Hi Folks,

I have a laptop drive here with a HDD-lock. Its a Western Digital WD3200BEVT out of a notebook.

Some crims stole the laptop and when my mate got it back it had the lock on it.

I went to hddunlock.com, downloaded A-FF Repair Station and paid the money but his software then helpfully said something was wrong with the drive and would not be able to unlock it. (As far as I cant tell the drive is behaving normally - but of course its bloody hard to be sure with a lock on it!)

I considered whether DBAN might remove the lock, but then I realised that even if it did remove the lock (and I dont think it will since I dont think it will write to the SA?) that I would then stand little chance of getting any data back.

I would like to know if anyone here would be interested in removing the lock for me?

What price?

Or of course any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

-Al

Hi,

where are U?

pepe

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

New Zealand.

Ask the criminals?

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All went well until I plugged the drive in.

Thats funny!

AFAIK he said he doesnt know anything about a stolen computer, but at the same time doesnt want be helpful and to say anything.....never mind all the stolen ipods, cellphones, digital cameras etc that were found!

I dont want anyone here to get the wrong impression either, I am not after a freebie.

OTH its a bit like Ol Grandmas computer - I aint got thousands to spend on data recovery.

-Al

I am not in any particular hurry and thought it might be fun as a project to try to reverse engineer the firmware commands and try to manually work out how to remove the lock.

I read the beginners section, which is obviously a very briefy overview, but am still really none the wiser as to what tools would be required?

I assume that you would need a identical drive to issue commands to which you could then intercept with some software that monitors commands send over the IDE bus?

-Al

I know exactly what it takes but for security reasons it should NOT disclosed. If you want to work out a solution by yourself, you can. But need a lot of knowledge. And time. Good luck.

BlackST, why did you even join this thread?

What was the point of posting that you know the answer but wont tell anyone?

-Al

Contact local DR companies. The good ones can immediately give you a price
and you can decide which one to choose.

Bear in mind that even after unlocking the drive you might not find anything
of your previously stored data - because the "nice guy" deleted everything.
But - then again - the DR company could be able to retrieve the old data.

At the end - its just the question what price you are willing to loose - for
an unlocked drive without data.

A new drive is most probably cheaper or need at least less activities from
your side.

Sorry, I´m at the other side of the globe....
Walter

Bigal, a publicly disclosed procedure will lead to thousand of stolen pc/drives OPEN. If you loose your credit card or forget the PIN do you ask your bank for the pin generator algorhytm ? Sorry for your case, but there's a limit to everything. There are also specific legal issues in a case like yours. If you want to do it by yourself buy a pc3000 Udma.