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Many flash drives have HPA enabled; when trying to use hdparm to remove the HPA,it reports only the visible drive space, without the n1/n2 form seen with a harddrive. Any attempt to nonetheless change the visible space is ineffective. Does this mean the firmware involved is non-eraseable? If so, this renders the drive useless, as it cannot be cleaned and used for bootable applications. If this is so, does anyone know where to get clean flash drives(no HPA/dco). I have a few, and ironically, they were cheaper, but everything I see advertised now has "security" garbage, i.e. programming built in. I am certain this is non-removable.TNX.

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  • If you are talking about the virtual "CD-ROM" on some flash drives - that's probably not setup using HPA/DCO/etc. on flash drives, but some configuration in the flash drive's microcontroller. If you look in your Device Manager you'll probably see two separate devices for both the "CD-ROM" and the writeable portion. You need a configuration utility for that flash drive's microcontroller. These are difficult to find and may not exist or be available.
    – LawrenceC
    Dec 23, 2013 at 13:06

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I have had some run-ins with this in the past, and had some minor degree of success. First, if you have access to Windows or Mac, check the manufacturers site of the USB flash drive you intend to buy (or have already bought) for an uninstall tool (you may need to know the name of the "security"/"backup" tool specific to your drive). It seems stupid, but it has worked for me twice in the past with 2 different drives. In Linux I have managed to detect and delete some of them through basic GUI partitioning tools and settings. Play around a bit and sometimes that hidden partition will reveal itself. They tend to be smaller on flash drives for obvious reasons. Hdparm and dcfldd have been great tools in the past, but sometimes drop the ball when it comes to flash drives. On one or two occasions hdparm has even failed to recognize full usb hdds for me. As for resetting or modifying the dco on a usb flash....well...not sure about that one it hasn't really come up.... yet....

Not sure how useful this was, or if you're even interested after a month, but I hope it helped =P

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