Okay I'm sure the first thing you thought when you saw "encryption" in the subject was "Wants to gain access to encrypted data" ... That's not it at all.

I purchased this USB HDD Enclosure, the Aluratek AHDURS250F. It is a simple enclosure for 2.5" SATA drives with RFID Dongles. When you put a NEW/Uninitialized disk into the enclosure you then swipe the dongles that come with it to assign them to access that hard drive. All data from then on is encrypted/decrypted by the enclosure.

My problem: I want to use my Seagate 500GB HDD in another machine/enclosure UNENCRYPTED. To do this the manual (avail online, google) says:



I've done this, but when I connect the HDD using my Apricorn USB Adapter it will show the drive in Disk Management (Windows 7 Ultimate x64), but the disk is locked down. I can not initialize the disk, create any partitions, or even take the disk offline. All of those options are disabled/grayed out except "Offline". If I try to take the disk offline I receive the error

I am completely stumped. I absolutely can not access the drive unless I reconnect it to that encrypting enclosure, and swipe my dongle over it. Then it automatically mounts as it always did. In normal operation the drive is not even visible to the computer until you swipe that RFID dongle. It will see the enclosure connected, but does not show the drive in disk management or my computer, etc. I know the drive it Healthy, as it works fine in the enclosure. But now I want to swap this 250GB SATA out of my new alienware and put my 500 drive in (the one I'm having problems with.)

ANY advice is appreciated.

What I have tried:

- Zero the disk using Kill Disk, while attached to the encrypting enclosure (won't work the other way.)
- Performing a low level format using the tool found on this site while not being connected to the encrypting enclosure (returned a long line of errors about not being able to access, eventually telling me the low level format was successful, lies.)
- Tried everything I could think of to scrub this disk while it was attached to the encrypted enclosure, I zero'd the disk in kill disk and told it "Don't initialize after", thinking then I could do it after - No luck.

...I've also now tried connecting the drive via a SATA connector and tried using HDD Unlock, which doesn't recognize the drive at all. Then I tried to use the A-FF Repair Station which finds the drive although it is unable to give me ANY information about it (no model, serial, device, etc). It runs a diagnostic on the device and returns that the Device is Inaccessible.

...What makes this Aluratek enclosure so special? How can I defeat this thing? I want my drive back... I'm pretty insulted that I can not only use the drive in their enclosure. It feels like they're holding me hostage.

I bought/tried a new Nexstar 3 enclosure with eSATA, and connected it to my laptop's eSATA port and Win 7 Ultimate does say that a "Locked Hard Drive is Detected" ... *sigh*

Did you ever figure this out? I have 3 of these drives that are worthless without the Aluratek case. I hate Aluratek. I will never purchase again. Their webiste is horrible and there is no documentation or help.

1- can u post a screenshot of the Disk Manager when you removed it from the encloser?
2- try to open the disk using winhex and screenshot again here

_________________
Kuwait Data Recovery - UNIX GTC
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. By: Albert Einstein

Hello.

I found it!

The solution that is.

On the control circuit board in the Aluratek enclosure there is a red jumper. In its factory shipped mode the jumper is not connected.

You need to connect both posts of this jumper with the provided red circuit jumper.

However, to do that, you need to remove the control circuit board from the enclosure's end interface piece.

To do that, use a long thin flat screw drive or knife blade to firmly lift the retaining black plastic clip on the inside cabinet edge of the USB port. The circuit board can be removed then.

Connect the jumper. Connect the encrypted drive to the circuit board. Connect a powered USB cable to the circuit board. You'll hear some beeps and the LED on the circuit board will flash. Once the flashing stops the encryption is removed.

You can then use the hard drive as normal.

Yoo Hooo.

This is not in the Aluratek documents. Even though I opened a support case with Aluratek, I have yet to hear back from them.

I just looked at the unit very closely and asked myself what that jumper was for, then tried it.

Good luck to everyone else who finds this article.

Tim