Toshiba 2.5 HDD Password

Can you all assist me here. The drive has fried PCB/Firmware. I went and orded another drive - same make, model - different firmware rev level. This was after Kroll/OnTrack quoted $2000.00 to recover the data on this 40 Gig drive. The Kroll personell sent their quotation back to fix/recover the data stating that the recovery required use of their clean room. Yeah right! I had put clear nail polish on the torx heads on drive case - Ontrack never even took the cover off. Clean room ????

Either Ontrack turned on the ATA security features or the serial number on the uplevel firmware does not match the security parameters on the new firmware.

The drive does spin up, loads the heads and initiates the ATA security feature (thus comparing the password entered at POST to the password stored on the security cyclinder - I have no idea what the password is.) The helluva of it is that the PC POST won't pass without authorized access to the HDD. So what I want to do is put the drive into a USB frame and attempt access that way. I have found the ATA coding to disable the user password - hopefully the ATA security level is not set to HIGH.

Failing the above can I remove the platters from the fried unit and replace the platters in the new unit?

The data on the drive is 100% ok. OnTrack indicated that they had access to the 54,000 files when they had the drive.

I ONLY want access to the drive to DriveImage or Ghost the data. Operation after successful imaging is unecessary.

Any advise would be appreciated.

Kind regards

Hi karpata,

What model is your drive ??

Toshiba Model mk4019gax. Hope this helps

Hi karpata,

First thing to do is get the security thing out of the way.
You could try this at : http://www.hdd-tools.com/

Don't change platters - won't help you.

success !

HI Fujimax

thanks a lot for your great help
its that people share experience and help others

HI Fujimax

thanks a lot for your great help
its that people share experience and help others