Re: IDE disk and HPA

["Etienne Lorrain" <etienne.lorrain@masroudeau.com>]

> If I want to upgrade my IDE Hard drive by my self, how can I
> restore that kind of data on other diferent PC?

  So the content of the HPA should be limited to program which are
 special: a boot loader is position dependant and you do not want
 to copy it blindly to another hard disk with maybe another size
 or other characteristics - because it will not work - you just
 want to re-install it on the other HD on the other PC.
  If this HPA contains more than a bootloader, it has to be
 organised like a real filesystem (or even a real device image
 with a partition table) to be accessed by emergency tools like
 mtools (you can specify a big offset to the device to access
 a FAT partition at the end of the device). This FAT filesystem
 can be considered logically like a big floppy.
 Maybe one day this system can use the SAORAB IDE feature - read
 the spec to understand that sentence.
  If you are really recovering a disaster and want to get the HPA
 content but are locked by the bootloader blocking this access, I'll
 give you the trick (that is a secret - do not repeat it!): plug in
 your IDE disk after boot using an USB/IDE adapter.

> HPA should not exist, there are a lot of other ways to store
> restore or diagnostics apps, Hibernation and Quick Restores
> should be handled in other way, I have once an omnibook (earth
> unplugged) and I can only reinstall Linux, because the host
> protected area does not allow me to install The Original OS,
> in other PC with the porper hardware and back it to the laptop.

  HPA and all the other "extended" IDE command exists on all hard
 drives used these day: anything more than 8 Gb has the complete
 set (but maybe SAORAB).

> This HPA should be optional, but never by default, I once need
> to have them disabled (where is the specifications from the
> manufacturer to reproduce them in a new hard disk media).

  My bootloader can be installed in any standard partition and
 if the disk does not contains a B.E.E.R. sector (see
http://www.t13.org/project/d1367r3.pdf
 ) you will not get the HPA set or frozzen.
 Security freeze is still done in all cases.

  Etienne.