[Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? in Computer Hardware Help

[Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? in Computer Hardware Help http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20487052 en Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:33:16 EDT Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:33:16 EDT Re: [Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20504645 DiscardedVet :

said by salzan

:

to have just wiped the drive with something like DBAN instead of locking it.

You would think!! There is no telling at what point the lock was put in place, be it vendor or user. I have found, and tried, Western Digitals' default password for the maximum security unlock - no good, it's been changed (ie: someone else, knowing the original PW, has used ATAPW to change it)

said by AMDUSER

:

Take a look at this: »www.computerhope.com/lockhlp.htm
-It references the unlock command, a Windows 9x bootdisk may be needed.

Still need a password for that to work, it just gets kicked with unknown command under DOS.

said by Bill

:

If you're interested, contact me via PM and I can do the unlocking for free, assuming you pay the shipping both ways.

HDD Unlock is the cheapest and easiest way to unlock a drive with an unknown password, but sometimes it does have trouble.

Yeah, HDDU costs tho, I believe it was $20, just not worth it considering recovery of any data is not needed whatsoever.

Thanks on the offer, but hell, it's an 8 year old 40GB drive, I was just taking shots at it so the girl could have a PC sooner than waiting on her parents to up for it.

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Bush is the Prez.... Think Patriot Act II.... This outspoken dissident.... In jail I'll be soon.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20504645 Mon, 19 May 2008 01:54:24 EDT Re: [Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20499568 Bill : If you're interested, contact me via PM and I can do the unlocking for free, assuming you pay the shipping both ways.

HDD Unlock is the cheapest and easiest way to unlock a drive with an unknown password, but sometimes it does have trouble. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20499568 Sat, 17 May 2008 21:12:00 EDT Re: [Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20498058 AMDUSER : Take a look at this: »www.computerhope.com/lockhlp.htm
-It references the unlock command, a Windows 9x bootdisk may be needed.

Source: »www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000355.htm]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20498058 Sat, 17 May 2008 13:48:45 EDT Re: [Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20496705 salzan : It seems as though it would have been just as secure and much more ecologically friendly to have just wiped the drive with something like DBAN instead of locking it.

Best of luck with all of it. :)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20496705 Sat, 17 May 2008 01:54:30 EDT Yep - I Quit http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20494607 DiscardedVet : Well, the ATAPWD (which is also what is on Ultimate BootCD is not a PW cracker, but the tool to set/reset a drive lock, but you have to KNOW the password in order for it to work.

I tried all kinds of confuggling with apps on Hirens Boot, most of which the drive lock just kicked the app out back to the menu (apps that I am familiar with, and are known to work).

So .... I quit, it's locked for good, and is now a custom doorstop.

===============

As to the offering from Sweet Witch (Merry Meet:), and another member via IM ........ all I can say is wow, surely wasn't expecting that!! heh. Let me pass for now, as I am going to go ahead and tell the g-daughter who's PC it WILL be, so that she will start harrassing her dead-beat parents for a drive. I mean hell's bells, they don't buy food, clothes, no help towards rent, utils, NOTHING, yet both work full time, the mother having a live-in boyfriend that works at friggen UPS !! They will have to buy the drive, I'm not going to accept the goodwill of someone when these two people are perfectly capable of fulfilling a damn $45 expense when they spend nothing on this child that they don't even raise (we have full custody)

Ugh, sorry about that, kinda lost myself, people like that really grate my arse!!

Thank you both too many times for the offer, that was way too cool :) :) :)

And thanks everyone else for the input :)

--
Bush is the Prez....
Think Patriot Act II....
This outspoken dissident....
In jail I'll be soon.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20494607 Fri, 16 May 2008 17:29:49 EDT Re: [Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20494141 Sweet Witch : If you can use a 20gb Maxtor, it's yours. It would at least give you time to work on it and get a larger drive later if needed.
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"While you can teach an old dog new tricks, you simply can't teach him to be a cat."

"Are you my Mummy?"]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20494141 Fri, 16 May 2008 16:15:24 EDT Re: [Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20493625 DiscardedVet :

said by Dogg

:

Maybe I'm missing something (I'm having one of my slow days), but the PC won't boot from the HDD as there is nothing on it, so the error would be expected.

Nah, you're not missing anything, I just didn't go into the instructions. The locked drive is put on a working machine as Secondare IDE / Master. Boot to the normal OS of that machine, then run the HDDUnlock app.

I thought maybe since my BIOS was set to boot to CD first (which is the IDE the locked drive was on), that it was getting confused with the locked HDD as being the CDROM (being the locking files are some kind of boot files), so I took the CDROM out of the BIOS boot menu. Still got NTLDR missing, until I take that locked drive off of the machine.

I have another boot app to try, it's atapwd, but I have to find a working floppy drive first .... I've almost forgot what the hell a floppy drive looks like !! lolol
If that one fails I'll try the one you posted. I believe after yours, I'm going to dump it as dead - vendor win, heh.

Thanks for the input :)

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Bush is the Prez.... Think Patriot Act II.... This outspoken dissident.... In jail I'll be soon.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20493625 Fri, 16 May 2008 14:39:33 EDT Re: [Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20492655 Dogg : Maybe I'm missing something (I'm having one of my slow days), but the PC won't boot from the HDD as there is nothing on it, so the error would be expected.

You may want to further investigate the "NTLDR missing" error. I've gotten that a time or two, and I seem to recall it being an easy fix, but I don't recall how it was fixed.

On a side note, (with the drive set as master), you could boot from a CD, such as one of the ultimate boot CD's.

»www.ultimatebootcd.com/ -appears to include a HD unlock tool.

»www.ubcd4win.com/contents.htm
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Google is your Friend]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20492655 Fri, 16 May 2008 11:46:38 EDT Custom Made Paperweight For Sale - CHEAP !!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20489112 DiscardedVet : heh.

Well, I put the HDD on my box, with HDDUnlock installed, dedicated IDE as master (per instructions) booted, and only got an NTLDR missing error.

Take the locked drive off = normal boot.

Bah, damn vendors, just GOTTA lock the consumer to THEM !!

Glad I didn't tell the g-daughter yet who's PC it will be, gives me time to get a drive.
Ironically, of her old machine - is a failed HDD (click click click)!

Thanks for the input :)

--
Bush is the Prez....
Think Patriot Act II....
This outspoken dissident....
In jail I'll be soon.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20489112 Thu, 15 May 2008 18:39:18 EDT Re: [Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20488027 DiscardedVet :

said by Dogg

:

low level format will fix it .... hddunlock.com

said by janderso1

:

Have you tried zeroing the disk with the Western Digital diagnostic disk?

Yeah, I tried LLF, even with WD tools to write zeros, no good. Why Kill Disk was able to do this I just don't know, nor do I understand why THEN Acronis was able to format to NTFS, yet an OS install still dies saying the HDD is locked.

Ironic you post HDDUnlock, I have it DL'd, was waiting some feedback here before moving on with that (physically laaaaaazy today, heh)

Thanks

EDIT: Addendum ...... I'll probably try the HDDUnlock tonight, I'll post the results here for reference for the next guy :)

--
Bush is the Prez....
Think Patriot Act II....
This outspoken dissident....
In jail I'll be soon.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20488027 Thu, 15 May 2008 15:33:11 EDT Re: [Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20487975 janderso1 : Have you tried zeroing the disk with the Western Digital diagnostic disk?

»support.wdc.com/download/
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Jim Anderson]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20487975 Thu, 15 May 2008 15:24:38 EDT Re: [Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20487963 Dogg : From what I've read, a low level format will fix it. Since you've been able to format it once and data loss isn't an issue, it's worth a try.

Otherwise, have you seen this: »www.hddunlock.com/download/
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Google is your Friend]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20487963 Thu, 15 May 2008 15:22:14 EDT Re: [Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20487928 DiscardedVet :

said by ross

:

they are dirt cheap ...... desire for security ...... Relieves you of further anxiety, loss of time .... computer was free....

Well, dirt cheap on a stable income, which isn't us, heh. But yeah, it can be replaced for about $45 delivered, but that's not an option for a while. So I fugured if anyone knows a way around this it would be awsome. I mean, the kid is 10yrs old and this 40gb is all she'll need for her few games (for now).

I don't see preserving the last owners privacy as a concern, if it were, they would not have passed on a PC with an OS loaded (minus login password), or the HDD at all. And to add of that, I have informed them that the folks doing the "securing" for them isn't securing a damn thing, they weren't phased by it at all.

There's no loss of time or added anxiety, I'm disabled so this is pree much my world.

Free - oh yeah, it was given to us, so way ahead of the game :)

Thanks

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Bush is the Prez.... Think Patriot Act II.... This outspoken dissident.... In jail I'll be soon.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20487928 Thu, 15 May 2008 15:15:11 EDT Re: [Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20487896 DiscardedVet :

said by yuutomo

:

by saying you're not going to post the specs, this became more of a rant than a tech help query

Where the hell do you see that I would NOT post the specs? I said I wouldn't "to start with", did you read the first 5 words and then stop reading? Nothing in my post read as a rant, if that's all you could see in it, why the hell bother posting? If you have neither knowledge of, nor suggestions pertaining to HDD locks, then just go on about your day without this thread.

Specs are basically futile in this scenario, as the lock data is contained on the HDD platter itself, as opposed to being on the HDD board which could be swapped out; nil to do with any other PC component. The lock acts and reacts the same whether it be Maxtor, Seagate, WD, etc, etc.

To pacificy your pissy post, the HDD is a WD400 Caviar.

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Bush is the Prez.... Think Patriot Act II.... This outspoken dissident.... In jail I'll be soon.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20487896 Thu, 15 May 2008 15:08:11 EDT Re: [Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20487808 yuutomo : well, without knowing the hardware, no way to honestly say if there's a way to fix your issue or not, by saying you're not going to post the specs, this became more of a rant than a tech help query, and as such, this post needs to be moved to the rant forum.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20487808 Thu, 15 May 2008 14:50:56 EDT Re: [Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20487772 ross : Buy a new hard drive, they are dirt cheap. Preserves your friends desire for security of their old info, and opportunity to acquire a larger faster drive. Relieves you of further anxiety, loss of time. The computer was free, right? So, you are ahead of the game already.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20487772 Thu, 15 May 2008 14:44:56 EDT [Hard Drive] Vendor Locked Hard Drive - Paperweight? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20487052 DiscardedVet : Ehya,

I won't go into specs detail to start, as what I am reading in the last hour+ is that I have a paper-weight - bar none.

A used PC was given to me to refurbish for the grand-daughter. The OS was XP, with password set, but unkown. While trying to reset the PW with NTFSDOS in order to grab pertinant drivers, somehow the entire partition was dumped. No big deal, reformat and hunt the drivers at the vendor.

But that didn't work, as I have learned yet something else. A vendor can lock the hard drive from doing any such thing! All partition/wipe apps I've tried have failed with "Hard Drive Locked". If this was done via 3rd party util, the password is still unknown, as it is a second hand PC, and the previous owners are dippy (ie: they send their PC's out for securing before donating, but the securing is, well, ppffhhtt).

My last effort was Active Kill Disk, which reported a success. After that, using Acronis Disk Editor, it also reported success at formatting to NTFS (whereas previously, this app failed also). My preferred OS is Windows 2000, it failed setup initialization with the bloody locked drive error. The same with Windows XP Pro.

I haven't pulled the drive out to attempt anything as a slave, as everything I read says that is a null action as well. Previous data on the drive is irrlelevant, just trying to build an OS on it.

So then, to the guru's here - anyone ever work around a locked HDD?

Thanks

D-Vet
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Bush is the Prez.... Think Patriot Act II.... This outspoken dissident.... In jail I'll be soon.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20487052 Thu, 15 May 2008 12:38:05 EDT