Reading the Service Area

[sirgi]

Hi,

I have a locked Seagate ST96812A which came with an Acer laptop. If the drive is present in the laptop on boot I will be prompted for the user password, which I don't know (I presume it was set by Acer who want £80 to unlock it). I have tried using tools like MHDD to input all the suggested default "master passwords" I can find on the internet (such as SEAGATE followed by 25 spaces), but to no avail.

This website says the ATA password is stored unencrypted on the service area of the hard disk, but those guys want even more than Acer to unlock it.

So I'm wondering if it is possible to read the service area without spending a fortune on specialised hardware like PC-3000. Why would new equipment be needed.. couldn't an ATA driver be written for linux say, which could issue the specific commands needed to access any area of the disk, including the service area? What can these expensive tools do which a motherboard chipset cannot be made to do with the right drivers?

I'm probably talking complete rubbish but thought I'd ask anyways incase someone could explain this better, or even offer some advice on how to unlock my drive.

Cheers.

[poehere]

You are near Sean at PCImage, try contacting him by pm. I am sure he can help you with this if you can prove this is your laptop.

[jono-ats]

You can access the service area with terminal commands, and change the content as necessary. There is typically both a Master and a User password with Seagate drives. The devil is in the details . . .

[rameez]

For start you need Rs323 cable to communicate with your seagate .

[dick]

Some Acer model drives have been known to 'lock themselves'?

You could try this password: h2oinsyde as apparently it has unlocked some drives.

[pcimage]

You are near Sean at PCImage, try contacting him by pm. I am sure he can help you with this if you can prove this is your laptop.

Thanks for the recommendation Ann, but I think the guy wants it for free.

[sirgi]

Thanks for the replys.

The laptop is a few years old, but I still have the receipts and everything to prove I bought it. I wasn't there at the time, but apparently a kid was messing about with it and typed the wrong windows password a few times and it locked him out.

@jono-ats:
How do I open a terminal to the drive? Would it need more access than a raw block device in linux could give?

@rameez:
Do you mean RS-232 serial? If so there is no serial port on this drive. I did buy a 44-pin to 40-pin IDE adaptop so I could plug it into my desktop, as the laptop halts after the password screen meaning I can't run things like MHDD.

@dick:
I just tried that, but now it is prompting for the master password (instead of the user password) by default, and the allowed characters is now only 8, one short of what is required. I will try it through my desktop with MHDD.

@pcimage:
If you could undercut acer I might consider. But if the last quote from a data recovery firm (dataclinic) is anything to go by, I realise this may not be possible. I don't have a lot of spare cash at the moment, and if I did I may aswel just get a new drive. Recovering the data would certainly make my life easier, but there is only one document I really need off there which I may be able to get a copy of elsewhere.