Discussion
So I bought a laptop HDD from EBAY and swapped it with the existing HDD in my machine. As soon as the computer displays the Dell splash screen, it then displays a password request screen. This is not a BIOS password, it is a HDD password. The chap I bought it from did state that it displayed a password screen but I thought I could simply format the HDD and use it in my system. After having googled for locked HDDs, I have found out lots of info ref locking ATA HDDs to systems, but nothing that will tell me how to unlock it. I do not want the info on the HDD, I just want the HDD in a state where I can format it and reload my system onto it. Does anyone have any idea as to what I can do? I'm not going to pay someone to unlock it as the HDD itself only cost a few quid. The HDD is a Hitachi Travelstar 30Gb. Thanks in anticipation.....
philip_cooke said:
So I bought a laptop HDD from EBAY and swapped it with the existing HDD in my machine. As soon as the computer displays the Dell splash screen, it then displays a password request screen. This is not a BIOS password, it is a HDD password. The chap I bought it from did state that it displayed a password screen but I thought I could simply format the HDD and use it in my system. After having googled for locked HDDs, I have found out lots of info ref locking ATA HDDs to systems, but nothing that will tell me how to unlock it. I do not want the info on the HDD, I just want the HDD in a state where I can format it and reload my system onto it. Does anyone have any idea as to what I can do? I'm not going to pay someone to unlock it as the HDD itself only cost a few quid. The HDD is a Hitachi Travelstar 30Gb. Thanks in anticipation.....
If you paid only a few quid it's not suprising. Anyhow....i've got some bad news for you. It's VERY difficult to unlock a locked hard disk. It's worked into the firmware and you'll need special tools to do this. In most cases that I've heard of, people who've losed the passwords for their HDD, have binned the drives.
Sorry for the bad news.....
Thanks for the rapid help guys. I've tried booting from my legal Win XP CD (system will not boot as it does not recognise that there is a HDD there). Tried booting from a floppy disk onto a DOS prompt - sucessful but system still does not recognise the HDD. It does create a RAMDrive for me that is 2Mb in size though. I've also tried running MHD3.exe - a little routine that unlocks UTV disks - but not this one (I don't know where it originally came from).
The chap I bought it from does not know how to unlock it, hence his sale on Ebay. He bought it for a similar reason to me - upgrade of laptop system. Having read lots about unlocking HDDs on various websites yesterday and toady, I know it can be done by professionals, but at over £100 per drive it's not worth my while as I could buy a huge 2.5" for that price.
Guess I could ask my IT section at work but I doubt they've got the tools required....
The chap I bought it from does not know how to unlock it, hence his sale on Ebay. He bought it for a similar reason to me - upgrade of laptop system. Having read lots about unlocking HDDs on various websites yesterday and toady, I know it can be done by professionals, but at over £100 per drive it's not worth my while as I could buy a huge 2.5" for that price.
Guess I could ask my IT section at work but I doubt they've got the tools required....
We've just had a software locking application rolled out at work for laptops. My understanding is that it is software only and the boot sequence is usurped. In this case the obvious aim of the software is to make it a stinker to decrypt the disc contents. However a locked disc can be formatted. How come the boot CD doesn't recognise this hard disc? It may declare it to be a foreign format type but you should be able to format it nonetheless. Do you get a specific error from the boot CD?
Andy
Andy
TheStoat said:
We've just had a software locking application rolled out at work for laptops. My understanding is that it is software only and the boot sequence is usurped. In this case the obvious aim of the software is to make it a stinker to decrypt the disc contents. However a locked disc can be formatted. How come the boot CD doesn't recognise this hard disc? It may declare it to be a foreign format type but you should be able to format it nonetheless. Do you get a specific error from the boot CD?
Andy
Andy
Sounds more like ATA Security that software encryption, in which case Beanbag is correct. Check it out:
www.csnc.ch/static/download/misc/harddisk_ata_security_v1.1-1.pdf
You need to take this up with the seller...
Its weird, looking at the diagram of page 4 suggests that when the drive is in locked mode, one of the options available to you is to to an 'erase prepare' then 'erase' and leave the drive unlocked, also on page 5 it says that in 'locked mode' one of the available commands is "SECURITY ERASE UNIT". ... yet other statements in the document seem to contradict that, saying that if its locked and you havent got either password then just throw the thing away? They seem to be coming from a data recovery point of view though so maybe when they say that they just mean that the data is gone 
Anyway I don't fancy locking any of my drives to test the theory so good luck with it 
Anyway I don't fancy locking any of my drives to test the theory so good luck with it Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff