HPA may refer to any of the following:

  1. Short for high-performance addressing, HPA was developed by Hitachi and is an LCD passive-matrix display technology commonly found on low-end portable computers. HPAs have higher response rates and contrast, and are capable of displaying up to 16 million colors. However, they lack the crisp display found with an active-matrix display. See the dual-scan display for a full definition and related links on this term.

  2. Alternatively called host protected area and predesktop area. HPA is short for hidden protected area and is a section of the hard drive used for IBM ThinkPad computers to restore their computer back to its original state when shipped. It includes other tools to help diagnose the computer as well. This setting can be disabled through the BIOS setup and then reclaimed using any partition tool.

  • Monitor, LCD, and display help and support.

Computer abbreviations, Hidden partition, HPD, Video terms

  • How to enter and exit the BIOS or CMOS setup.