Apologies if this post is in the wrong place, I wasn't quite sure of the best place.

I have a laptop with a SATA hard drive that's password protected. I was wondering what would happen if the laptop stopped working, perhaps a motherboard failure, could I transfer the drive to another laptop and use the existing password, or would I need a utility like Victoria to remove the password before the drive data could be accessed on another laptop? If it's a utility that I'd use, what would the best one be.
I do know the password, so it's not a crack tool that I need.

Thanks

Hi there !

The majority of laptops will either encode or hash the password meaning that the password you type IS NOT the password that the BIOS set on the HDD.

Try to find and option on BIOS to check if the BIOS is hashing, encoding or writing the true password that you set.

If the BIOS does set the password exactly as you type (not likely) you can later remove the password using something like Victoria.

If the laptop encodes or hashes the password you will need either to remove the password with a firmware tool (depends on the drive) or buy a laptop of the exact same model to unlock the drive ...

What is the full drive model by the way ?

ATA password are VERY EASY to bypass with firmware tools and don't offer any protection .... Just get rid of it and ENCRYPT the hard drive with something like TrueCrypt or Veracrypt if you do need "protection" against people accessing your data.

_________________
1Q9xrDTzTddUXeJAFRn37aqh1Yr6buDCdw - (Bitcoin Donations)
paypal.me/Spildit - (PayPal Donations)
The HDD Oracle - Platform for OPEN research on Data Recovery.

Thanks for the info, I'm glad that I asked!

The Laptop is an HP/Compaq 6930p
Disk is Seagate 1000STL 1TB
I'm using Ubuntu 18.04 t(Lubuntu)

Looks like Veracrypt is available for Ubuntu, but I seem to remember from my WinXP days that TrueCrypt was heavy duty, industrial strength stuff. The drive password looks like a good option, but if it's easily bypassed then I guess it'll have to be encryption.

Only encryption is safe.

For Seagate F3 Arch drives you can simply get the password from sysfile 30a or just unlock it with a method like this (requires a $5 USD TTL adaptor) : - http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=874

Regards.

_________________
1Q9xrDTzTddUXeJAFRn37aqh1Yr6buDCdw - (Bitcoin Donations)
paypal.me/Spildit - (PayPal Donations)
The HDD Oracle - Platform for OPEN research on Data Recovery.

Another alternative : - https://www.ebay.com/itm/ATA-Password-U ... 2861542747

_________________
1Q9xrDTzTddUXeJAFRn37aqh1Yr6buDCdw - (Bitcoin Donations)
paypal.me/Spildit - (PayPal Donations)
The HDD Oracle - Platform for OPEN research on Data Recovery.