Hello gurus,

I have recently acquired a HGST HUH721212ALE601 He12 SATA drive and is showing up as ATA locked, Maximum, with Master password changed. Drive can access SMART values and is otherwise fine. I've attempted to Google the last few days on different suggestions for unlocking the drive with no definitive answers. I just want to use the drive, I don't care for its contents so any data-destructive methods for unlocking the drive is fine.

Is there a way to do this? Can I use the MSID of the drive to revert the drive via secure erase or is that not even relevant for this scenario? I'm hoping this drive won't end up as a pretty paperweight.

Things I've tried with no effect:
- hdparm to set new master password/unlock, etc. via direct SATA
- Tried common passwords like passwd, password, synology, NULL, etc
- sedutil-cli. Reports is not a valid type of drive for the utility.


I have at my disposal:
- Direct SATA 6Gbps ports to my PC (Windows or Ubuntu)
- LSI 9300 HBA (IT mode)
- LSI 9361 MegaRAID controller
- Victoria (Windows) and MHDD (DOS boot)
- Ubuntu

I'd appreciate any suggestions!

If the heads are bad on these drives and unable to read the firmware, they will still ID with apparently full model and serial number etc (reading from PCB) but as “locked”.

If you connect only the PCB, you’ll see the same.

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The OP can retrieve a SMART report, so I would think that the heads can reach the SA.

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Appreciate the comments so far.

The drive appears to spin up, perform its startup self-test, and ultimately is able to retrieve SMART values. None of the smart values themselves look particularly scary (no surface realloc/pending counts) other than the drive has been used pretty good possibly in an enterprise environment. If it'll help I can post the SMART report in case something more sinister has occurred in the drive.

RMA it, the password is very hard to bypass on this model, it's possible but there are no free tools for that.

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Why would a manufacturer provide a warranty replacement for a drive locked by an ATA password?

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

you haven't try to RMA many drives have you?

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If they tell all users how to remove the ATA password, then there will be no sense from the password anymore.

I think something must be wrong with Google's translator.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I'm quickly getting the impression that removing the ATA lock isn't easy for the commoner especially without pro tools. Darn.

Just for my knowledge though, and I've briefly touched upon it in my original post - when is a "MSID revert" appropriate for HGST/WD SATA drives? What the heck is the MSID of my drive anyways as I don't easily see a 32-digit string anywhere on the drive? A different (and older) HGST drive model's datasheet seems to indicate the MSID is the 8-digit S/N repeated four times...

Is MSID revert something I can attempt on my unit to wipe and unlock this drive?

Yes, I fully understand that I'm just grasping at straws here...

Again, appreciate the suggestions so far.

Oops, missed that bit!

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

No
ATA password is not SED/FDE password, so you can't MSID-revert it

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