Hdd password

gtone28

Anyone know how to access it, daughter aciddenlty set one and can't remember what she put in. tried all the F key tricks no joy...also tried a brute force attack in dos same again.........only thing that looks promising is a program called Hdd unlock wizard. but don't know how much they charge

squeaky

Pick the thread that might help you most

Password threads

Anthony2oo5

What is the problem exactly can you clarify a bit more please ?

gtone28

yes the hard drive is locked with a password and windows can't boot up because it can't access it unless password is correct. So none of the windows access tricks work or entering safe mode, needs a dos based program to unlock it. I've tried Ultimate boot disk and all its tools and had no joy..Only thing I can think of is setting it up as a second drive and using the program i mentioned.

squeaky

Are none of the other threads in my link in post #2 of any help?

amcluesent

How can you 'accidentally' set a password? Where is the password - part of BIOS or is this bitlocker/truecrypt or some other drive encyption? If lockout is in the drive as used for government security, then you're in bother; TBH these things are designed to be rock-solid, chances are the disk will self-erase when trying to hack it.

russ_gillespie

I encountered this problem a few months ago at work. Turns out this is the worst kind of password to forget. I couldn't even get a master password from the manufacturer, they told me to look for a 3rd party tool.

I found one company that said they'd unlock it for 180 quid (there were others but more expensive). There are linux based tools that can do it. The partition table was screwed when I got it back but I got the data off and the drive was indeed unlocked.


Good luck!

bingo_bango

Just in case you decide to go down the linux root, please make sure you either load it to another HDD on the PC before running, or find something like DSL (Damn Small Linux) which runs from a pen drive, or download a bootable version which runs from a CD (FIRE 4.0a will do this). Then you won't be overwriting data.
Be careful also about overwriting the MBR, as it could make retrieving data a real hassle.

gtone28

It's an Acer travel mate laptop and for some stupid reason it allows you to make changes to the bios in windows (normally have to press F2 then go into security).

Anyway not any important information on the hard drive will just use it as a paper weight or something.

I mean £180 ish pounds to unlock a hard drive you can pick a 500gig hard drive for less money.

And thanks for the links some useful information but none for my problem thankyou.

the password is only on the hard drive if you try it on other systems it's still locked, laptop works fine with another hard drive, and thats what i've ended up doing. bit of a pain in the back side but could have been worse could have been a useless laptop as well.

Cricri

gtone28 wrote: »

all the F key tricks

No swearing please ;p There was a free software, can't remember it...

*EDIT* nevermind, it was the tool mentioned in this thread and it was a limited time offer
http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EEVpkpZlEpMrphVUmK.php

I still can't imagine how she locked the HDD, it's hardly a simple common thing to do.

*EDIT2* Oh, btw, I remember something else: these software CAN reset the password, but they actaully reset the whole hard drive in the process, i.e. you'd lose all your HDD contents.

Cricri

The above is for the BIOS, not for the HDD.

*EDIT* well, now that the post is gone, read "the below"!