A short while ago I bought an old Siemens laptop, model Scenic Mobile 510. For 8 euros. In working order no less. The only problem is that the HDD (a Toshiba MK6015MAP) has a password (seemingly both user and master). Sure, I could wipe the password along with the data, but interesting software can sometimes lie in such forgotten PCs, so I'd rather take a peek before it's gone. So far, I have tried connecting the HDD to another PC and accessing the contents from HBCD's Mini Windows XP (no luck, the drive shows up only in Device Manager, which claims it contains no volumes) and disabling the password request with ATAPWD (rejected the default master password of 32 spaces, likely means that the master password is not default either).

The closest I've found to a solution is this article, but it seems to deal with Western Digital drives, and I have no idea if the MHDD scripts involved would work with the Toshiba drive.

Interestingly enough, the laptop refuses to boot from anything else than the hard drive when the HDD is connected.

Any advice on this?

Thanks for the offer, Spildit, but I'll refuse. The drive sounds to be on it's way out anyhow - exceptionally loud, clicks every now and then.


Glad to hear that. Even though my primary interest would be whatever weird abandonware might be there, I understand that you couldn't take some random poster's word for it.


Although, I wonder: If I understand the whole process correctly, the password is simply stored in the HPA, unencypted? And the process that took place in the article I linked to in the OP was simply dumping of WD-specific regions of HPA and reading the password from the dumps?

@Atoss, to be fair, OEM laptops (and desktops) often reserve a part of the user area for an OEM recovery image, although 6GB doesn't leave much for this purpose. Therefore I would try to find the necessary drivers, etc, before wiping the drive.

The elettrofreak article does not apply in your case. It was specifically written for WD drives. Furthermore, your premise regarding HPAs is incorrect -- the password is stored in a reserved System Area on the platters, not in the user area, whether hidden by a HPA or not.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

try zu.Can be found on a variety of resources on the Internet