Hello everyone

What is the latest status with 'bypassing' ATA passwords ?

I was following progress in this area approx 3 years ago
especially as XBOX(v1) 5GB harddrives were locked via the ATA password
and there were many debates about any way to unlock if you didnt have the xbox main board eeprom with the password etc

At the time no one had found a way to bypass it, even trying live swapping of hdd electronic boards

The ATA password is probably on the reserved (manufactuerer system) area of the disk
rather than on eeprom on the electronics
so if you could fool the electronics into thinking it had unlocked it (from a known platter) mighht be able to switch to a target (locked) platter and read off the user sectors
etc

Or some way to zap or shortciruit the logic on the controller board to force unlocking

So, any developments in this area

Thanks

So, you came into the HDDGURU forum for what reason ?

It's easy to unlock when you know the vendor commands or the terminal commands !

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If you need to unlock a specific drive PM me.

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It is completely doable and no, it doesn't involve the PCB in any way.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

It's like HEART bypass... some people are good at doing it, some other not

If it's a WD drive i can bypass it. All of them.
I can do the same to all Seagates.

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Me too. And on Fujitsu, Samsung, Excelstor, Hitachi and so on...

I can unlock on Fujitsu, some Samsungs and Maxtors.
The only ones i can't do is Hitachi/IBM.

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And by the way, a little off-topic but i've found a very coooollllll thing

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Getting back to the topic, there have been multiple posts about it here. I'm sure if OP was really interested he could turn something up.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Those 5GB drives are very old and well documented ....
Try Master passwords, if no joy, post the model of the drive.

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Thanks for the tips

No particular reason, other than I've been watching some of the myharddrivedied videos on youtube
(and I used to do that sort of thing a few years back)
and he mentioned the mhdd program
and it reminded me of this topic
and I wondered if there had been any progress on it.
Sounds like there has, but your all being a bit secretive about it
although of course the techniques must be very specific to specific drives and firmware revisions

Hitachi are hard the others are easy, even without expensive tools.

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The PC3000 sofware (and interface card) looks very interesting...
Does it need the dedicated IF board or will it run or partially run with a standard ide/ata controller ?

@Spildit,

I need to ask your opinion about something that bothers me.
At the company I am working, we have a lot of mini drives (My Passport Essential).

When our people securely disconect the drive, the led remains on and can not figure out if the drive still works or not, because by its nature it does not make any noise.
How can i confirm that the heads are parked securely?
Are there any windows utilities (hdparm -Y) that can help?

Any comments, propositions?
Eleana

No, pc3000 is card +sw.

Hello, me again

Will these techiniques also work in the Maximum security mode where it needs the User password and ignores the Master password.
Or in the lower 'high security' mode if the Master password had been changed

Or can we do a SECURITY ERASE PREPARE immediately followed by SECURITY ERASE UNIT but physically cut the write signal to the heads
-- but then it cant upda the SA, but might leave the firmware thinking its unlocked ?

Supplemental Q
Will mhdd or something similiar let me see the raw hex of the IDENTIFY response
or fully decide the words and bits
(else I'll have to breakin and see the raw data)

Thanks again
PS Of course I mean getting to the data rather than just reusing the drive

I will reply to your PM later today.

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The techniques allow you to access the Master and User password saved on the drive, so you can use that same password to unlock the drive.
Mhdd with scripts can do lots of usefull stuff.

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