xshirox Posted September 22, 2008 CID Share Posted September 22, 2008 A friend of mine recently gave me a 2.5" laptop hard drive from an old broken/used IBM Thinkpad A20m series, the problem now I can't format or partition it, it's locked, it keeps asking "hard drive password". I asked the password, he already forgot it. Is there a way to reset this or remove it completely? Model: IBM Travelstar DJSA-220 ATA/IDE - 20gig I'm planning to use it as an external backup hard drive. Any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mudmanc4 Posted September 22, 2008 CID Share Posted September 22, 2008 You need to do a low level format, try this one . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xshirox Posted September 23, 2008 Author CID Share Posted September 23, 2008 i tried it, didn't work. format errors. i did some research, the "hdd password" itself resides within the hard drive surface/firmware. and it wont accept any ATA commands like low-level format commands, unless the correct password is applied. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mudmanc4 Posted September 23, 2008 CID Share Posted September 23, 2008 Interesting. There has to be a way. Give me a little bit. EDIT : Maybe try this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coknuck Posted September 23, 2008 CID Share Posted September 23, 2008 If those don't work give this a try. Darik's Boot And Nuke: http://www.dban.org/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xshirox Posted September 24, 2008 Author CID Share Posted September 24, 2008 I tried both & here are the results. First up the HDD-Unlock tool from sir mudmanc4's link, Booted WinXP on 1ST IDE CHANNEL & LOCKED HDD on 2ND IDE CHANNEL as MASTER ONLY (no slaves), XP detected the new drive but has no access to it even in Disk Manager, but the HDD-Unlock tool detected the attached hard drive with locked status. In order to unlock it, you need to purchase they called "Vitual Unlock Card" and get it via e-mail. Second the DBAN boot disk from sir Coknuck's link, I tried booting from DBAN, it gave me errors, can't see drives attached. Looks like I'm stuck with this for a while, I'll store this drive for future attempts or I may end up buying a new 2.5" drive for my usb enclosure. Thanks for the help guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mudmanc4 Posted September 24, 2008 CID Share Posted September 24, 2008 Did you get to the point where they told you how much it was for this " card " ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninjageek Posted September 24, 2008 CID Share Posted September 24, 2008 I had the same darn probles with a seagate harddrive. I worked on it for 2 weeks and tried everything. Finally just decided to spend the 80 bucks for a new drive. Was not worth the hassles and stress. Made sure the harddrive could never be recoverd (tore it apart with a hammer and chisel.) Sure it was a bit of work but was nice releaving that stress. Stupid thing will never work again now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sequoia Posted September 24, 2008 CID Share Posted September 24, 2008 After you take a HD apart smash if you want to but melting it is even better.I have an acetylene torch so a through melt is no problem .A good cooking on the grill might work too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xshirox Posted September 25, 2008 Author CID Share Posted September 25, 2008 Did you get to the point where they told you how much it was for this " card " ? yes it's $4.97 for unlocking drives up to 40GB. i don't own a credit card. i'll try asking my friend for favor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morlock Posted September 25, 2008 CID Share Posted September 25, 2008 that's it?i would use acetylene instead.give me a minute...let me do it to my 300gb seagate HD i bought 3 weeks ago.it was infected with a hardisk killer...hu3x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mudmanc4 Posted September 25, 2008 CID Share Posted September 25, 2008 that's it?i would use acetylene instead.give me a minute...let me do it to my 300gb seagate HD i bought 3 weeks ago.it was infected with a hardisk killer...hu3x You could just as well drop it in a bucket of well water, and sooner than later, the thing will be corroded beyond recovery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sequoia Posted September 26, 2008 CID Share Posted September 26, 2008 You could just as well drop it in a bucket of well water, and sooner than later, the thing will be corroded beyond recovery. I'm not sure what the government could recover with their best experts.I've heard of recovery even off broken discs. Not sure on the corroded ones. But melted definately makes recovery impossible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morlock Posted October 12, 2008 CID Share Posted October 12, 2008 to all the gurus out there,my wife and I will travel to US for good,hoping before the end of the year,i will surely bring some of my stuff including my laptop with some pirated programs.do all US airport personnel checks laptops of travellers?(sorry for this kind of questions,but if you reply i will say many thanks) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philp Posted October 12, 2008 CID Share Posted October 12, 2008 I've never gone through customs with a laptop, but I know they will pass it through the x-ray machine just for security purposes. I doubt they have the time to inspect every program on every laptop that comes through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buntz Posted October 12, 2008 CID Share Posted October 12, 2008 Temperarely remove your current harddrive in the laptop and install the one you just got into the laptop, than run Dban. When Dban is finish, reinstall your harddrive back into the laptop and install the new one in the external enclosure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mudmanc4 Posted October 12, 2008 CID Share Posted October 12, 2008 Temperarely remove your current harddrive in the laptop and install the one you just got into the laptop, than run Dban. When Dban is finish, reinstall your harddrive back into the laptop and install the new one in the external enclosure. Why would he have to do this to go through customs, i don't understand. If your trying to get the password removed, dban will not do this, I would like to be proven wrong though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buntz Posted October 12, 2008 CID Share Posted October 12, 2008 I must have misunderstood what he was trying to do. I thought he was just trying to wipe clean a used harddrive to use it for himself. I should have read the whole thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mudmanc4 Posted October 12, 2008 CID Share Posted October 12, 2008 I must have misunderstood what he was trying to do. I thought he was just trying to wipe clean a used harddrive to use it for himself. I should have read the whole thread. On that note, do you have any suggestions on how to remove a HDD password ? I found a couple programs tht will accomplish this, but they are costly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buntz Posted October 12, 2008 CID Share Posted October 12, 2008 Not really. I do not use a harddrive password and never really look into removing one. I thought Dban wipe out everything on the harddrive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mudmanc4 Posted October 12, 2008 CID Share Posted October 12, 2008 Not really. I do not use a harddrive password and never really look into removing one. I thought Dban wipe out everything on the harddrive. I'm sure it does, but the password supposedly gets into the circuit board rom. The way i see things, it was put there, it can be removed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlucardHS Posted October 12, 2008 CID Share Posted October 12, 2008 I use Winternals to just change the admin PW to something else. Really easy tool to use just boot up with it and it will run a OS live from the disk. Then go to the programs on it to change any account PW and boom your done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morlock Posted October 12, 2008 CID Share Posted October 12, 2008 :lol:thanks for your replies.my plan is to install virtual drive 8 to my pc,then make virtual cd for all my pirated programs and save it to windows folder,then i will uninstall virtual drive 8.so these saved VCD's will look like unknown windows folder.he3x.custom people cannot open the folder unless they will install virtual drive program or alike. We do not discuss " pirated " programs here, just a friendly reminder. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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