Drive Lock Password? Help!

Bruce Fan

I was watching a DVD on my laptop the other day when all of a sudden it crashed. When I restarted it I was asked to :
"Enter Drive Lock Password"
Which I don't have. I don't know how this happened because I've never been asked for it before and I was under the impression that you had to actually turn this on in the BIOS settings?

Is there anyway around this?
I don't want to fork out for a new HDD as this one is pretty new.

legs11

well, looks like its to do with the region settings? need to know more info on your drive and lappie. how old it is also.
you could try flashing the bios of the cd drive? your hdd got nothin to do with your dvd drive anyways

Tom Dunne

legs11 wrote:

well, looks like its to do with the region settings?

I'm not so sure about that. Bruce - can you confirm it is a password on the hard-drive, not the DVD drive?

I would suggest Googling the hard-drive model (get this from the BIOS) and see if it is a known problem.

Bruce Fan

The laptop is a Compaq Presario R3000 bought it on eBay from Canada a few months ago. Worked fine up until this.
1.8 GHz AMD Athlon 64
Hitachi 60GB (4200RPM) Hard Drive
Phoenix BIOS
It's definitly the HDD thats locked up.
I tried using the windows recovery console but it couldn't find the a HDD.
I haved flashed the BIOS yet, as I've never done this before so Im a bit reluctant... I'm totally out of ideas though so I will have to try in soon.

SouperComputer

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if there is a password on the HD for whatever reason, you are pretty foobard. You are correct in saying that typically this is set through your computers BIOS. Hopefully its a false alarm on the computer's BIOS end.

Does it try to boot (IE pass a password prompt) when the HD is removed?

You could try (these are both based on the false-alarm theory:

1) Mount HD via USB\Firewire and boot a linux boot CD (if the HD is genuinely locked, this is useless though!)

2) Mount HD via USB\Firewire and try to acesss the HD.

If the HD is genuinely password protected (Even if you didint set it) the only way I know of reseting it is risky. It involves submering the logic board from the HD in water to short out the capacitors. You could also switch the EEPROM chip for one of another logic board.

HTH

Tom Dunne

SouperComputer wrote:

If the HD is genuinely password protected (Even if you didint set it) the only way I know of reseting it is risky. It involves submering the logic board from the HD in water to short out the capacitors.

ROFL.

That is probably the first time somebody on the laptop forum has actually suggested immersing a HD into water.

Another thing that just occured to me is trying a Linux LiveCD and doing as SouperComputer suggests - see if you can access the drive via Linux.

SouperComputer

That is probably the first time somebody on the laptop forum has actually suggested immersing a HD into water

Just the logic board!

Another thing that just occured to me is trying a Linux LiveCD and doing as SouperComputer suggests - see if you can access the drive via Linux.

Im hoping that the password is a false positive. If a password has been set on the HD for whatever reason, you cannot access it in any way, shape for form, including LLF'ing

Capt'n Midnight

SouperComputer wrote:

Im hoping that the password is a false positive. If a password has been set on the HD for whatever reason, you cannot access it in any way, shape for form, including LLF'ing

IIRC the password is stored on the disk platter itself and the data is not encrypted. Swapping the controller board won't bypass the password ( if it's a genuine one. )

Things to try - at your own risk

if the drive can take a firmware - re-flash it

If the data is not important erase it
http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t307506-how-do-you-remove-an-ata-hard-disk-password.html

In High security mode, you can unlock the disk with either the user or
master password, using the "SECURITY UNLOCK DEVICE" ATA command. There is an
attempt limit, normally set to 5, after which you must power cycle or
hard-reset the disk before you can attempt again.

In Maximum security mode, you cannot unlock the disk! The only way to get
the disk back to a usable state is to issue the SECURITY ERASE PREPARE
command, immediately followed by SECURITY ERASE UNIT. The SECURITY ERASE
UNIT command requires the Master password and will completely erase all data
on the disk. The operation is rather slow, expect half an hour or more for
big disks. (Word 89 in the IDENTIFY response indicates how long the
operation will take.)

http://www.heise.de/ct/english/05/08/172/

If you need the data then a data recovery company can read it off the platters - but the disk will be destroyed and it will cost more than a new drive.

Bruce Fan

Right well I've been doing some research and it seems that I'm totally screwed.
Theres a topic on Experts Exchange that ran for 2 years on trying to remove a password on a locked drive.
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Misc/Q_20423260.html

Think I'll just cut my losses and buy a new HDD.

Only problem now is, what if the same thing happens to my new drive??

kirving

Is the laptop second hand? If there was ever a password set on the drive before, would it be possible that you accidentaly turned it on somehow? You cound try and contact the seller and see if he knows anything about it.

Bruce Fan

Yeah I contacted him. He said he doesn't know anything about it.
It's not something most people would use anyway I think. I'd never even heard about it until it happened to me.
I don't see how I could of turned it on accidently. Ther whole thing is very strange. It must have something to do with the fact that I was watching a region 1 dvd at the time it happened. But how would the dvd drive affect the HDD??? Doesn't make sense...

Kimbot

Bruce,

Generally speaking the only way a password enabled HDD will do that is if its set to slave in a different system other than the one it was intended to be in!! Well thats my take on the situation but take a look at this discussion (2nd link) about the HDD password!!

http://www.megasolutions.net/laptops/Calling-Toshiba-Libretto-Users-re-HDD-Password___-25559.aspx

http://forum.notebookreview.com/archive/index.php?t-7249.html

Bruce Fan

Thanks for that Jonny. Well that settles it I guess. 1st thing when I get home tonight.... take that piece-o-crap hdd out and frisbie it out the window.

Kimbot

Well I would take the drive out and see what way the pins on the back are set up in it!! Master/Slave etc. and try different combinations of it then to see if that helps matters!! The password can't be cracked from what I know but give me a while and I will see what I can come up with!!

Kimbot

Bruce there may be some good news for you!!


http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/09/2054235

http://www.motherboardpoint.com/t130820-laptop-hard-drive-password.html

http://www.tutorials-be.com/laptops/thinkpad-password-428373/


These links provide some good reading with regards to "Bypassing" the HDD locks!!