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I need to know if my motherboard is Opal 2.0 compatible.
I have asked the question to it's manufacturer but he answers that he doesn't know, claiming that the tests to determine the Opal 2.0 compatibility haven't been done (and probably won't be done).

So how can I know/check if my motherboard is Opal 2.0 compliant ?

Oliver
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    If the manufacturer doesn't know, then why would you assume that it is? –  Feb 27 '20 at 09:11
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    I don't know at all Opal 2.0, but the few i saw on Google/Internet make me think that it has nothing to do with motherboard.... Opal 2.0 is just for storage devices (and flash controllers too). A better question would be "Is my XXX Opal 2.0 Hard drive compatible with my Operating System ?"... But as mentionned, i don't know at all Opal 2.0... [This post](https://www.dell.com/community/Latitude/M-2-Opal-2-0-SED-drive/td-p/6072894) on Dell's forums looks interesting ... – binarym Feb 27 '20 at 13:39
  • @binarym: AFAIK, this is incorrect. Crucial tells me that i have to ask my motherboard manufacturer if the mb is Opal 2.0 compliant, and when I ask this to MSI, they don't seem to be surprised, but just answer that they did not do the test. And my searches on Google seems to cocnlude that the Opal compatibility is linked to both the mb and the disk. – Oliver Feb 27 '20 at 15:28
  • @MechMK1:It is not because you don't know anything about something that it does not exist. MSI tells me that they did not do the test. As I don't know what Opal 2.0 compliance involves, I can't assume that the mb is not Opal 2.0 compliant. If I had a mb that have not been tested into an ATX case, that doesn't mean that it won't work into that case. – Oliver Feb 27 '20 at 15:29
  • for those interested, this is from a previous question: https://www.crucial.fr/support/articles-faq-ssd/setup-ssd-encryption-via-bitlocker – schroeder Feb 27 '20 at 15:36
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    If the ***vendor*** cannot tell you, I'm not sure random other people can tell you instead. – schroeder Feb 27 '20 at 15:38
  • @schroeder:Having dealed with MSI support many times, when they say that they don't know, you probably have to understand that they don't care and don't want to test. This said, that doesn't mean that the needed tests are hard to do. The only thing to start with this is to know what are these tests. And you assume a bit quickly that there are here only "random" people. – Oliver Feb 28 '20 at 01:14
  • @schroeder:Yes, I have already seen this URL, and almost everything written there is just garbage, written by someone who probably doesn't even know what he is talking about and haven't even ran BitLocker once in its life. More and especialy into the end video. Even the Crucial technical support doesn't know how to check if the hardware encryption is activated or not on their own disks... – Oliver Feb 28 '20 at 01:26

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The OPAL Specification includes test cases that must pass in order to claim OPAL compliance. But these are to be done by the vendor, not the end-user. You would need a special testing rig to run these tests to see if the component is compliant.

If the vendor says that they have not run the tests, then they cannot claim compliance. They might incidentally be compliant, but you might never know.

schroeder
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  • Great, thank you, I will look at this. In addition, do you know if there is a tool (even a complicated one, or long to run, I don't care), that can help testing the Opal 2.0 compatibility of a motherboard ? – Oliver Feb 28 '20 at 01:19