Unlock HDD with known password

[eothorne]

Hello,
My laptop mainboard died so I need to send it in for service (thanks waranty). They want the drive too so I need to do a backup first. (I have some but not everything) The laptop and drive have power-on passwords.
I found on this forum MHDD with vague instructions for how to disable the password. I burned the "Magic Boot Disk" to CD and connected the laptop drive to my SATA ide in the desktop.
1) At the prompt I type MHDD to enter the program.
2) I choose the proper drive
3) type EID to see info on the drive. "Security: high, ON." "WARNING: THIS DRIVE IS LOCKED BY ATA PASSWORD"
4) type 'UNLOCK xxxxxx' where xxxxxx is the known password or anything else
if I just type 'UNLOCK' the program freezes (the clock in the corner stops counting the seconds) and the only thing I can do is hard poweroff.
5) I see the question "What kind of password will you use? for master type 1, for user type 0" Regardless of which I choose I'm asked to type the password.
6) I type the password, it is six numerical digits and hit enter
7) after a second or two I see "Fail" appear then I'm back to the MHDD prompt.

I've tried several combinations of this command choosing both master and user, all attempts end by either hanging the system or "Fail". Besides finding someone else in Austin with a T61 I can use to remove the drive password anyone have any suggestions?

thanks
Everend

[Doomer]

Laptops usually hash(encrypt) passwords before sending them to a drive, so even of you know the password you set on the drive it will be pointless to use it in MHDD. Maybe you can find the same laptop or hashing function for your laptop
Also you can use professional help to remove the password w/o knowing it

[eothorne]

ok thanks, I didn't think of that. I was really starting to get frustrated since I KNOW I am typing the right password

Next Question... Anyone in Austin TX with a IBM/Lenovo T61? I know I can insert my drive into another T61 and go into bios setup. From there I can very easily remove the PW from the drive.

thanks

[guru]

You may get lucky

try your password again:-

1: Example ...If password was 123456

try in MHDD

0203040506070000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

YOU MUST use the zeroes in your password which take up the empty slack

Good luck