So ATA pass through support is mentioned at:
   http://www.qnx.com/developers/articles/rel_2536_1.html
saying "ATA pass-through interface (Ref# 47145) "

And I know ATA pass through support is available since it was added to
smartmontools.  I unfortunately cannot base my implementation on
smartmontools due to licensing issues and will need to find out more
about the pass through api from other sources.  Does anyone have the
documentation or headers for the new ATA pass through interface?

Thanks.

-- 
It has been suggested that root kits are the largest user community
for this kind of access, but there are no forward compatibility
guarantees for root kit authors.