Hi,

I have a lenovo T61P. Yesterday the motherboard died.

When I pulled the drive and tried it in another machine, it asked for the hard drive password.

I dutifully punched in my password and ---- much to my surprise it was not accepted.

I have tried it on 3 computers and I cannot figure out what to do. It will not accept the password that I have normally been using and I cannot access my files!!!!

Please help.

I don't know about your particular laptop, but I believe some IBM/Lenovo motherboards have an 8-pin Atmel AT24RFnn RFID EEPROM chip that stores security related information.

Maybe a detailed photo of the motherboard would help ???

ok, I'll get one. But if the motherboard is fried, does that mean the HD is bricked?

I have no idea. I was thinking that it may be worth trying to move the EEPROM to the replacement motherboard.

It may be pointless theorising about possible scenarios until we see the motherboard, but the idea behind RFID is that the EEPROM can be powered from the RF energy of the device that is trying to read it. This means that your EEPROM would most probably be remotely readable even if your motherboard were dead.

If the drive is ATA PW locked with max security level, beside a pay per use service or buying extremely expensive equipment, or the job done by a pro, there's no diy.

well see, chk this website: http://www.hddunlock.com/download/

follow the instructions, if they are able to reset it you pay for that otherwise you need a pro. to do it for u

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Hddunlock will permanently erase the drive! It's Aff repair station which will unlock a drive leaving data intact.
Still no good as neither of these will support a 5400.6 drive.

I see your options as;
Repair the original motherboard.
Find a pro to unlock the drive for you.
Modify a replacement motherboard.

The security chips (I think there are 2) can probably be swapped to a replacement motherboard but I don't know if the checksum has to be repaired to get the motherboard to boot. Maybe a bios chip would also have to be swapped over as well? The Ibm guy called Victor in Romania runs a forum and password recovery service so he would know what has to be done.
Maybe the hard drive ata security password can be extracted from the security chip dumps?
Take a look....http://www.allservice.ro/forum/

In some cases the password entered via the laptop gives a different result to entering outside of the original laptop, or in alternative laptop. Probably for extended security.

A pro can solve this for you, it may be worth collecting quotes before committing to a service that may erase your data!

I tried AFF Repair Station. It wasn't able to do anything.

So,

simply replacing the motherboard will not work.

How much does this kind of recovery run?

If you bought thios direct from Lenovo or can proove its your laptop contact Lenovo and ask for master password. You will most probably have allot of NO and them Umms along the way-- buts its do able.. Its your right if you can proove that its your hard ware.. other wise - send it to a pro to hack it for you.

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