Password on used hard drive

:^/ Try mounting the problem drive as a secondary drive in another system, and formatting it there.  If need be, try a non-Windows system, such as MacOS, Linux, AmigaOS, BeOS, OS/2, etcetera.

A GPartEd live CD might help here, too.  Boot from the CD, then delete the existing hard drive partition(s), then create and format you new one(s).

Does the system have a hard drive password set in BIOS?  If it does, any drive you put into it will inherit the password and become useless.  There's no way to remove the password from the drive without an expensive trip to a computer forensics company that will far exceed the cost of the drive.  If the BIOS has a hard drive password and you cannot prove you own the system (to Dell, that is), you'll need to replace the system board.

No hard drive password in the bios, I don't believe.  In the bios, it says "Primary password: Disabled. Administrator password: Disabled" and below that it has 4 asteriks on each side of  "Hard-disk drive password". That's all it says.

That means the BIOS does have a hard drive password.  To have that removed, you'll need to call Dell and prove you own the system. 

The drive that has inherited the password is now useless other than as a paperweight.

Hi, I have Studio 15(55) and I want feature to protect disk from "thiefs" which can abuse my data. First I set Supervisor pass to manage BIOS settings, next User pass and Enable function Boot on password (similiar name) when I turn on laptop, you must  enter pass to next boot. Next I want to enable Hard drive password, but in help (right menu) is mentioned, that when I enter HDD pass, Supervisor pass won´t  be change/delete. Next I read on the internet discusiions that HDDpass can´t be disable..so I have question:

1. If I Enable HDD pass, I will lose my data, partitions/ If I disable, same question (if it is this ability-in next quest) ?

2. If  I enable this, and crash some components in book, f.e. display, cpu, mainboard.. can I pick out HDD and insert into other DELL laptop and set HDD password in bios (if is still clear) and there I boot normalny OS and read from disk -save data?

3. I mentioned that in help is: When is entered HDD pass, Supervisor pass won´t  be change, so I am not able to DISABLE this, won´t change User password and other settings in bios  ? Therefore I can´t rescue data how I describe in question 2, because if I insert my "crypted" disk into DELL without HDD pass, then I set my pass and after all I rescue my data, therefore it won´t be readable to OWNER_RESCUE_BOOK´S disk, because It can´t be delete/change/change to default-disable/  Hdd pass   ?

4. If I want to Disable this feature, have to call into Dell support and ask for masterpass to reset BIOS => therefore will be supervisor,user,hdd pass reset?

 next situation is when disk will crash, and I insert whatever SATA 2 disk, it won´t be working without reset bios with masterpass ?

Resume: I want to protect my data, but if be some problems, I will be able to read (rescue) my data anywhere (or only in dell laptops?) without some specialy communication with DELL support  and BIOS reseting...

thanks for reply to my questions,

Michael