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Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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Samsung laptop Bios password locks the HDD !

December 20th, 2015, 3:52

Good morning !

today i received a samsung HDD that was extracted from a samsung laptop after it was dropped ( no problem yet ) , heads replaced and HDD can ID again , but the problem is that the user has sat a Password on the laptop BIOS , and choosed to lock the HDD ( an option withing the laptop BIOS as well )

the password is known , and the user has brought me the original laptop and what i did is

1-i can enter the bios after entering the BIOS password with no problem (with HDD disconnected )
2- HDD has ATA password that is some how other than the BIOS password ( apperantly ) and cant be unlocked ! ( using MHDD )
3- HDD can ID in DDI4 and a desktop computer , but since the password in unknow then this is useless .
4- the original Laptop will hang on ( please wait ) once i want to enter the laptop BIOS to remove the HDD protection (with HDD connected ).
5- User is an IT and fully aware of what ATA password is , and he confirms that there was only the BIOS password to use on the computer .

what i think is hapenning is that once the user has locked the BIOS password and choosed to lock the HDD as well , the Bios has generated a random ata password and stored it , so the HDD cant be unlocked but using the very same laptop .

what do you think ?

Re: Samsung laptop Bios password locks the HDD !

December 20th, 2015, 4:03

Usually the hdd password is generated from the laptop out of the code
typed in from customer - so its not the code the customer knows, its
different.

If it is for sure that the customer gave you the original laptop where this
spedific hdd was in, it should work - unless the hdd and the laptop do not
belong together or the drive has some other issue causing the locking.

To unlock you need advice (from other members here in forum) how to
proceed with specific tool (pc3k udma)

but you need to advise complete hdd specs for that.

+++

Re: Samsung laptop Bios password locks the HDD !

December 20th, 2015, 16:56

falther wrote:Usually the hdd password is generated from the laptop out of the code
typed in from customer - so its not the code the customer knows, its
different.

If it is for sure that the customer gave you the original laptop where this
spedific hdd was in, it should work - unless the hdd and the laptop do not
belong together or the drive has some other issue causing the locking.

To unlock you need advice (from other members here in forum) how to
proceed with specific tool (pc3k udma)

but you need to advise complete hdd specs for that.

+++



thanks for the reply , but some laptops models are generating their own password to lock HDDs and store the password in the BIOS theory is confirmed .



i have to find a way

Re: Samsung laptop Bios password locks the HDD !

December 25th, 2015, 10:09

Spildit wrote:User input the password on BIOS to lock the HDD. BIOS "hashes" what the user types and send the "hash" to the HDD, not the REAL PASSWORD.

Sollution - Unlock the HDD by using firmware tools like MRT Pro or SHT.

If it's a Samsung HDD it should be VERY EASY even with something like SHT.

You might need a paid version and to re-write the security module if you can't extract the password from it.

Regards.



Thanks Spildit for your help , am writing the updates about this drive in viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32555
not to duplicate threads :)
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