HDD Password

Clarifications

... simply supply the password when asked. If you know the password, you can also change it to "nothing", which removes it. You access the password through disk management.

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I guess it's because of the password. I know that the hard-drive password is set and that you can't access the data without entering it.

I see the harddisk listed in the device manager (as USB-mass storage device, no errors reported there), but it isn't listed in disk management or windows explorer. Because of that, I could not yet think of a way to access it.

What type of HDD do you have from your old NB? IDE or SATA and the Makers Name & Size.

What OS is being used on the Old HDD and on the new HDD? Just saying Windows isn't good enough here we need the version of Windows if it's Windows and the Distro Name if it Linux and so on with the other available OS's.

How do you know that the HDD is actually working/isn't broken?

What type of USB Caddy do you have here?

We need this info to help you find a solution here.

Col

Col, you will have 667, isn't that the only reason you stopped using HAL 9000 to answer questions!

Am I correct?

LOL
Jeff

Remove the HDD from the Enclosure and pull off any Jumpers on the Pins at the back of the drive. NB Drives do not need a Jumper on the Drive to work in a USB Enclosure.

When the jumper is removed replace the drive in the enclosure and fit the cover, this is used to cool the drive while it is working so it's important that it's there.

After your New NB is running plug in the external USB Device and look in Device Manager for the HDD. It should show up as a 60 GIG Capacity and be a Formatted partition. If it's showing up as a Mass Storage Device the HDD isn't being seen and all that the system is looking at is the USB to IDE interface.

If this happens you need to disconnect the Enclosure remove the HDD and find out why it's not working. If the drive is working it's always a Jumper A bit of Plastic covering some copper that is used to short out 2 Pins on the HDD not set correctly or in the case of a NB Drive a jumper being fitted. The last thing is that the Drive isn't correctly plugged into the Interface to the USB Lead.

When you can access your HDD you'll need to take Ownership of the Files in your Data Folders so you need to follow these directions.

1. http://tinyurl.com/3aw7

Please Note if you where using the Windows Encrypted File System in XP Pro you need to fit the HDD to a computer and either remove the Encryption or Backup the Encryption Key so you can use it on another Computer to read your Data. To make a HDD work in another computer follow these directions from M$

http://tinyurl.com/j9u7

If you need to Backup your Encryption Key follow these directions so you can mount your Encryption Key on another computer and read your files

http://tinyurl.com/3cd8hf

If you need to fit this HDD to another computer you will need to reset the jumpers to the same pins that it/they where previously fitted to.

The password on the old System only works when you are opening the OS it has no impact when you are reading the HDD from a different OS.

Col

make an account on the computer with the same username and password as you were using on the laptop. Log on to that account and then connect the drive via usb. are you now able to access your files? If you were being asked for a password before windows boots you were most likely being asked for the bios password to use the hard drive, unless of course you mean the windows logon screen came up and you entered the password then.

The invention provides an encryption circuit for encrypting and decrypting data as it travels to and from a hard disk. The encryption circuit can be turned on or off under control of the BIOS program and a user supplied password. With the present invention, a removed hard disk cannot be read without the user supplied password and a similar encryption circuit.

It seems to me that unless the Drive is in the actual PC that the password was originally set, even knowing the password will not help you. The fact that the Drive is not in the original PC there is no way of entering a password. So in fact when it all boils down you are asking us how to bypass the password. This request being from a first time poster, you are probably not aware that we at Tech Republic do not supply information on how to bypass passwords.

I was finally able to read the data from my hard disk!

The problem was really the fact that there was a hard disk password (not the OS or BIOS password...) set. After building the hard disk in an external enclosure, windows wasn't able to access the data (even though the hard disk was detected as a mass storage device).

I solved the problem by building the hard disk in my friend's laptop (which is from the same manufacturer, IBM Thinkpad). There, I could remove the hard disk password in BIOS (by simply entering it).

When I now connect the hard disk over USB (in the external enclosure), there is no problem accessing the files. I was just wondering why a hard disk password can only by removed in BIOS and not also with Windows (@ True Blue: I was not trying to bypass the password. I was simply looking for a way to enter it, as I do know it....). I daresay if you were able to set and remove hard disk password with windows, this would be a pretty good protection for external USB-drives.

I want to thank everyone who has helped me here at Tech Republic!

Mainly because when something goes wrong with the NB it costs a lot of money to recover from the Problem.

Any Thing at all that goes slightly wrong with the M'Board means a New M'Board and you need to use the Same Model so buying a new one may not be the answer you have to repair the Old one and then throw it away when you are moving to new hardware if you had your Data locked away behind IBM's Security.

Costs about $400-$500 every time IBM does any work on one of these.

Col