Look for an 01 07 byte pair. The password is in the following 32 bytes and is padded with zeros. It will be encoded in ASCII if it was generated from application software. Otherwise, if it was generated via BIOS, such as in a laptop, then it will be encoded as keyboard scan codes.
Here are the keyboard scan codes for my MS wireless keyboard:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/MSKeyLog.TXTUse the "make" codes when decoding your password bytes.
This simple DOS utility will echo the make and break scan codes of each keypress:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SCAN.COMHave you ever thought why the BIOS setup menu is restricted to Fn keys and cursor control keys, eg PgUp, PgDown, Home, End, Del, arrow keys, Space, Enter, Alt, Esc, Ctrl? I believe it's because BIOS has no way of knowing which international keyboard layout is in use, so it needs to use those keys which are universal. These universal keys have consistent scan codes.
Similarly, when you set a HDD password via BIOS, the scan codes of each key are used rather than their ASCII values. I think of scan codes as key numbers. For example, a particular key on a 101-key US keyboard may be key #30 with an ASCII value of 65 (an "A"), whereas the same key on a Japanese keyboard would have a different ASCII value, although its scan code would still be the same. To think of it in another way, imagine how you would identify a particular key if all the key tops were blank.
Note that if you have set the password via BIOS in a laptop, say, and you then attach the drive to a different machine, eg a Windows desktop, you will then need to send the password bytes via a file. If you try sending the password as ASCII codes, then the password challenge will fail.
A possible Windows solution would be an application such as Victoria for Windows. A DOS solution would be MHDD.
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Thank you for such a great thread!:)
