Re: hdparm-9.2 now available: w/ DCO and firmware support

[Mark Lord <liml@rtr.ca>]

Greg Freemyer wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 1:17 PM, Mark Lord <liml@rtr.ca> wrote:
>> hdparm v9.2 is now available from sourceforge.
>>
>>        http://sourceforge.net/projects/hdparm/
>>
>> New since v8.9 are:
>>
>> 1. Support for Device Configuration Overlay (DCO),
>>  with the --dco-identify, --dco-freeze, and --dco-restore flags.
>>  DCO is a feature set that enables vendors/OEMs to disable/hide
>>  certain drive features (eg. NCQ, LBA48, ..) for whatever reason
>>  (eg. compatibility with a specific b0rked BIOS).
>>  This release of hdparm can display/reset DCO, but not selectively
>>  disable features yet.
..
> I'm very happy to see the DCO support go in.
> 
> There is a small army of "Computer Forensic" examiners which do their
> forensic imaging via Linux and I'm sure many will feel the same.
..

Mmm.. never thought about that much before now,
but DCO is a nifty way to hide much of a drive from prying eyes.
Eg. Use DCO to restrict the drive to LBA28 accessible sectors
and also turn off LBA48 support, and then a lot of space becomes "hidden". 

Until now!

Cheers