Wipe ATA password - data on HDD not needed

[maschenazi]

Hi

I hope someone can help me with removing unknown ATA password from a Seagate ST9320423AS. I don't need any data on the HDD, just want to be able to re-use it. I work in a school and somehow a student managed to set a password for the HDD. The laptop is a Lenovo Thinkpad L412. On this laptop you cannot even get to bios settings or boot without entering the HDD password. I tried booting HIRENS with the HDD disconnected and then to plug it in after boot, but MHDD doesn't detect the HDD. Also tried the HDD on another PC as a secondary HDD. I am still prompted for the password, but I can skip it. It then says the HDD is locked. MHDD or Victoria doesn't detect the HDD. Any hope, or can I just throw the HDD to the bin ?
I already threw 3 other HDD's with the same problem in the past, but is getting silly now. That is another story thou...

Thanks

Attachments

[maschenazi]

Made a little bit of progress. Disabled AHCI in BIOS and I can now see the HDD in Mhdd
EID command returns something like this:

ST9320423AS LBA:625,142,448 BIOS: 81H
SN: 5VH54960 FW: 0003LVM1 CACHE: 16384Kb
SUPPORTS: LBA48 HPA DLMC LBA MS16 DMA (UDMA5, MWDMA2)
SMART: ENABLED SELFTEST: SUPPORTED ERRORLOG: SUPPORTED
SECURITY: MAX, ON SIZE = 305245MB

WARNING: THIS DRIVE IS LOCKED BY ATA PASSWORD

Still need some guidance from here.
Thanks

[SAjunky]

It needs serial to LVTTL converter and some searching for info on this drive.

[maschenazi]

It needs serial to LVTTL converter and some searching for info on this drive.

Thanks but I couldn't find much more about this specific hdd.

how much would a PC-3000 portable would cost, anyone knows ?
I asked for a quote on their website but heard nothing so far.

I don't know if is worth spending more time on this for a £40 drive...

[einstein9]

u have 2 options:

1- send it to DR pro to do it for u - i guess cheaper
2- buy cheap tool for this and DIY after learning ofcourse

pickup 1 that matches ur budget

[maschenazi]

u have 2 options:

1- send it to DR pro to do it for u - i guess cheaper
2- buy cheap tool for this and DIY after learning ofcourse

pickup 1 that matches ur budget

Right, I called first 5 companies that came up on google search for "hdd repair uk" and all of them told me it would be cheaper to bin the HDD and buy a new one.

What tools would I need for this, because I don't mind learning

[SAjunky]

Thanks but I couldn't find much more about this specific hdd.

From this forum:http://forum.hddguru.com/unlock-seagate-momentus-7200-st9320423as-t17393.html
BlackST wrote:

There were "free" services that could unlock the drive loosing any data on it, don't know if they are available anymore and how they worked.

drc replied:

There's not going to be a free and easy solution for this one.

I don't know who is right, just helping with search, some other link from the same place:http://forum.hddguru.com/how-unlock-seagate-momentus-7200-t22669.html
Buldo wrote:

with Sediv : Vendor to Track Seek, Read Track, Copy Bufer Read to Write Buffer, Edit Buffers to First Byte 00, wrote the buffer back to the drive.

The same can be done using terminal commands (assuming it will work on this model).