Used 2.5 hard drive locked

[Renegade JB]

Hello all. I purchased a few used laptop hard drives at a computer show "as is" I want to use them for external storage. One of the drives must have a password on the drive because Win XP sees it but it cannot be accessed. I’m told it is a security feature for the drive and I’m SOL. I have no interest in the data on the drive. I just want to wipe it clean and format it. Are there any ideas or should I toss it and never buy a used hard drive again?

[spm97]

Depending on the drive manufactor, there is an unlock code that will wipe the drive and remove the password.

I have a table (can't share it publicly) of which ones support that feature.

Send me the make and model number; very few support it, but it is worth a shot.

Spam

[MrBlah]

you can always boot into windows safe mode command prompt and fdisk D:\ or E:\ or whatever it is.

[Renegade JB]

I should have explained better. When I put the drive into the external case and plug in the USB cable I get a new hardware found msg. It then says installed successfully. I look in My Computer and the drive is not displayed.
Same goes for disk management. The drive does not show up. I hope that helps. sry

[MrBlah]

sata or ide?

[spm97]

Either spec (IDE or SATA) has HW enable passwords as part of the command set ...

I have the drive info - I'll check tomorrow to see if it is one with a vendor built in backdoor password.

Spam

[MrBlah]

well sata you can easily just plug it into a sata port on your computer and fdisk, for the ide you would need an adapter for 2.5" ide to 3.5" ide and the just fdisk

[spm97]

What Renegade is complaining about is a little known, rarely implemented feature included in the ATA3 and SATA specification called a hard drive password. It's implemented in firmware on the drive, and there are 2 choices:

1 is the user password, which is normally set by the user
2 is the master password, which is normally set by the factory, but can be changed by the user

fdisk isn't going to do anything if the hard drive has a password; the drive refuses all read/write operations until you provide the proper password.

Spam

[MrBlah]

well shoot... that just kinda sucks...

[spm97]

Oh - and what makes things worse is most PCs don't have any concept of the password.....

Whenever I need to debug one of these, I have a 2nd drive bay that goes into my laptop where the CD rom normally is....

Then I can boot linux and examine the drive with hdparm and see if the password is set, and even try and remove it using some of the default master unlock passwords.

And if that doesn't work, you throw the drive in the trash....

Spam

[Renegade JB]

WOW Spam.. U Da Man..... Its IDE . Would I be able to put the drive into a laptop and then boot to setup ? OR Does it have to be in the original computer to see the password login ?

TY for the imput MrBlah. I have tried all that. I have the 2.5 adapter with USB cable. Computer installs the drive but "I" cant see it. And your right.."THAT SUCKS"