Respecting the Host Protected Area

[Phillip Susi]

Scott James Remnant wrote:
> Is it possible to detect this situation?
> 
> When the HPA is not respected, can we see from userspace where it should
> have been?  If so, we can detect this during upgrade and make changes to
> ensure that HPA remains unrespected.
> 
> For others, who aren't overlapping into the HPA area, we can then
> respect it (and on fresh installs).

That is exactly what I suggested in my last message.  It should be 
possible during upgrade ( or also might want to check during fresh 
install ) to detect the HPA and whether or not an existing partition 
invades it.  The question is, do we just ignore it or permanently remove 
it, and do we do so automatically, or prompt the user to decide what to do?


If we just ignore the HPA automatically, then the user would never know 
anything was weird with their system, and would not have any trouble 
under Ubuntu, but if they tried to access the partition from Windows or 
another distribution, they would have trouble, possibly the data 
munching kind, and not know why.  I think the best option is to notify 
the user that this problem has been detected, and offer them the option 
of ignoring the HPA or permanently removing it, with removing it being 
the default/suggested option.