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HDD password

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by jdmercha

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I have a Toshiba laptop that inadvertantly established a HDD password. The owner of the system is a student, who says she thinks she downloaded something from a file sharing site that put the password in place.

With the drive plugged in you cannot get into the laptop bios or boot to floppy or CD. The drive is not recognized when you put it in another copmuter.

Any ideas?

8 replies

by huios

Go to this site http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2969.html
and download a utility called KILLCMOS - this will set the bios back to factory settings and wipe any passwords that it may have installed. I use it all the time when users forget their BIOS password. Good Luck. REMEMBER you will have to setup your BIOS settings because they are ALL going to go back to factory defaults!!!!

by huios

WELL, never mind that, I read your post too quickly!
The drive itself, no matter what is installed to it, cannot determine a BIOS password in a system. So with the drive out of the system or with a different drive in that same system you can try the KILLCMOS utility...If you can boot to a floppy...If the drive is not recognizaable in another system, then check your jumpers (ie. master or slave) some laptop hdd are set to master and not changeable so check your cable / connection...in another system you should be able to get it to recognize in POST or the BIOS , if not, then you have a physical issue with the HDD that is unrelated to what the user is claiming. With it in another computer, try booting to a floppy and running FDISK to see if the claimed inicident had corrupted the FAT or if it is reporting as something other than a primary DOS partition ie NON-DOS or something else. This wouldexplain it not recognizing in another system if you mean by recognizing that it is not booting to the OS. Also try in another system, with this HDD plugged in, running the manufacturers diagnostic app to test the hdd - this will sometimes detect the drive even when the bios doesn't. I had a seagate that didn't detect in bios but when i ran seatools it detected and tested it...go figure...try those things and good luck.

by tracyf

This is not exactly an answer but may help as you attempt to work through this thing. Gleened from online reading:

Some laptops provide a utility to lock a hard disk with a password. These passwords are not the same as BIOS passwords. Moving a locked hard disk to another machine will not unlock it, since the hard disk password is stored in the hard disk firmware and moves with the hard disk. Also, adding a new (unlocked) hard disk to a locked machine may cause the new hard disk to become locked. Also, note that hard disk lock passwords cannot be removed by reformatting the disk, fdisk or any other software procedure. Usually, the BIOS password and hard disk lock passwords are the same. However, it is possible that the BIOS password and hard disk lock passwords may be different. In this case the BIOS password will not unlock the hard disk. You can test to determine if your hard disk is locked by attempting to access it in another laptop.

by tracyf

After further reading- it appears you may be faced with purchasing a new hard drive- ;^(

Most likely, that drive will never work again & it is impervious to any sort of tinkering to ascertain the password.

As a last-gasp: Try this:

remove the HD. Then turn the computer on, F2 for bios, Alt-F to restore BIOS defaults - replace HD, reboot-

by dmiles

When the hard disk password and the power-on password are different, or a power-on password has not been set:
1. Turn off the computer and wait at least 5 seconds: then turn it on.
2. If you have set the power-on password, type it; then press Enter.
3. When the hard disk password prompt appears, type your current password, press the Spacebar, and then press Enter.

*Setting a Hard Disk Password: This procedure is for setting password on the HDD in the ThinkPad, for HDD in the Select-A-Dock refer to your user guide.
1. Start Easy-Setup by pressing and holding F1 and then turning on the computer.
2. Select Password icon and then select HDD-1 or HDD-2 according to the hard disk type you want to set.
3. Type your desired hard disk password; then press Enter. You can use any combination of up to 7 characters. Use a combination of any letters or numbers (A to Z, 0 to 9) in uppercase (A) or lowercase (a). Uppercase and lowercase letters are treated the same.
4. Type your hard disk drive password again to verify it; the press Enter.

*Changing a Hard Disk Password:

You must remove your password at the password prompt that appears when you turn on the computer. To remove the password, at the prompt - Enter your current password, press the Spacebar and then press Enter. Next set a new password using the following:
1. Start Easy-Setup by pressing and holding F1 and then turning on the computer.
2. Select Password icon and then select HDD-1 or HDD-2 according to the hard disk type you want to set.
3. Type your desired hard disk password; then press Enter. You can use any combination of up to 7 characters. Use a combination of any letters or numbers (A to Z, 0 to 9) in uppercase (A) or lowercase (a). Uppercase and lowercase letters are treated the same.
4. Type your hard disk drive password again to verify it; the press Enter.
When the hard disk password and the power-on password are different, or a power-on password has not been set:
1. Turn

by wlbowers

If the hard drive is locked you have no option but to either figure out the password or replace the drive.

The manufacture will not even attempt to remove passwords. I've tried.

There is a hardware solution but it is over $1500.00. You can buy a lot of drives for that.

Not what you wanted to here I know.

Good Luck Lee

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