Some HP Notebook PC systems with the hard drive access configured in SATA mode exhibit errors

Technical Articles ID: KB79998
Last Modified: 2/5/2020

Environment

McAfee Drive Encryption (DE) 7.1

HP Compaq nw8440 Mobile Workstation
HP Compaq nc8430 Notebook PC
HP Compaq nx8420 Notebook PC

For details of DE 7.1.x supported environments, see KB79422.

Problem

Writing to the hard drive is unreliable when configured in SATA Native Mode.

If you enable SATA Native Mode on these systems, the following issues eventually occur due to incorrect writing of data by the HP BIOS:

Corrupt graphics and text pre-boot, missing users, missing tokens
Data Store Corrupt errors
Missing Attribute errors
Unknown User where the user previously functioned and has not been removed

Cause

McAfee and HP discovered an issue with the BIOS support of SATA hard disks on HP Notebooks (present in BIOS versions prior to F.10 (released 17th April 2007), which makes writing to the hard-disk in SATA Native mode unreliable. The issue has been confirmed on the models listed above.

Solution

Update the HP BIOS to version F.10 or later. You can obtain BIOS updates via your HP support service.

Download the drivers and software from http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?prodNameId=1839208&lang=en&cc=us&taskId=135&prodClassId=-1&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=1839152.

NOTE: If you are using a BIOS version F.10 or newer, then this issue is not relevant to your problem.

Workaround

To prevent this issue occurring on systems with BIOS versions prior to F.10 (released 17th April 2007), disable SATA Native Mode in your notebook BIOS.

Affected Products

Drive Encryption 7.2

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Knowledge Center

Some HP Notebook PC systems with the hard drive access configured in SATA mode exhibit errors

Environment

Problem

Cause

Solution

Workaround

Affected Products

Languages:

Title

Title

Knowledge Center

Some HP Notebook PC systems with the hard drive access configured in SATA mode exhibit errors

Environment

Problem

Cause

Solution

Workaround

Affected Products

Languages:

Choose your region

Title

Title