Subject: Re: bug#15633: dd and host protected area

From: Phillip Susi <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 16:24:51 -0400

On 10/16/2013 3:19 AM, Peter D. wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Is it deliberate that dd can not read from, or write to the host
> protected area?  Or is it a bug?

The HPA is a feature of the drive, not the OS or software, so dd has
no idea whether or not there is one and can not "get around" it.  To
unlock the full capacity of the drive you have to send commands to the
drive.  You can have the libata driver do this by setting
libata.ignore_hpa=1.