Hi

I hope someone can help me with removing unknown ATA password from a Seagate ST9320423AS. I don't need any data on the HDD, just want to be able to re-use it. I work in a school and somehow a student managed to set a password for the HDD. The laptop is a Lenovo Thinkpad L412. On this laptop you cannot even get to bios settings or boot without entering the HDD password. I tried booting HIRENS with the HDD disconnected and then to plug it in after boot, but MHDD doesn't detect the HDD. Also tried the HDD on another PC as a secondary HDD. I am still prompted for the password, but I can skip it. It then says the HDD is locked. MHDD or Victoria doesn't detect the HDD. Any hope, or can I just throw the HDD to the bin ?
I already threw 3 other HDD's with the same problem in the past, but is getting silly now. That is another story thou...

Thanks

Made a little bit of progress. Disabled AHCI in BIOS and I can now see the HDD in Mhdd
EID command returns something like this:

ST9320423AS LBA:625,142,448 BIOS: 81H
SN: 5VH54960 FW: 0003LVM1 CACHE: 16384Kb
SUPPORTS: LBA48 HPA DLMC LBA MS16 DMA (UDMA5, MWDMA2)
SMART: ENABLED SELFTEST: SUPPORTED ERRORLOG: SUPPORTED
SECURITY: MAX, ON SIZE = 305245MB

WARNING: THIS DRIVE IS LOCKED BY ATA PASSWORD

Still need some guidance from here.
Thanks

It needs serial to LVTTL converter and some searching for info on this drive.

Thanks but I couldn't find much more about this specific hdd.

how much would a PC-3000 portable would cost, anyone knows ?
I asked for a quote on their website but heard nothing so far.

I don't know if is worth spending more time on this for a £40 drive...

u have 2 options:

1- send it to DR pro to do it for u - i guess cheaper
2- buy cheap tool for this and DIY after learning ofcourse

pickup 1 that matches ur budget

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

Right, I called first 5 companies that came up on google search for "hdd repair uk" and all of them told me it would be cheaper to bin the HDD and buy a new one.

What tools would I need for this, because I don't mind learning

From this forum:http://forum.hddguru.com/unlock-seagate-momentus-7200-st9320423as-t17393.html
BlackST wrote:drc replied:
I don't know who is right, just helping with search, some other link from the same place:http://forum.hddguru.com/how-unlock-seagate-momentus-7200-t22669.html
Buldo wrote:The same can be done using terminal commands (assuming it will work on this model).