Re: IDE HPA

[Molle Bestefich <molle.bestefich@gmail.com>]

Alan Cox wrote:
> Molle Bestefich wrote:
> > Not if, as proposed, there was a kernel switch to enable including the
> > HPA in the disc area.
> 
> And users magically knew about it - thats why it has to default the
> other way.

Ok, so just to reiterate..

The current default is causing grief because dmraid doesn't work, grub
doesn't work and other userspace apps probably breaks too.  Users have
to google and post to mailing lists just to get things to work (... if
they could, which would require eg. a kernel option, but anyway).

The other way round, users would have to google to find the kernel
option that claims the HPA area (if they felt the need to overwrite
the BIOS's backup area), but those that felt the need would then be
rewarded with eg. 10 GB extra disk space.  And if they didn't feel
like it, their userspace apps would still work just fine.

>From my POV it's hard to see why the current default is sensible.

(We'll probably just have to agree on disagreeing, unless you can enlighten me.)

Related matters:
If you decide to include the HPA in one of your filesystems, is there
not a big risk that the BIOS will overwrite something there?