Because the Bios of the most Mainboards is supported only for a short time, i have written a Bios Extension that add the support of the ATA Security Feature Set.
http://www.fitzenreiter.de/ata/ata_eng.htm
Because the most modern HDD's support this but the most bios not there is a security hole that malware can set the hdd password and prevent the user to continue use his hdd.
My extension can installed to the bootrom socket of a network card or integrated to the mainboard bios.
Arne