I read about people having problems with "a HDD being locked" a few years ago and thought "most probably they have just forgotten their password; they should have been more careful", but now I have that same problem of being locked out of one of my drives being SURE I haven't set a password myself.
So to me it's clear now "drives CAN be locked either by malicious software or 'spontaneous' by some kind of hardware defect".

This particular drive (a Barracuda 7200.7 120 Gb model ST3120022A, firmware 3.06) I KNOW no valuable data are on it as I have not been using it for over 1 year (removed it from a PC) after copying all data (being backups) from it to another drive. So to me it would be OK if I could just remove the "+" and "m" AtaPwd.exe shows after analyzing it and have an 'erase'.
But MHDD, AtaPwd nor Victoria has been able to do this.
One program (unfortunally I don't know it's name now [have to look for it]) indicated the password (32 hex-values) and THAT password I provided to Victoria and tried to let it remove locking and erase the disk, but with no succes (maybe Victoria should provide an option to enter the hex-representation of the password??).

BECAUSE it 'just can happen' drives get locked I think there should be a FREEWARE utility allowing to unlock the drive and (best !) preserve data.
People who DO have the knowledge should provide a basic utility to community, just like many others make freeware software for almost everything.
I just had a look at the PC3000 demo-video and it impressed me and made it clear to me I would NEVER attempt to recover VALUABLE data just because even though I have 30 years of experience in software (and a bit in hardware) I realize my attempts could become a disaster. So people who DO have the knowledge shouldn't be afraid it being worth less. On the contrary, I believe if such a company would provide a free utility for the 'easy' things people would find their way to them much more easy in cases they really need help.
Or to say it differently : I'm convinced in a situation like mine many(most?) people would decide to throw away the old HDD and buy a (larger and faster) new one instead of making use of services companies provide to unlock the drive for a substantial amount of money.

But as I read many people suffering from the problem of being locked out spontaneously (and programs available aren't solving it [always]), I think a site like HDDGuru and experts being active here should start the initiative to provide a utility that really helps .

I hope some experts will at least DISCUSS about my request

I think a freeware utility that unlocks all drives would be a great idea! Let us know when you finish it.

If you are a programmer , and you know the structure of the firmware (brand-dependent and in some case HW dependent) you can write your FREEWARE to remove ATA password / unlock.
I know the mechanism of ATA PW locking but I'm not mad enough to disclose to general public or - even worse - put some program on the net or elsewhere.
Think about stolen hard disks / PCs / laptops and all the legal implications.
If the HDD gets locked by itself, this is a firmware issue and the firmware is recorded like user data - specialized tools can help but are going to cost $$$ (obviously).
If you want a solution for YOUR hard disk send it to a pro.
If a customer comes to me with a locked HDD and want it erased / unlocked, I'll pretend a written request for it freeing me from ANY responsability declaring that the data inside the drive belongs to THAT user.
Anyway this discussion is pointless: if (and only if) the drive is FULLY OPERATIONAL, I know that the fast erase internal command (that uses internal security functions!) can unlock the drive ERASING THE USER DATA COMPLETELY : you lose all the data but the password is cleared after the erase process.
If the drive has locked himself with no apparent reason, is likely that part of the firmware is damaged so need to be fixed with specialized tools.
Any other opinion ?

I don't know the structure of the hardware and my expertise is not in low-level programming (unfortunally in this).

Victoria shows SMART being OK (but 'will that be correct'??). Before it got locked the drive has been functioning well and I never had problems with it. Obviously every drive will be functioning well until it doesn't for the first time, but I have no reason to be suspicious now.

In my case a full erase would be OK to me but even that I can't do.

About "being mad enough to disclose to public" and legale implications (by BlackST) I wonder if that really differs from tools being able to read or reset passwords (like Per Nordahl-Hagen's ntpasswd or tools to read MSWord passwords) or tools to decrypt files (OK : to decrypt an encrypted disk might take extremely long), especially as I'm quite sure MOST disks won't be secured by ATA-passwords (so ntpasswd will be more 'useful' for those who steal harddisks) or even tools to copy CDs and DVDs or tools for monitoring networktraffic : the author can't be responsible for using them for illegal things.
I think you demanding a written document about the origin of the data and drive is wise, but I still don't see why a freeware utility wouldn't be OK.

Maybe it is a problem with firmware, but I doubt it as from searching internet I get the impression HDDs of different brands get locked every now and than. Somewhere I read 'reinstalling firmware won't unlock'. If that's correct it ALSO means 'firmware can be changed in such a way [by an external program or otherwise] it will lock the drive' or (said differently) 'some kind of malicious program or other things occuring [power failure??] can make ATA-disks become unaccesible', something I don't like at all.
So a repair tool would be usueful.

As an analogy, think of the locks on houses and cars. A good locksmith has a nice set of lockpicks, and can open your car or house when you lock yourself out. Lockpicks are great in the hands of a locksmith. However, if we taught lockpicking in schools, and promoted lockpicks to everyone, there wouldn't be much point in locking your doors anymore.

However, if we used locks, or hard drives, that couldn't be unlocked, that might not be good either. Would you have to move, or tear down your house and rebuild, just because you lost your keys?

There needs to be something that separates legitimate 'cracking' from simply giving everyone the keys to everything. It's imperfect, but what works is that the required tools are obscure, difficult to use, and/or expensive.

hi ,
I Loved The comment ,What a Way To Explain ,If We Had Points i would have given you + 100 for this comment

_________________
Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs [India]
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

I enjoyed it too

pepe

_________________
Adatmentés - Data recovery

indeed a nice comparison rchadwick and I fully agree everyone having all keys of prisondoors or banks or safes or even the 'red button' etc etc wouldn't be a good idea.
But I guess not all locksmiths do have keys of those 'doors'

But the comparison doesn't address the issue why utilities for resetting (or finding) passwords like the one I mentioned are so much different from a legal point of view and THUS why a utility to unlock a HDD is so much different from those utilities.
In fact , if you are ONLY able to erase the HDD instead of unlocking it (and preserving the data) those utilities out there to reset administrator passwords making it possible to login again and accessing the data are much more dangerous as by nature they DO keep the data.

We all know good algorithms exist to encrypt data.
So IF data on a harddisk are sensitive they should be encrypted. If so, harddisk protection by a password will not be necessary and just a way of limiting access.
In fact as some people (the 'locksmiths') do have knowledge and tools to remove protection of the disk this protection is far less secure compared to encryption and should NOT be used for sensitive data.

On the other hand I suppose most data aren't REALLY sensitive or secret but 'we just don't want everybody to be able to have easy access to them'. For such data a HDDpassword will be a useful protection instead of encrypting the whole disk (or part of it). If a HDD gets locked unlocking it would be a useful utility. Also, if data are sensitive/secret a good backup procedure must (and most probably 'will') be used. Within a business or government it will not be a problem to replace and destroy a HDD if i gets locked, but if a private person just locks the harddisk to prevent 'others at the house' to have easy access to it or it gets locked for one reason or another, the HDD would most probably still be used if being able to unlock (with or without the data being preserved).

so:
a) do you agree encryption of data being much more secure instead of a HDDpassword as some unauthorized 'locksmiths' may get access to the data?
b) do you agree utilities to reset administrator password are as least as 'dangerous' but don't suffer from legal things?
c) do you agree professional organisations will (or should) have good backup procedures and shouldn't rely on 'locksmiths' to unlock a disk?
d) private people will benifit much if a free HDD-unlock utility would exist as now they will throw away the harddisk and buy a new one most of the time (extra polution as well! Also a chance it will get into the hands of someone who can get access and get some data of it that are sensitive [like bankinfo or certain personal information]) instead of consulting a professional?

a) NO.
b) it depends
c) YES and NO (it's our job to unlock...)
d) NO. it's not my problem if people can't afford a pro and throw a way a drive. People throw away entire PCs with the hard disks still fitted and not erased, so they seem don't care about privacy and dispersal of data, so why worry ?

War is business unless you are japanese or work in the IT , then BUSINESS IS WAR.