes the ATAPI super floppy "SCSI like" command set. There are many of these ATAPI "command set" documents floating around the industry today and even keeping a list of them is difficult. Some I know of are: QIC-157 (ATAPI tape), SFF-8070 (ATAPI Removable Rewritable Media), SFF-8080 (ATAPI CD-R/E) and SFF-8090 (Commands for DVD). Locating some of these documents can be difficult.

http://www.ata-atapi.com/goodbad.htm

Regards,
Sue Dobbs

  <<snip>>
  David;
  some of my cds and cdrs show up as "generic" ATAPI  drives also.

  , and all
  works fine.
  > I thought I'd purchased an ACER burner but the device just shows up as
  'ATAPI' and
  > in SYSTEM/DEVICE MANAGER/CDROM properties it shows as 'ATAPI CD R-RW
  20X10'.
  > Although there are labels on the actual device there doesn't seem to ba a
  manufacturers
  > name. As I really like to know my hardware can anyone help to identify
  this CD burner?
  <snip>>

                


  ---
  Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
  Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
  Version: 6.0.320 / Virus Database: 179 - Release Date: 1/30/2002

              The NOSPIN Group is now offering Free PC Tech
                     support at our newest website:
                          http://freepctech.com