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ATATool - Windows ATA Disk Info and HPA/DCO Utility

ATATool is only available to professional users such digital forensic practitioners, law enforcement, security researchers and similar. It is no longer available for personal download. If you would like to use ATATool please Contact Us to request access. Please note that personal requests, anonymous requests and those from disposable email addresses will be ignored.


Overview

Data Synergy ATATool can be used to display and modify ATA disk information from a Microsoft Windows environment. We believe this is a unique capability for a freely available tool. The principal use of ATATool is to check/modify the ATA 'Host Protected Area (HPA)' and 'Device Configuration Overlay (DCO)' features. It can also be used to simulate 'bad' sectors by corrupting disk ECC data.

Current features include:

  • List attached ATA devices (both legacy PATA and SATA)
  • Display device information including model/serial number, HPA and DCO status
  • Modify and reset HPA device status (SETHPA command)
  • Modify and reset DCO device status (SETDCO command)
  • Corrupt and fix disk ECC data (BADECC command)
  • Force Windows device re-detect following HPA status change
  • Runs inside a Windows environment (including Windows PE)

ATATool has the following requirements:
  • Windows XP SP2 or later (32-bit or 64-bit) including Windows PE
  • Administrator rights (elevated on Windows Vista and later)


Syntax summary

ATATool is command-line tool. It is supplied as a single EXE file and requires no external dependencies to function.

The command-line syntax is:


  ATATOOL action [options] [device]

Where action may be:

  /LIST - List all detected ATA devices (default)
  /INFO - Display summary ATA information for device
  /DETAIL - Display detailed ATA information for device
  /SETHPA:sectors[MB][GB][TB] - Set maximum number of sectors or capacity (HPA)
  /RESETHPA - Restore default device maximum capacity (HPA)
  /SETDCO:sectors[MB][GB][TB] - Set maximum number of sectors or capacity (DCO)
  /RESTOREDCO - Restore default device maximum capacity (DCO)
  /FREEZELOCKDCO - Lock DCO until next hardware reset / power-off (DCO)
  /ADVANCED - Display further advanced syntax

Valid options:

  /NOREDETECT - Disable device re-detection for /SETHPA and /RESETHPA
  This option should be used with extreme caution as
  system may be unstable after reducing drive size

  /NONVOLATILEHPA - /SETHPA and /RESETHPA changes are permanent
  Default is for changes to be discarded on power-off

Numeric values may be decimal or hexadecimal. Prefix hexadecimal with '0x'

Examples:

  ATATOOL /LIST
  ATATOOL /INFO \\.\PhysicalDrive1
  ATATOOL /DETAIL \\.\PhysicalDrive2
  ATATOOL /SETHPA:1000MB \\.\PhysicalDrive2
  ATATOOL /SETHPA:0x123456 \\.\PhysicalDrive3
  ATATOOL /RESETHPA /NONVOLATILEHPA \\.\PhysicalDrive3
Data Synergy ATATool HPA DCO command line tool screenshot

Warning!

This software can be used to permanently modify the configuration (including size) of a device. This may prevent access to data that was previously accessible and may result in permanent data loss. This tool should be used with great care and Data Synergy accepts no liability for any loss resulting from the use of this software.