b>IOMalloc()</b> blocks until it can obtain memory. For this reason, you shouldn't call <b>IOMalloc()</b> from a direct interrupt handler.</font>

<p><font face="Times">Drivers that can control (directly or indirectly) disks, network cards, or other devices used by a file system can run into a deadlock situation if they use <b>IOMalloc()</b> during I/O. This deadlock can occur when the pageout daemon attempts to free memory by moving pages out to disk. When the pageout daemon requests this I/O and the drive