HPA Control Utility 1.0

HPA Control Utility is a specialized tool for inspecting and managing the Host Protected Area (HPA) on compatible ATA/SATA hard drives and SSDs. It helps technicians, refurbishers, and investigators discover hidden capacity, adjust the host-visible size, and restore a drive to its native capacity when appropriate.

Key capabilities:

• Detect and report the presence of an HPA, including current versus native LBA capacity
• Read detailed device information (e.g., Identify Device data and HPA-related flags)
• Temporarily or persistently set the host-accessible size using standard SET MAX commands
• Remove or reinstate an HPA to reclaim hidden sectors or create service partitions
• Operate in a read-only assessment mode for non-destructive analysis
• Generate logs and summaries to support documentation and audit needs

Common use cases:

• Recovering full capacity after OEM or recovery tools reserved space on a drive
• Preparing drives for imaging, forensics, or refurbishment
• Limiting visible capacity for legacy system compatibility or controlled deployments

Notes and requirements:

• Administrator/root privileges and a controller that supports ATA pass-through are typically required
• Changes to HPA settings can cause data loss; back up important data before making modifications
• Support and behavior vary by drive model and firmware; NVMe devices generally do not implement HPA

HPA Control Utility is developed by Xicom Technology. The most popular version of this product among our users is 1.0. The names of program executable files are HpaCtrl.exe, HpaCtrl2.exe.