Precision 3620 Secure Wipe set a password on my hard drive

Follow this process as it may work.  Get back to BIOS settings and select option to change hard drive password.  Put in your current password (which I sent you) and set new password =  leave blank.  Save and exit, system will restart with message to confirm new password has changed.  Now, you have access to your drive again.

Thank you, but this did not work. 

Video might help:  Clear HDD Passwords on Latitude, Precision and OptiPlex 

This only works if I know the password, which I don't because the 3620 set it.

If the process didn't work, I doubt that the password were set by the 3620.  Passwords would lock users from accessing data only.  Try to perform a secure erase, psid revert, it will remove password as well.  Wonder why Dell wipe tool didn't work.  Give Parted Magic a try.

It definitely was. A password has never been set on this disk. I'm the only one who has ever owned it, and I was using it as a boot disk up until this event.

I just ran across this; maybe it will help?

I found a post reporting a similar problem on a ruggedized Dell laptop. It recommends updating the BIOS, but doesn't say whether it helps unlock an affected drive (I presume not). This is just to say the problem is not unprecedented.

The :Linux hdparm utility requires setting a password before doing a secure erase procedure -- it's pretty low-level so I presume the ATA spec requires it too. When the erase is done the password is already cleared for you. Maybe that means the BIOS wipe didn't complete properly and the utility didn't detect the problem. It would seem to make sense to allow secure-erasing an already-locked drive without knowing the password, but I haven't found any evidence that it's allowed.

Talked to Dell support for about an hour. They said there is no way to unlock it since it is a Sandisk SSD.

The SSD is bricked. Beware when using Dell Secure Wipe, I will not be using this in my workflow moving forward.

Similar problem here. I received ten used OptiPlex 5050. The first thing I did on each one is enter the BIOS setup and choose Maintenance > Data Wipe > Wipe on Next Boot. Then I rebooted and the data wipe procedure completed without error every time.

Eight of these machines presented an uninitialised SSD on which I was able to deploy my image. Two of them rebooted and presented a message that hdd-0 was locked and I need to enter the unlock password. I replaced the SSD in these two machines with SSDs from a couple of additional 5050 and repeated the wipe procedure. Both completed without error and then prompted for a password upon restarting. It seems these two machines are locking the SSD during or after the wipe. What a waste.