Talk:Hidden Protected Area - Revision history

TpUser0: New section: external link

2008-09-14T18:15:40Z

New section: external link

Pts: /* Migrating the HPA to a new hard drive (Windows) */

2007-11-22T10:59:41Z

‎Migrating the HPA to a new hard drive (Windows)

Pts: /* Migrating the HPA to a new hard drive (Windows) */

2007-11-22T10:54:34Z

‎Migrating the HPA to a new hard drive (Windows)

Pts: /* Migrating the HPA to a new hard drive (Windows) */

2007-11-22T10:32:47Z

‎Migrating the HPA to a new hard drive (Windows)

Pebolle: Span File Header checksum

2007-07-24T23:13:54Z

Span File Header checksum

Pebolle: It really is a checksum

2007-07-24T22:51:10Z

It really is a checksum

Pebolle: Rplying to Migrating the HPA ...

2007-07-24T22:50:23Z

Rplying to Migrating the HPA ...

Slowthinker: Migrating the HPA to a new hard drive (Windows)

2007-07-23T21:15:35Z

Migrating the HPA to a new hard drive (Windows)

Pebolle: Description of the files of a FirstWare HPA backup image file set

2007-01-07T10:27:39Z

Description of the files of a FirstWare HPA backup image file set

Hmh: retitle subtopic, and add comment that boils down to: "depends on what is inside the HPA..."

2007-01-05T02:22:46Z

retitle subtopic, and add comment that boils down to: "depends on what is inside the HPA..."

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:15, 14 September 2008
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	--[[User:Pts\|Per]] 10:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)		--[[User:Pts\|Per]] 10:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
		+
		+	== external link ==
		+
		+	If you are interested, there is a site about the HPA which was recently updated:
		+	* http://jamesie.de/thinkpad/index.en.html
		+	As I don't have an HPA (nor would I use it if I had one) I cannot judge about quality here. But you might want to take a look at it and - if it's good - add it to the external links.
		+	[[User:TpUser0\|“TpUser0”]] 20:15, 14 September 2008 (CEST)

@@ Line 82: / Line 82: @@
 Use a ultrabay-hd adapter for your new and not formated HD.
-fwbackup and fwrestore can work on differrent devices.
+fwbackup and fwrestore can work on differrent devices. see help on the command
   use fwbackup  do make a copy of HPA to the FAT32 partion.
   use fwrestore to write to the new drive.

@@ Line 77: / Line 77: @@
 ----
-Create a 5 GB FAT32 partion on original drive, this can be accessed be the recovery/HPA OS.
+Please verify with fwdir that you use a HPA system
 Use a ultrabay-hd adapter for your new and not formated HD.
 fwbackup and fwrestore can work on differrent devices.
-use fwbackup  do make a copy of HPA to the FAT32 partion.
+ use fwbackup  do make a copy of HPA to the FAT32 partion.
-use fwrestore to write to the new drive.
+ use fwrestore to write to the new drive.
-Use fwdir to verify that you have a HPA on the new drive.
+ Use fwdir to verify that you have a HPA on the new drive.
 Decide if you want a fresh install from new HPA or want to copy current installation.

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:32, 22 November 2007
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	[[User:Pebolle\|Paul Bolle]] 22:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)		[[User:Pebolle\|Paul Bolle]] 22:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
		+
		+
		+	----
		+	Create a 5 GB FAT32 partion on original drive, this can be accessed be the recovery/HPA OS.
		+	Use a ultrabay-hd adapter for your new and not formated HD.
		+
		+	fwbackup and fwrestore can work on differrent devices.
		+	use fwbackup do make a copy of HPA to the FAT32 partion.
		+	use fwrestore to write to the new drive.
		+	Use fwdir to verify that you have a HPA on the new drive.
		+
		+	Decide if you want a fresh install from new HPA or want to copy current installation.
		+	Best is to make the first NTFS partion with a proper size as the HPA fresh installation should only overwrite
		+	the first partion.
		+
		+	--[[User:Pts\|Per]] 10:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:13, 24 July 2007
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	[[User:Pebolle\|Paul Bolle]] 11:27, 7 January 2007 (CET)		[[User:Pebolle\|Paul Bolle]] 11:27, 7 January 2007 (CET)
		+
		+	==Span File Header checksum==
		+	Each FirstWare Image Backup span file has a 16 byte checksum in its header. This checksum is a md5sum derivative. It is calculated over the backup image in that span file (i.e. everything following the header). It differs from a md5sum in two (minor and related) aspects. (I'll describe it here using the well known md5 implementation of Colin Plumb, which one can find easily with a Google Code Search.) Those differences are:
		+	-in MD5Transform you'll have to "swap" (0->3, 1->2, 2->1, 3->0) all 4 byte "in" values for all 64 invocations of MD5STEP;
		+	- in MD5Final you'll have to also "swap" both "bit lenghts" (again 4 bytes long) that are used just before the final call of MD5Transform.
		+
		+	These are trivial differences. Discovering these was absolutely non-trivial!
		+
		+	Mail me if you'd like some code (in c).
		+
		+	[[User:Pebolle\|Paul Bolle]] 23:13, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

	== Migrating the HPA to a new hard drive (Windows) ==		== Migrating the HPA to a new hard drive (Windows) ==

@@ Line 32: / Line 32: @@
 - 29  first sector of HPA on the original hard drive, zero based (LSB first)
 - 37  unused
-- 53  checksum # MD5? checksum of what exactly?
+- 53  checksum
 -511  unused

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:50, 24 July 2007
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	Does anyone have any suggestions for a work around? If not, I see no way to save the backup of the original system configuration when upgrading the hard drive on the R50p or similar machines. [[User:Slowthinker\|Slowthinker]] 21:15, 23 July 2007 (UTC)		Does anyone have any suggestions for a work around? If not, I see no way to save the backup of the original system configuration when upgrading the hard drive on the R50p or similar machines. [[User:Slowthinker\|Slowthinker]] 21:15, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
		+
		+	----
		+
		+	I succesfully used the method Fabrice Bellet described. It's elaborate. Send me an email if you'd like further guidance.
		+
		+	[[User:Pebolle\|Paul Bolle]] 22:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:15, 23 July 2007
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	[[User:Pebolle\|Paul Bolle]] 11:27, 7 January 2007 (CET)		[[User:Pebolle\|Paul Bolle]] 11:27, 7 January 2007 (CET)
		+
		+	== Migrating the HPA to a new hard drive (Windows) ==
		+
		+	The white paper referred to in the article describes a procedure for moving the HPA when upgrading the hard drive. The HPA partition can't be simply cloned because critical jump instructions used by the BIOS directly address sectors on the HDD, and thus depend on the drive geometry. (Therefore, migration to an identical replacement drive should be possible by cloning, but not to a larger drive).
		+
		+	The procedure involves running the system restore program residing on the HPA, interrupting it by using the (otherwise undocumented) F3 key, and copying FWBACKUP and FWRESTOR programs to a floppy disk. This may work on A series systems with internal floppy drives (with UltraBay 2000 or UltraBay Plus), but it doesn't seem to work for USB floppy drives, which are the only kind available for the R series (which has the UltraBay Enhanced internal drive, for which no FDD devices have been made available). The BIOS does recognize USB devices, and they are visible while running the system restore program, but any attempt to write to these devices fails (I've tried this with a USB floppy and a USB flash drive).
		+
		+	Does anyone have any suggestions for a work around? If not, I see no way to save the backup of the original system configuration when upgrading the hard drive on the R50p or similar machines. [[User:Slowthinker\|Slowthinker]] 21:15, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:27, 7 January 2007
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	--[[User:Hmh\|hmh]] 03:22, 5 January 2007 (CET)		--[[User:Hmh\|hmh]] 03:22, 5 January 2007 (CET)
		+
		+	==FirstWare Image Backup span file format==
		+	FWBACKUP creates an image set (a set of span files) of a Phoenix FirstWare HPA. FWRESTOR uses these span files to restore an HPA beckup image. (See the Predesktop Area white paper for usage information for FWBACKUP and FWRESTOR.) The format of a span file is straightforward.
		+
		+	Each span file consists of a plain (not compressed, not encrypted) copy of a number of (512 byte) sectors of the HPA. It is preceded by a 512 byte header.
		+
		+	The format of this 512 byte header is:
		+	bytes description
		+	0- 7 magic ("fwbackup")
		+	8- 9 1 (LSB first) # version number?
		+	10- 11 span file number, one based (LSB first)
		+	12- 13 number of span files in image set (LSB first)
		+	14- 17 number of sectors in span file (LSB first)
		+	18- 21 number of sectors in image set (LSB first)
		+	22- 25 last sector of HPA on the original hard drive, zero based (LSB first)
		+	26- 29 first sector of HPA on the original hard drive, zero based (LSB first)
		+	30- 37 unused
		+	38- 53 checksum # MD5? checksum of what exactly?
		+	54-511 unused
		+
		+	Only bytes 10-11, 14-17 and 38-53 are unique for each span file. All other bytes of the header should be equal for all span files in an image set.
		+
		+	This magic entry for {{cmdresult\|file(1)}} can be used to identify the files part of an Phoenix FirstWare HPA backup image file set:
		+	# File magic for Phoenix FirstWare HPA backup image
		+	0 string fwbackup FirstWare HPA backup image
		+	# >8 leshort # x , version %d ???
		+	>26 lelong x (first disk sector of HPA: %d,
		+	>22 lelong x last disk sector of HPA: %d)
		+	>14 lelong x %d of
		+	>18 lelong x %d image sectors
		+	>10 leshort x (span file %d
		+	>12 leshort x of %d)
		+
		+	[[User:Pebolle\|Paul Bolle]] 11:27, 7 January 2007 (CET)

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 Also I know an R50e machine, that has Rescue and Recovery on a Compaq Diagnostics partition. So it shouldn't be listed either on the bottom of the page. I'm just not too sure, if I understand those technologies correctly, so I hesitate to remove it.
-==Re: 5 Accessing the HPA from Linux==
+==Removing item "Accessing the HPA from Linux"==
 I've checked the fwdir code (http://colimit.googlepages.com/fwdir.zip). This code works on a Hidden Partition (is that the same as a R and R or yet another Predesktop variant?). This code can not work with real HPAs.
@@ Line 9: / Line 9: @@
 [[User:Pebolle|Paul Bolle]] 01:08, 4 January 2007 (CET)