Host Protected Area (HPA) Partition

rockarolla · 08-23-2008, 11:28 AM

In order to bypass a small problem coming from DELL MediaDirect hard and software I need to be able to manage HPA partition on a hard disk.

I couldn't find option in GParted and the only way to remove it so far is to zero the hard disk, which I would like to avoid.
Has anybody a better solution or experience with removing (or dissabling) HPA partitions?

unSpawn · 08-24-2008, 05:55 AM

From your boot log, or using 'dmesg' or 'hdparm' on the drive, note the maximum addressable sector of the disk. Compile http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/setmax.c and run with the –delta switch supplying (maximum addressable sector) integer and device path. For more check the Sleuthkit, here or any forensic docs site and in the case of HPA/DCO the Wikipedia entry should do as well.

rockarolla · 08-25-2008, 12:34 AM

thanks a lot. I'll try this out. Unfortunately or fortunately I zeroed my HD and reinstalled everything again - clean install removing all suspicious stuff hiding anywhere on the hard disk (to the best of my knowledge). Everything was in order to remove media direct and its subsequences on dual boot FEDORA9 vista DELL lap top.

Thanks again!