22 Aug
2009
22 Aug
'09
5:42 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 22, 2009 1:30 PM
Subject: Re: Old password protected laptop drive
Teo Zenios wrote:
Is there a utility that does this? I tried ATA disk password utility v1.1
and that didnt work (still needed a password).
I recently won an IBM 540MB laptop HD for the old
Thinkpad 755
series and I found out it is password locked.
IBM DHAA-2540
Security level MAX
All I want to do is erase and use the drive, to do that I run the
ATA command security erase prepare, and then security erase unit. To
do the latter you need a master password which I don't have (tried
all spaces).
From section 8.1.1.4 of
http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/A4080D7CE6E2A9DB87
256ACC0061C25C/$file/dhaa_spi.pdf
"If a user forgets the user password and Maximum security level is
set, data access is impossible. However the drive can be unlocked
using the Erase Unit command to unlock the drive and erase all user
data."
There's your answer. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the DeathStar
drives...
--Chuck