Ex-Girlfriend Toasted my Hard Drive

[jpdhouston]

As a parting gift my ex decided to really mess with me. First, she stole my back up disk. Second, she changed the administrator password of the installed System Commander. Third, she deliberately logged in with the incorrect password sufficient times to activate the Access Protection feature which prevents both hard disk and diskette access. It also prevents booting from a diskette.

As this was an anticipated problem System Commander has the feature to allow you to call the company and get a global password from them (for a fee, of course) which would allow you to logged in and change the password and gain access.

Only trouble is that my version of System Commander is too old, according to V-Com. They no longer support it and can not provide me with a global password for access.

Am I screwed? Is there any way to gain access to the information on the disk without spending a small fortune?

[harddrivespecialist]

There is a way to acces your disk, but you will have to spend some money to someone to do it.
If you want everything back, you are welcome to contact me or other reputatble members of this forum.

[BlackST]

Not bad this hi-tech vendetta... Is this an encryption or lock problem? In either case the problem has a solution but not for free. P.s. If I were you I'll talk with a lawyer.

[falther]

Thats now the proof:
At least 2 backups are necessary
1. the official one
2. the inofficial one, of which definitely nobody knows,
neither girlfriend nor wife nor anybody else !!!!

***

@BlackST
How to proof she was it?
Its like throwing good money behind the bad and already lost one.....

@ jpdhouston
Perhaps you can use a hidden tape, provoke an energic dispute at a meeting
and accuse / ask her ... perhaps she admits it and then ...

As usually - its a question of money (and time) you want to invest:
Business-Data with value or just private data?
Does she have or earn own money?
Do you have to pay her?

Sorry, thats far over DR ....

[shahij]

no free soultion

[darkforce1]

Can you provide the full details like version or revision of system Commander.


DF

[jpdhouston]

It is System Commander 4.031. I can not get by the password screen. Finally, I do not mind spending some money -- just not a couple of thousand to a hard disk recovery firm that states "we can't guarantee full recovery."

[dick]

Maybe you could just boot the system with a Linux cd.
Would you then be able to browse your files?
Or are the files encrypted?

[BlackST]

POST #666, "the number of the beast" - I'm sure I'm beast enogh

Maybe I was not clear : Is it an ENCRIPTION or DRIVE LOCKING issue ?

[scratchy]

'and accuse / ask her ... perhaps she admits it and then ...'

A woman admit she has done something wrong ??
They dont even admit it when you just watched them doing it!

<itch>

[falther]

depends on her personality.

But usually "in the heat of an intense dispute" women react emotionally
and not logically.

[BlackST]

Don't know if 1) system commander encrypts or not the file system or if 2) it uses the ATA locking.

case 1) - try to access the disk on a different computer and to address the filesystem /partition
case 2) - need to deal with security subsystem of the drive.

Case 1 is simple, case 2 not so simple and requires proper gear.

[hddguy]

You got to hand it to her, she knew what she was doing!

[BlackST]

IMPORTANT : when I said access on a different PC, I meant PHYSICALLY connected, not via HDD USB box. Not in Windows as it could destroy the filesystem with internal SCANDISK.

If don't want to put data at risk, ask a pro near you just to analyze the disk, it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. If it is just a logical recovery to be performed, the cost I think is low.

[Mr Wolf]

Just wondering what could be a possible revenge
jpdhouston, have you toasted your ex-girlfriend?
I don't know, you could burn her shoes, I bet she has plenty of them!