Whenever I start my laptop using this hard drive, it asks me the hdd password. I tried booting with MHDD CD but still it was asking for the password first. So, I took off the drive and booted my laptop via CD and then tried to connect the HDD via USB and the primary SATA. It said "Drive not ready" whenever I used any MHDD command. Tried using Victoria but as you can see in the attached pic, it shows the drive connected via external USB. But still the PIO is disabled. Could you pls. help me with unlocking its password? Thanks!

Did you actually set a password on the drive, or did the laptop suddenly start asking for a password on its own?

I rarely use Victoria, but based on the image you included, which shows the f/w and s/n as "unknown" and your report that MHDD shows "drive not ready", these symptoms do not sound like normal ATA password has been set...

Did MHDD report the drive as security locked when you used the EID command?

I have the same problem here with a 160GB Hitachi HDD (locked on a Lenovo Thinkpad Series)

MHDD reporting "Drive not ready" even when i booted with a fully functional HDD.

So basically MHDD doesnt find any HDD drive when booting via CD, any help in unlocking our HDDs ?

Thanks!

You might, or might not, have the same cause as the OP, even if you think the problem is the same. For example, it wasn't clear whether the OP's disk suddenly acted like it had a password set, without the OP setting one (because the OP didn't reply to my questions ).

Do you know the password to this disk, and you set it (in this case, what is stopping you from unlocking the drive)? Or did the drive suddenly behave like a password was set, without you setting one? Or did you set a password, but you have you lost/forgotten it?

What would you expect to do using MHDD, if the disk drive was recognised? You say that you used a "fully functional" disk drive - was that the locked disk or another one?

The HDD came password protected, therefore I don't know the password for it.

I would like to remove the password if possible.

Mounted the HDD in an old Fujitsu laptop, and MHDD recognizes the HDD, as seen below :



Neither AtaPwd or HddErase doesn't recognize the HDD though, how can i remove the pass?

Thanks!

Actually, no. Thanks for the picture. From that picture we now know your disk is a Seagate ST9160412AS, and not a Hitachi.


You didn't fully answer my previous questions, but I'm guessing that the lack of correct recognition by MHDD in another PC was probably due to the specific SATA controller setting which is sometimes needed for MHDD (and HDDErase and some other software) to work correctly. I have explained this is several previous posts, so you can search for it if you want more details.


Therefore this looks like a genuine ATA password (which I'm not convinced was the situation for the OP, whose thread you have hijacked ). There have been previous threads about Seagate password removal.