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sdanville

70 Posts

8315

November 19th, 2006 03:00

Destroyed Harddrive because of password abuse ?

I bought a used dell on ebay. it came with no hard drive.
I put in my hard drive. I went to bio's to tell it to boot with the CD
It wouldnt let me boot to CD without the Admin password. Seller didnt know it. claimes bought from a friend of a friend.
So I had nothing better to do and tried,,ADMIN, 12345, password,  and 3 others. then--
The bios went away forever,,took me to a white screen that reads:
"This computer system is protected by a password authentication system. You cannot access the data on this computer without the correct password.
Please type in the system or administrative password. it reads this with or without the hard drive in it.
 
So then I took the hard drive out and put back into my other notebook.  Now THE OTHER one reads the SAM THING !
It wouldnt allow me to go to bio's or anything. 
 
Could the motherboard of the ebay computer actually destroy my hard drive ? ?
 
steve

Hydralisk00222

2.4K Posts

November 19th, 2006 05:00

your hard drive isn't destroyed. it's locked by the password protection system.
 
to access data on the hard drive you need the original admin password

sdanville

70 Posts

November 19th, 2006 11:00

1) there is no password available. Period.
2) Dell says no password available, Gloria in the Gold Dept says I need a new motherboard.
3) my qusstion is about my hard drive...I took the hard drive out of the non usable Dell, put it in my known to be good Dell and that same White page comes up...I cannot get into Bios or anything on my good computer with that newly currupted hard drive.

ejn63

1 Rookie

 • 

87.5K Posts

November 19th, 2006 19:00

Contact the seller of the system and request a refund. Unless you've received an ownership transfer from the owner registered with Dell, you will indeed need to replace the system board. And yes, if there's a hard drive password on the system board, any drive you install will inherit it.

sdanville

70 Posts

November 19th, 2006 20:00

And yes, if there's a hard drive password on the system board, any drive you install will inherit it.
 
Live and learn. you must be one in a 100,000 to know that. Thank you very much.
 
If the seller took it back I would still be out a hard drive. 
I think its worth buying a motherboard..in my case.  Thanks again.
 
steve

ejn63

1 Rookie

 • 

87.5K Posts

November 19th, 2006 20:00

You may want to price a board before deciding - they are not inexpensive.

Anonymous

5 Practitioner

 • 

274.2K Posts

November 21st, 2006 20:00

BTW, normally you can remove password protection from hdd with all data erased (that was implemented specially for this case :-)
 
Search for MHDD utility and read there info. Basically, you need to connect your hdd as a master to the second IDE channel on a "standard" desktop system (using 2.5" to 3.5" IDE connector) and run MHDD. After that issue some commands (don't remember by heart, read manual) and after a while you get clean unprotected hdd. ALL YOUR DATA on that hdd IS LOST!!! but you've lost them already thought...  
 
I'm not sure that it unlocks your _old_ notebook, but I think so. The new notebook might setup hdd password (from it's internal unknown Admin pass) and old notebook checks that hdd is locked and shows the white page, but if you provide a clean hdd the old notebook should have no any reason to ask password anymore.
 
P.S. By my opinion, it's extremely stupid to set password on unprotected hdd without even asking and without clear confirmation from user. As you see in this case the notebook "contaminates" working hdd... Too many bad things from Dell :-(
Well, if you described the sequence of your actions right and honest...

Message Edited by NickViz on 11-21-200605:00 PM

Delierious

414 Posts

November 22nd, 2006 22:00

what happens if you boot using a Windows 98 boot floppy, enable CD and install software from there? Or, which is more likely, am I missing something?

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