Hidden Protected Area - Revision history

ThinkGNU: The article got almost everything right, but if you're changing the partition table, you're installing more than Linux.

2025-04-11T07:04:14Z

The article got almost everything right, but if you're changing the partition table, you're installing more than Linux.

SlySven: /* Models featuring this Technology */

2014-01-27T21:37:36Z

‎Models featuring this Technology

Sleske: /* Failure to boot */ Note about HPA protection

2009-07-29T12:37:44Z

‎Failure to boot: Note about HPA protection

Sleske: /* Problems caused by the HPA */ add section about boot failures

2009-07-29T12:31:19Z

‎Problems caused by the HPA: add section about boot failures

BioGeek at 19:50, 21 August 2008

2008-08-21T19:50:15Z

Krzakan: /* Details of the HPA */

2008-03-08T16:09:22Z

‎Details of the HPA

Krzakan: /* Details of the HPA */

2008-02-22T20:51:47Z

‎Details of the HPA

Krzakan: /* Details of the HPA */

2008-02-22T20:42:54Z

‎Details of the HPA

Krzakan: /* Details of the HPA */

2008-02-22T20:42:01Z

‎Details of the HPA

Krzakan: /* Details of the HPA */

2008-02-22T20:40:42Z

‎Details of the HPA

@@ Line 24: / Line 24: @@
 *Disabled: Not Usable; Visible and Reclaimable
-Normal is the default setting. One can boot into the Predesktop Area when either Secure or Normal is set. When Disabled is set the Predesktop Area will not boot. According to the [http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-46023 Predesktop Area white paper] the HPA is both "locked"{{footnote|1}} and "hidden" when Secure is set and only "hidden" when normal is set. In practice the result seems to be that the HPA is totally unavailable to the Linux kernel (and therefore all applications) when Secure is set. (The HPA should be unavailable in "Secure mode" for all operating systems, MS Windows included.) One would expect the HPA to be only accessable to HPA aware tools when Normal is set. However, recent kernels disable the HPA by default when Normal is set. Note that [http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-ide&w=2&r=1&s=Host+protected+area&q=b recent threads on linux-ide] suggest that the ThinkPad will reenable the HPA on resume and thus causing (possibly serious) conflicts with the GNU/Linux system (that assumes the HPA is still available).
+Normal is the default setting. One can boot into the Predesktop Area when either Secure or Normal is set. When Disabled is set the Predesktop Area will not boot. According to the [http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-46023 Predesktop Area white paper] the HPA is both "locked"{{footnote|1}} and "hidden" when Secure is set and only "hidden" when normal is set. In practice the result seems to be that the HPA is totally unavailable to Linux (and therefore all applications) when Secure is set. (The HPA should be unavailable in "Secure mode" for all operating systems, MS Windows included.) One would expect the HPA to be only accessable to HPA aware tools when Normal is set. However, recent kernels disable the HPA by default when Normal is set. Note that [http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-ide&w=2&r=1&s=Host+protected+area&q=b recent threads on linux-ide] suggest that the ThinkPad will reenable the HPA on resume and thus causing (possibly serious) conflicts with the GNU/Linux system (that assumes the HPA is still available).
 With Disabled you should be able to safely reclaim the area used by the HPA (to GNU/Linux it basically is unallocated space on the harddisk).
@@ Line 52: / Line 52: @@
 ===Failure to boot===
-If the HPA is enabled in the BIOS (mode set to "Normal"), Linux may get confused about the correct partition geometry. The exact reason is not clear, but apparently a Linux installation may overwrite/damage the HPA, which then causes problems during boot. The problem may also be caused by changing the BIOS mode of the HPA after the installation of Linux.
+If the HPA is enabled in the BIOS (mode set to "Normal"), Linux may get confused about the correct partition geometry. The exact reason is not clear, but apparently a GNU/Linux installation may overwrite/damage the HPA, which then causes problems during boot. The problem may also be caused by changing the BIOS mode of the HPA after the installation of GNU/Linux.
 Reported symptoms are:
@@ Line 62: / Line 62: @@
 This problem can apparently be fixed by setting the HPA mode to "Disable" in the BIOS setup.
-Note that this setting will allow software to overwrite the HPA. In particular, a subsequent Linux installation is likely to overwrite the HPA whent it wipes the drive. If you need the recovery features of the recovery system installed in the HPA, you should probably keep the setting to "Secure". However, if you experience the boot problems describe above, your HPA is probably already destroyed, so "Disable" is the best setting (in some cases, the BIOS will actually force you to set "Disable" if it detects that the HPA has been deleted).
+Note that this setting will allow software to overwrite the HPA. In particular, a subsequent GNU/Linux installation is likely to overwrite the HPA whent it wipes the drive. If you need the recovery features of the recovery system installed in the HPA, you should probably keep the setting to "Secure". However, if you experience the boot problems describe above, your HPA is probably already destroyed, so "Disable" is the best setting (in some cases, the BIOS will actually force you to set "Disable" if it detects that the HPA has been deleted).
 ==External Sources==

@@ Line 75: / Line 75: @@
 *[http://freenet-homepage.de/moyamu/sw/hpatools/index.html hpatools]
 ==Models featuring this Technology==
 *ThinkPad {{R40}}, {{R40e}}, {{R50}}, {{R50e}}, {{R50p}}, {{R51}}, {{R52}}
 *ThinkPad {{T40}}, {{T40p}}, {{T41}}, {{T41p}}, {{T42}}, {{T42p}}, {{T43}}, {{T43p}}

@@ Line 60: / Line 60: @@
 See for example this bug report from Ubuntu:   [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/25451 Bug #25451: Thinkpad BIOS can't hide the Predesktop area]
 This problem can apparently be fixed by setting the HPA mode to "Disable" in the BIOS setup.
 ==External Sources==

@@ Line 47: / Line 47: @@
 ==Problems caused by the HPA==
 As of Linux 2.6.18, having a HPA may cause errors when resuming the laptop from suspend-to-RAM or suspend-to-disk.  See the section called "SectorIdNotFound disk errors when laptop is resumed" in [[Problems with ACPI suspend-to-ram | ACPI suspend problems]].
 ==External Sources==

@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 The HPA is based on [http://www.phoenix.com/en/Products/Trusted+Applications/Phoenix+FirstWare/default.htm Phoenix FirstWare]. FirstWare is (in short) an implementation of two technologies: BEER and PARTIES. (Yes, those names are correct!) BEER (Boot Engineering Extension Record) and PARTIES (Protected Area Run Time Interface Extension Services) are described in [http://t13.org/Documents/UploadedDocuments/project/d1367r3-PARTIES.pdf this T13 working draft]. There is a more general introduction to PARTIES on the [http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=0&uid=psg1MIGR-51248&loc=en_US IBM site]. FirstWare depends on certain [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Attachment#ATA_standards_versions.2C_transfer_rates.2C_and_features ATA-5] commands, so it won't work with lower ATA level (earlier) drives or even with all ATA-5 drives. Unfortunately, there is no public HPA compatibility tester or list of compatible drives.
-Basically, what's going on is that the Phoenix BIOS commands the drive to hide the last few gigabytes of the hard disk (the HPA). The to non-HPA aware software, the drive appears to have a smaller size. Note that this is just a setting in the BIOS and can be disabled. The HPA can be accessed by pressing {{ibmkey|Access IBM|#495988}} or {{key|Enter}} at boot time. The BIOS will then parse the BEER (128 bytes, situated in the last sector of 512 bytes of the harddisk) and the "Directory of Services" (consisting of directory entries of 64 bytes each, starting in the last sector and spilling over into the previous sectors) to see what part of the HPA should be launched. In (most?) ThinkPads the BEER tells the BIOS to launch the Access IBM Predesktop Area. The system will then actually be booting into a (minimal) DOS environment which is able to launch a graphical shell (called Phoenix FirstSight). IBM has simply rebranded this graphical shell to the Access IBM Predesktop Area. From this graphical shell one can launch several tools (BIOS Setup Utility, diagnostic tools, recovery tools).
+Basically, what's going on is that the Phoenix BIOS commands the drive to hide the last few gigabytes of the hard disk (the HPA). To the non-HPA aware software, the drive appears to have a smaller size. Note that this is just a setting in the BIOS and can be disabled. The HPA can be accessed by pressing {{ibmkey|Access IBM|#495988}} or {{key|Enter}} at boot time. The BIOS will then parse the BEER (128 bytes, situated in the last sector of 512 bytes of the harddisk) and the "Directory of Services" (consisting of directory entries of 64 bytes each, starting in the last sector and spilling over into the previous sectors) to see what part of the HPA should be launched. In (most?) ThinkPads the BEER tells the BIOS to launch the Access IBM Predesktop Area. The system will then actually be booting into a (minimal) DOS environment which is able to launch a graphical shell (called Phoenix FirstSight). IBM has simply rebranded this graphical shell to the Access IBM Predesktop Area. From this graphical shell one can launch several tools (BIOS Setup Utility, diagnostic tools, recovery tools).
 ==Three BIOS options==

@@ Line 33: / Line 33: @@
 Another option is the [http://home.tiscali.nl/pebolle/code/hpafs Hidden Protected Area FileSystem], a read-only [http://fuse.sf.net FUSE] (Filesystem in USErspace). hpafs allows to analyze, backup, etc. the HPA. The current release is hpafs-0.1.0 (alpha, developers only). Check the [http://home.tiscali.nl/pebolle/code/hpafs/README README] for further details.
-Good news for all those who need to copy HPA from an old disk to a new one.
+Good news for all who need to copy HPA from an old disk to a new one.
 [http://sourceforge.net/projects/fiesta fiesta] is an easy (hence its name) to use info/backup/restore/copy tool for HPA equipped computers. Apart from displaying detailed information about the structure of HPA, it allows for extraction of HPA "partitions", or PSA's, direct mounting (if they contain a filesystem), and most importantly, a copy of entire HPA from one disk to the other, in case of a disk up(down)grade, in a simple two-step procedure.

@@ Line 33: / Line 33: @@
 Another option is the [http://home.tiscali.nl/pebolle/code/hpafs Hidden Protected Area FileSystem], a read-only [http://fuse.sf.net FUSE] (Filesystem in USErspace). hpafs allows to analyze, backup, etc. the HPA. The current release is hpafs-0.1.0 (alpha, developers only). Check the [http://home.tiscali.nl/pebolle/code/hpafs/README README] for further details.
-Yet another alternative of getting information on HPA is [http://sourceforge.net/projects/fiesta fiesta]. This program is an easy (hence its name) to use info/backup/restore/copy tool for HPA equipped computers. Apart from displaying detailed information about the structure of HPA, it allows for extraction of HPA "partitions", or PSA's, direct mounting (if they contain a filesystem), and most importantly, a copy of entire HPA from one disk to the other, in case of a disk up(down)grade, in a simple two-step procedure.
+Good news for all those who need to copy HPA from an old disk to a new one.
-Finally, the latest, and it seems to be the most powerful set of tools to deal with HPA and PSA's (called, very naturely, [http://freenet-homepage.de/moyamu/sw/hpatools/index.html hpatools]) is discussed in [http://www.p35-forum.de/board/thread.php?threadid=6083 this thread]. That stuff is German language only, but [http://jamesie.de/thinkpad/index.en.html here] is a translation that was successfully tested with a X31.
+Finally, the powerful set of tools to deal with HPA and PSA's (called, very naturely, [http://freenet-homepage.de/moyamu/sw/hpatools/index.html hpatools]) is discussed in [http://www.p35-forum.de/board/thread.php?threadid=6083 this thread]. That stuff is German language only, but [http://jamesie.de/thinkpad/index.en.html here] is a translation that was successfully tested with a X31.
 ==How to reclaim the HPA==