Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
4 Posts
0
7425
User ATA password
Hello all,
My Dell Inspiron is broken - it's a long story and not for this forum.
I wan't to recover as much as I can, including hard drive, but there is a problem - I've locked it with a password and now I can't unlock it.
It's been few month since my laptop has stopped responding, and I'm not sure if I remember my password (but for 90% I am).
I pugged this HDD in my PC, started Ultimate Boot CD and test few tools (like Hdat2, ATA password tool) but without success.
So my question is:
How is Dell BIOS setting ATA password based on user input ?
if I type a password:
abracadabra
is it placed as:
a) abracadabra
b) ABRACADABRA
c) abracadabra + 21 (32-11) spaces
d) abracadabra + 21 (32-11) null (\0)
etc.
TIA
ejn63
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
April 6th, 2008 13:00
Discussion of the password isn't permitted in the forums - suffice it to say that if you've forgotten the password on the drive and the original system isn't working, you're going to need to pay a data recovery service to remove it for you.
Raskarian
4 Posts
0
April 6th, 2008 13:00
You have to be kidding.
So if my laptop is dead, I can throw out internals because there is nothing to do with them ?
Is it some new Dell policy ?
Your notice about paying for data recovery service was definetely ironic as it's worth much more that this HDD.
Raskarian
4 Posts
0
April 6th, 2008 14:00
You havent read carefully - i'm not interested in recovering my data at all.
I want my HDD working!
ejn63
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
April 6th, 2008 14:00
It's not new - the purpose of the drive password is to secure the data in case of theft of the notebook. That is done very well.
The downside to data encryption is that when something goes wrong, it's very difficult - often impossible - to recover the data. That's why along with data encryption goes an absolute need to keep backups - and it's not just Dell systems that are this way, but ALL systems.
ejn63
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
April 6th, 2008 15:00
The password is stored on the hard drive, but passed to it from the system BIOS. Yes, once you set the password, the drive and system are linked together - as they are on any notebook using a drive password.
Yes, there are services that can remove the drive password - but as you note, it'll be cheaper to simply buy a new drive.
That's not unique to Dell, either.
Raskarian
4 Posts
0
April 6th, 2008 15:00
"Yes, once you set the password, the drive and system are linked together - as they are on any notebook using a drive password."
Why any notebook ?
AFAIK it's not in the ATA password specification to link HDD and motherboard.
Is it for sure that ATA password on HDD is not the same what user puts as password in Dell setup (I'm not referring to BIOS password) ?
(I need to know if trying to quess what password I could have used could work - there is not so many of them but trying all lowercase and uppercase it's pain in the a'ss with 5 tries per boot limit)
Is there any way to know the ATA password, if I have a password which was entered in Dell setup, and s/n of this notebook (or anything what I can read from labels on hardware, as it's not responding) ?
ejn63
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
April 6th, 2008 16:00
The password is sent to the drive through the system BIOS. The hard drive password and the BIOS password are two separate things.
If you have forgotten the password you set on the hard drive, game over.
You might also want to edit your post to remove your attempt to block the obscenity filter, or you will find yourself warned by the moderator, and the thread deleted.