First off I would like to congratulate the forum admins, mods, and users on how much information I was able to pull out of here and learn A LOT on repairing HD's. I MUST also say that this MHDD tool is simply mind-blowing, excelent work Dmitry ! Off to my problem:

I have a couple of netbook HD's with master password lock, which I decided to UNLOCK to save and re-use the hardware (not caring for data). After a lot of research on how to dump the hex and read it for the password, I ended up with MHDD NOT CALLING SCRIPTS when I type . "scriptname" (ie. .test). Batch files work fine though. What am I missing here guys? The files are in "SCRIPT" folder and I even tried putting them on same level as mhdd.exe but still nothing.

If I could please get some pointers, I would really like to nail this one for the sakes of learning.

Any and all help is much appreciated,
Zé

What MHDD script are you trying to use, to read the password of your Seagate ST9160301AS? I hope it's not "dump" or "dump2" from previous ATA password threads on the forum.

All this on ST9160xxxx ? Hard to believe, indeed -

Well, I'm trying to get ANY script running at first but I've managed to obtain a specific seagate script which I don't have at this exact moment for posting but I can hook it up later if needed.

About dump and dump2, they would at least run and return an error right? I get nothing but the next MHDD> command line.

Which version of MHDD are you using, 4.5 or 4.6?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

@hi2jurus,

My question was because I'm trying to make sure you're not wasting your time, by trying to use inappropriate scripts (like dump & dump2 from the WD ATA password thread). In response to your question - yes, I would expect those scripts to generate errors, when a Seagate drive was the target.

Which version of MHDD are you using?

[Edit: Snap - usually the forum warns of other new posts before posting, but it didn't this time. Oh well... ]

Does it make any difference in any case (scripting or not) ?

Well, I am booting up from Hiren's BCD 10.6 running MHDD 4.6 right away so folder TOOLS is created in RAM subtree. Open Volkov Commander to copy the WD / seagate scripts to the SCRIPTS folder of MHDD for the last "running and dumping" step.

I have downloaded the 4.5 but didn't try to boot yet, I'll do it tomorrow morning.

Any known issues on scripting in these versions?

MHDD 4.5 does run the script, but failed to recognize the drive properly.... *workaround* copied the .exe of 4.5 into 4.6 folder and it worked perfectly. Unfortunately my 'specific seagate script' appears to not match the HD because of the message returned (Error.. No DRQ). The script follows:

; rm modul id 42
reset
waitnbsy
regs = $57 $44 $43 $00 $00 $a0 $8a
waitnbsy
regs = $00 $02 $00 $00 $0F $E0 $21
waitnbsy
checkdrq
sectorsto = 42.bin
; End.

Upon further reading this forum I found this:

You will need terminal to read/write seagate firmware , so it can not be done by MHDD .

Plus, I found out my script isn't really specific.

I guess this is a dead end for me using MHDD?

That's why I asked about the MHDD version you were using - MHDD 4.6 removed that functionality.


Correct - that looks like a script for a WD disk, which is why I asked which script you were going to use. If you had sent the script yesterday, we could have seen this fact earlier, but anyway, it's clear now.

I haven't seen a public MHDD script for doing something similar with Seagate disks (although that doesn't guarantee that such a script doesn't exist).

HDD manufacturers each use their own vendor specific commands.

You could try reading the vendor track with SeDiv. I don't know if it supports your model, though.

Are you certain that the master password has been changed? If it is still at its default setting, then an ATA secure erase should recover the drive:
http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/hughes/SecureErase.html

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thank you for all the help!

What kind of information can I generally get from the vendor track? I can surely try the SeDiv.

I'm certain that the password has been changed, for even MHDD indicates high security is turned ON and doesn't clear it =(

Still hoping to knock this one out the park! There MUST be a way!