Hi Guys!
Help me out with this problem.
My laptop ( Dell Inspiron 1464 ) got its motherboard fried. HDD was password protected. And I remember the password. Password is Eight Characters Long.

I tried putting my HD on a friends Lenovo Laptop and the bios asked for a password. However, the password allowed was only seven characters. Apparently I was locked out.

Then I read about MHDD and Booted it up using Hirens Boot cd on my friend's Lenovo.
MHDD was able to discover the drive and I went further to unlock and dispwd (disable the password). However the process failed. I am very sure that I typed the password correctly.

What can be the problem?

I am left with two options, let me know If I am right.

1. Find a dell Inspiron 1464 and Unlock the drive using BIOS. (Thats going to take some time)

2. Find a way to Disable the password using MHDD. I repeat, i clearly know the password and I am not typing it wrongly.

Are there any other ways to go about this. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

The laptop most likely uses keyboard scan codes rather than ASCII codes.

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/MSKeyLog.TXT

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thank you, Spildit and fzabkar for your response.

@Spildit : The drive model is a Western Digital Blue WD10JPVX.

@fzabkar : How can I use Scan codes in MHDD to input the corresponding scan code as that of the key on my laptop. I am yet to find a way to get the scan codes of the keys on my dead laptop (Dell Inspiron 1464).

Another free option is HDDSuperTool:
http://www.sdcomputingservice.com/hddsupertool
http://www.sdcomputingservice.com/hddsupertool/scripts
http://www.sdcomputingservice.com/hddsupertool/scripts/wd_royl_dump_mod32?attredirects=0&d=1

About Passwords ...
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=95&t=614&p=1620

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I think you meant to link to the wd_royl_dump_mod02 script, not mod32.

I would just like to add that the wd_royl_dump_mod02 script will spoon feed you the password in both text and hex

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I am perusing the information you guys have provided. I will get back shortly after applying them.

@Spildit, If I clear passwords using the WD tool will the data in the hard disk be left as it is?
The data in it is of Importance to me.

This is going to be long. Here we go.

I tried to clear the password using the WDR Demo via Mini XP provided in Hirens Boot CD. (screenshots attached)

But my drive is still locked. Before I clicked on the Clear password menu, only DRDY and DSC was on green. After I clicked the clear password menu, ERR and ABRT too became alight in RED.

I booted MHDD (through Hirens Boot CD) and found out that my drive is still locked by an ATA Password.

I booted Parted Magic (through Hirens Boot CD) and the drive was mounted into sda but when I tried to open it, I got an error- "Unable to determine device fstype - specify with -t".

Now I boot Mini XP back and tried to read Module02 using WDMarvel. However I was unable to see any module to be able to read them. (screenshots Attached).

I didn't try the HDD Supertool as I didn't have a Linux Installation with me.

I appreciate the help so far. I learnt a lot about hard disks which I didn't have when I blatantly set passwords on them.

How do I proceed further?

The drive might be locked from SA access? You can run HDDSuperTool from Parted Magic on Hiren's Boot CD. It just needs to be provided on a USB stick, or from another drive connected to the computer. For USB you must run the USB mounting tool (on the CD) to mount the drive so you can access it (drives to not automount in Parted Magic).

Run the wd_royl_dump_mod02 script, and if it works you will have the password and be able to unlock it. If it fails, post the output from the script. If it is SA locked it will fail, but I can tell what command it is failing on from output to be sure. And if it is SA locked, I will have another script for you to try.

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If we are unable to extract your password, I have a Dell Inspirion 1470, which seems to have a Western Digital drive in it. I would think that maybe it is close enough model to figure out how the password is being created from the one typed in.

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Simple key scan codes found here:
The scan code column contains the number value for each key. If your password was ABC, it would be in hex.

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Or the OP can see the scan code table I posted and use that to find what the password is set to, since the original password is known. My 1470 uses this method and it was produced about the same time, so it would seem likely that the 1464 would be the same way.

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try this dos program http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php? ... 6&start=20
#zu.betta_fix_020813.rar

Thank you all for your responses.

I will have to flex my muscles and try all this. I appreciate the help. I will post back.

I am curious, how does this work with SATA connected drives, considering it is DOS? I am trying to test it on a computer using Hirens Boot CD and only see options for SECONDARY, PRIMARY, and ACE ISA. In my case, none of the SATA ports can end up as normal primary or secondary in IDE mode.

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That makes it impossible to run for me then without an adapter, as my computers have physical IDE ports along with the SATA ports, so no SATA ports can get the normal primary or secondary addresses.

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This will not work, as the password will not be printable characters and will show up as funny blocks. So this is not better than your first method...

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I couldn't test with WD Marvel as I don't have paid version, but it makes sense that it works. A little off-topic, but I found another possible use for it with the slow fix. I performed the slow fix in RAM, then set and cleared the password. That pushed the slow fix into SA. So if a WD drive is SA locked but has access to RAM, the slow fix can be applied in RAM and then it will be written to SA with a standard ATA password set/remove command.

Anyway, the OP should be able to download and run WD Marvel Demo using Hirens Boot CD to get the information needed to find the password.

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And why in this scheme to work with a password? just edit in RAM and reset in SA than not satisfied?

Like I said, it was off-topic. I get a bit excited sometimes when I figure something out. You must understand that I am doing all this with no 3rd party tools or hardware, only my own software and a computer.

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