If there is a discrepancy between the sectors reported by EnCase and the manufacturer, what should be suspected?

When discrepancies between the sectors reported by EnCase and the manufacturer occur, it suggests that there may be hidden areas on the storage device that are not accounted for in the typical sector reporting. The High Power Area (HPA) and Device Configuration Overlay (DCO) are both mechanisms that can modify how the storage device appears to the operating system and forensic tools.

The High Power Area is a reserved area of the disk that can be used by manufacturers for specific purposes and is not normally accessible to users or operating systems. It allows for extra storage capacity that is not reported in standard device parameters.

The Device Configuration Overlay serves a similar purpose, allowing manufacturers to change the reported capacity of the drive, effectively masking certain sectors that may contain data. This means that a forensics examiner may see a different set of reported sectors than what is actually physically present on the device.

Since both HPA and DCO can lead to such discrepancies in sector reporting, it is important for examiners to suspect the presence of either or both of these features when they encounter this issue. This knowledge is crucial during a forensic investigation, as it indicates that potentially important data may be hidden from standard access and needs to be examined further. Thus, recognizing that both HPA and DCO