Intermittent 'Hard Drive Password' message on boot, D600 laptop

I tried that - upgraded from A09 to A14, I believe.  No change. 

I have noticed the following.  When I boot the machine, the dell BIOS boot screen normally takes several seconds to complete, before transitioning to the black windows boot screen.  But when this 'hard drive password' problem occurs, the dell BIOS boot screen phase lasts for a much shorter time.

Also - today I took the hard drive from one Dell D600 to an identically configured one (but with BIOS A09 rather than A14) and saw the problem again. Simply powering the machine off, and back on, cured the problem (as always). 

Also - it may be that the problem only occurs when I hibernate. These days, I almost always hibernate rather than shut down.  After updating the bios, I rebooted several times (full shutdown/startup) and did not see the problem.  So could this issue be related to hibernation? Note - even though I 'Always' hibernate, the problem only crops up every now and then - maybe every other day, while I hibernate maybe 3 times per day.

Also - I tried setting, then clearing, a hard drive password.  After setting, the password screen always appeared, and after entering the password, I was always allowed into the system.  I then cleared the password, and was allowed into the system without an issue during several complete restarts.  But then I returned to my habit of hibernating, and I pretty quickly saw the bogus hard drive boot password screen again.  Is there any value in deleting and re-creating the hibernation file?

Thanks for any insight into this. I'm worried that someday I'm going to be completely locked out of the machine!

So you would rather have to go into the Device Manager and mess with a piece of hardware than load a few web page. Do what you like but don't expect this problem to go away if you continue to use the hibernate feature (It has never worked as planned and only causes problems). If anything it's going to get to a point where you will never get rid of the HDD password screen and since you have never set a password on it nothing you type will work. At that point you will either need a new HDD or a complete new system board and HDD.

Logic, watch out which type you use.

Just to keep anyone who's still interested informed, I stopped using 'hibernate' for a while and started shutting down completely each time.  The 'hard drive password' problem still occurred.  So it had nothing to do with hibernate, as I suspected.  It only happens once every, say, 10 boots. 

Does anyone know what might be triggering this?  I've applied the latest bios.  The only change (relative to the time prior to me getting this problem) was that I upgraded to an 80 gig Toshiba hard drive, using 'ghost' to transfer the image. 

About the only thing to try is a clean install of the OS and your programs.

I don;t remember you mentioning the HDD change and the ghosting/imaging of the new drive bit that could be the problem or it could be a problem with the HDD itself. you know there are some sellers out there that sell used parts as new. Could be that HDD was used by someone else and at one time a password set on it. I have never run into that problem but if there was a passowrd set on the HDD and NOT fully removed before it was sold to you that may be part of the problem. IIRC HDD passwords are not stored on the physical disks.

Dude, I use the Hibarnate all the time and have never seen this problem. If you have not tired this yet, Call Dell and have the tech walk you through Clearing you BIOS setting to factory defaults. We are not allow to post how to do this here.

Anyways, if you clear (erase) your BIOS setting to defaluts you may fix the corupt setting as upgrading trys to keep your current setting.
The other thing to try is check the connector on the Hard Drive. Make sure it is not dirty maybe try a different connector or hard drive. You said you put your hard drive into a different laptop and had the problem, dose his hard drive have that problem in your laptop.

Regarding "The other thing to try is check the connector on the Hard Drive. Make sure it is not dirty maybe try a different connector or hard drive. " -  I DO notice that this hard drive slides in just a little too easily, compared to all the other hard drives I've ever inserted (I'm the IT guy for the company, and I do a LOT of hard drive swaps!).  So that could be it. 

So I'll pursue that. 

I've applied and removed a password to theoretically 'fully remove' a password.  I've updated the bios to the latest.  So not much else to do there, I don't think.  I wish I knew how this hard drive password thing worked, but I guess Dell want to remain tight-lipped about it to prevent hacking ... ;)

Thanks!