Removing the ATA password from the screw (unlock ATA password HDD). Removing ATA password from HDD How to unlock hard drive in BIOS

Just recently I had to face a terrible situation. The hard drive is locked, although it’s only 8GB, but still that’s money too (:
When you turn on the computer and detect devices, having stumbled upon the definition of the hard drive, the computer displays a message

HDD Locked. Please enter the password

After researching the problem, I found a lot of interesting information regarding locked screws. After reading everything below, I did what is even below (:

There are paid solutions (expensive and 2 options with saving information (more expensive) and without it - cheaper).

Master passwords for HDD. Master ATA password.

Contrary to popular misconception, it is impossible to “lock” or “lock” a drive using the Master password. The master password can only be changed. The Master password can unlock the drive if the USER password is forgotten, but this is only possible if the security level was set to “High”. If the protection level is “Maximum”, then you can unlock the drive only by knowing the User password. If the protection level is “Maximum”, the User password is unknown, but the Master password is known, then it is possible to unlock the drive and destroy all data using the Security Erase Unit ATA command. This is implemented in MHDD (FASTERASE command), however this procedure in MHDD only works with User passwords.

Thus, a drive locked with the “High” security level can be unlocked using either the Master or User password. If the protection level is “Maximum”, then unlock
The drive can only be stored using a User password, or using a Master password, but with the destruction of all data.

Manufacturers set factory Master passwords, and if they are not changed in advance, they can be used to unlock a password-protected drive whose security level is “High”.

You can set the User password by issuing the PWD command to the MHDD. In this case, the protection level is set to “High”. The option to set a different level in MHDD is not available for security reasons. Also, the entered password is displayed in the mhdd.log file. After setting the password, the drive must be turned off.

Unlocking a drive that is password-protected with the “High” protection level is possible using a User or Master password. If the password is unknown, then, in general, it is impossible to unlock the drive, although there are two ways:

1. If the password is not encrypted by the drive itself, you can try to read it from the surface using technological commands;
2. Unlocking is possible using specially developed methods.

If the password is known, then the procedure for unlocking the drive in MHDD is as follows:
1. issue the UNLOCK command, select User password, and enter the password. This temporarily unlocks the drive (until you turn off the power).
2. issue the DISPWD command, select User password, and enter the password again. This completely removes the blockage.

According to the ATA/ATAPI standard, you cannot suppress the DISPWD command without first unlocking the drive with the UNLOCK command.

If the password is unknown and the protection level is “Maximum”, then you cannot do without special tools. If the password is unknown, and the protection level is “High”, and the Master password has not been changed, then it is possible to unlock the drive if you know the factory Master password.

List of known Master passwords:

Fujitsu hard drives: thirty-two spaces. In MHDD, you must enter 32 spaces when prompted for a password.

Seagate hard drives: the word “Seagate” without quotes, capitalized, padded with 25 spaces to 32 characters. In MHDD, when prompted for a password, you must enter the word Seagate followed by 25 spaces. Also, advice from one of the site visitors: if the password does not work, try entering the word SeaGate and 25 dots.

Winchesters Maxtor: the phrase “Maxtor INIT SECURITY TEST STEP” - case is important! There is one space at the end of the phrase. Password length is 31 characters.

Samsung hard drives: 32 "t" characters. In MHDD, when prompted for a password, you must enter 32 characters t.

Western Digital hard drives: the phrase “WDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWD”, without quotes.

IBM hard drives:
DTTA series: "CED79IJUFNATIT", padded with spaces up to 32 characters. In MHDD, when prompted for a password, enter the given phrase, followed by 18 spaces.
DJNA series: "VON89IJUFSUNAJ", padded with spaces up to 32 characters. In MHDD, when prompted for a password, enter the given phrase, followed by 18 spaces.
DPTA series: "VON89IJUFSUNAJ", padded with spaces up to 32 characters. In MHDD, when prompted for a password, enter the given phrase, followed by 18 spaces.
DTLA series: "RAM00IJUFOTSELET", padded with spaces up to 32 characters. In MHDD, when prompted for a password, enter the given phrase, followed by 16 spaces. http://www.ihdd.ru/mhdd

Hitachi hard drives, DK23AA, DK23BA, DK23CA series: thirty-two spaces. In MHDD, you must enter 32 spaces when prompted for a password.

Toshiba hard drives, all episodes: thirty-two spaces. In MHDD, you must enter 32 spaces when prompted for a password.

Below are the User passwords set in certain situations by various popular programs:
MHDD versions 3.x, occurs when an internal error occurs: 32 letters “A” or 32 letters “B” (capital Latin).
HDDL, occurs when a quick erase attempt fails: “fuck.”
HRT: 32 characters with code 0. In order to enter such a password in MHDD, just press ENTER when prompted for a password.
HDD ERASE 4.0: when cleaning the disk, sets the password “idrive” - you can also use it to remove it!

That's just a program HDD ERASE 4.0 I had a locked screw, all because I didn’t wait for the “erase” to finish and rebooted the machine...

Quite often, users set a password on the HDD. However, this would not be a problem if people did not forget these very established codes. If this is your first time encountering this situation and you don’t know how to remove the password from the hard drive on your laptop, then this article is intended just for you.

If you installed the code on internal media and forgot, then you will not even be able to boot the OS installed on your PC. That is, there will simply be no possibility of using a laptop or computer for its intended purpose. In such a situation, the user can only delete the set password because there is no other way to gain access to the computer.

Online service

There are several ways to remove the password from the hdd, and one of them is the well-known online service “BIOS Password Removal for Laptops”.

To get rid of forgotten code by using it you need to:

Enter it incorrectly 3 times (any combination of numbers or letters).
After this, a special code should appear in the window.
We copy the received numbers.
We enter the same combination on the website using the link provided above.

A few seconds after entering a combination of numbers in a specially designated line, you will receive a code that will help you reset the password from your drive.

It should be clarified that this program is suitable for all models and manufacturers of hard drives (seagate, hitachi, toshiba, wd, etc.). Moreover, it does not matter what operating system is installed on your computer or laptop, because... This service is considered universal.

BIOS

You can remove the password from a hard drive in the BIOS only if the encryption was initially installed through BIOS.

All you need to do is use the standard reset settings to default option:

Thus, we reset the password from the HDD.

Second way

The next option is the free MHDD utility, specially created for a variety of operations with hard drives.

First, you need to familiarize yourself with how the drive’s password protection works:

The hard drive can have high or maximum level protection.
Using the MHDD application, you can set a custom protection level.
The master password set by the manufacturer can only be changed.
Using a master password makes it possible to unlock the disk only with a high level of protection.
In the case of the maximum level of protection, the hard drive can be unlocked only if a user code is installed.
If the maximum level of protection is set and there is no user password, then the drive can only be unlocked by destroying all data using the Security Erase Unit ATA command.

Considering the above information, in order to remove the password from the hard drive, you should:

This way, you can very quickly remove a previously entered and forgotten code.

Third way

The program HDD_PW.EXE (18KB) will also help you remove the password from your hard drive. In order to remove the code using it, you need to do the following:

Find out the error code (when loading, press F2 and enter the wrong combination of numbers three times, after which a special code will appear on the screen)
Launch the MS-DOS application.
Select the utility name in the window that opens.
Enter the error code you learned earlier, separated by a space, and add 0, separated by a space.
By pressing “Enter”, several passwords will appear in front of you, one of which will definitely work.

After entering the code, be sure to change it to a new one and write it down.

When performing these steps on a 64-bit system, you may encounter some difficulties. The system may generate an error due to a utility mismatch. In this situation it is necessary:

Download DOSBox, install and run.
Mount drive “C” with the command “mount c c:/”.
Then, at startup, press “F2”, again type the wrong code 3 times and do the same steps.

To eliminate the possibility of such situations occurring, it is recommended to completely get rid of the encryption by disabling it in the PC settings. If you urgently need it, then you should write it down in a notepad or any other place so that you don’t have to reset it again.

If you have a Lenovo laptop and upon startup the message “enter hdd password” is displayed on the screen, the method discussed in this video will help you:

onoutbukax.ru

Resetting password from HDD or BIOS

Good afternoon, dear blog readers! Today we’ll talk about something less common, but important. I have never encountered such a problem as setting a password on the hard drive or BIOS. Probably many people don’t quite understand, and perhaps they don’t understand at all what I mean. Now I will explain in more detail.

BIOS password

BIOS is software located in a read-only memory device (ROM) that performs self-testing of devices and searches for the boot loader. Naturally, the functionality of the BIOS is much broader than described above, but we won’t dig deep, but will look directly at the topic of our article. The BIOS password is set to avoid manipulation by third parties.

How to remove the BIOS password

The set bios password does not make it possible to get into it, and in this case there are three options for solving this situation: resetting the BIOS settings by removing the CMOS battery on the motherboard, moving the CMOS jumper on the motherboard in the opposite direction (not provided in laptops), or simply close contacts

and the last way to remove the BIOS password using the online service BIOS Password Removal for Laptops. If you know the password and it’s just inconvenient for you to constantly enter it when entering the BIOS, you can disable it by going into the settings.

HDD password

Here the purpose and function of the password is slightly different. If in the first case you simply cannot get into the BIOS, then with a password set on the HDD you will not be able to boot the operating system. And this is the inability to use a computer or laptop for its intended purpose.

How to remove password from HDD

If we looked at three options to solve problems with the BIOS, then in order to remove the password from the hdd I have only one for you, the same bourgeois online service. I didn’t describe above how to use this site. To unlock a password you don't remember, you need to enter it incorrectly three times (for example, 1234 or whatever you want). After the attempts have been made, a code will appear in the window, enter it on the website http://bios-pw.org/ and in response you will receive a code to reset the password from the hard drive.

How to put a password on your hard drive or BIOS

These passwords are set to protect data and from various manipulations. Every BIOS has this feature. Today's computers and laptops have a Security tab where you can set passwords. More details about this in the pictures.

Setting passwords on BIOS and hard drive

Set Supervisor Password - set the Administrator password Set User Password - set the User password HDD Password - hard disk password Password on boot is used to enable or disable the password at boot.

Well that's it, my little article has come to an end. See you soon!

I would be grateful if you use the buttons:

ssecond-life.ru

How to remove the password from the BIOS and HDD on a laptop.

We turn on the laptop and see this... A wonderful picture, isn’t it? I believe that those who conveniently forgot the BIOS password, or someone very smart made a joke with their laptop, will not agree with me. Have you ever reset a forgotten BIOS password on your laptop? Believe me, this activity is not for the faint of heart, where the chances of success tend to zero.

The fact is that, unlike ordinary computers, in laptops, passwords are usually stored in non-volatile memory. There are no jumpers to reset the BIOS to factory settings, and removing the battery rarely resets the password. All that remains is to rely either on luck in selecting the unlock code, or on replacing the BIOS and all sorts of “shamanism” with unsoldering the EEPROM legs (there are such materials on the Internet). So think again before you password-protect your laptop through the BIOS.

If my warnings still haven’t stopped you, admire the picture below; you’ll see something similar when you disassemble your notebook to remove the password.

Are you scared now? Okay, I was joking, I had to radically disassemble the eMachines E510 for another reason. In this case, everything was solved easier...

Removing BIOS password from eMachines E510 laptop

In general, they brought a laptop with a request to see what could be done and put it into working condition. Previously, he visited a service center, where he was given a verdict that he needed to replace the password-protected hard drive. Apparently, there, too, they set a password for the BIOS (so that there would be no temptation to go somewhere else?). I don’t presume to confirm, but the owner has no idea about the password to turn on the laptop, and yet the password for the hard drive is asked only after...

Well, first, let's try to remove the password from the laptop's BIOS. After surfing the net, I realized that the last good advice ended in 2005. Now no one wants to share secrets for free. There are, however, specialized forums (where you first need to register), where they post different codes for unlocking at the request of participants, but the sources are kept in the strictest confidence and they are shrouded in an area of mystery (probably in order to emphasize their chosenness over others).

At the end of the article, I will give a link to one such mysterious source that helped unlock the TOSHIBA hard drive without communicating with these “gurus”. And the English-language GOOGLE took me there.

Removing the BIOS password on the eMachines E510 was not at all difficult; you just had to bridge the battery contacts. To be honest, I didn’t particularly hope for success, but sometimes simple methods turn out to be very effective. I don’t claim that this unlocking method is suitable for all laptops, but it’s worth a try, especially since it doesn’t require any special knowledge or skills.

The eMachines E510 laptop is practically a service technician's dream (unless serious repairs are required), because... provides easy access to the internals. For example, you can clean it by removing just one back cover, although the latches are very tight. By removing the cover, we get access to the desired battery:

Attention! Before closing the contacts, you must turn off the power and remove the battery from the laptop. Just in case, I held the screwdriver (it was the one I used to close it) for a couple of minutes, because I didn’t know exactly and don’t know how long it was necessary. The main result is that the BIOS password is gone! However, the happiness did not last long...

Removing password from HDD TOSHIBA MK1246GSX

This is where the main ambush awaited me. To understand what we are talking about, read the article Password system of modern HDDs. The article is not mine, I just posted it on my blog so that it doesn’t disappear (I’ll be happy to add a link to the original source when I find out the author).

I cited the article only to familiarize ourselves with what we are dealing with; the advice from it did not help. If you read the text carefully, you will notice that it is not recommended to enter the Master password from a laptop; it will convert it. However, it was no coincidence that I wrote at the beginning of the topic about specialized forums and “gurus”. You don’t have to be a genius to understand that the unlock codes are clearly not taken from your head, and I don’t believe in supernatural capabilities and chosenness.

I went into the wilds of the Internet and came across an interesting article BIOS Password Backdoors in Laptops on Dogbert's Blog. There was also a link to an online calculator for removing passwords.

The point is that after three incorrect attempts to enter the password to access the hard drive, a certain code is issued - Encrypt HDD Key:

It's time to share the link promised at the beginning of the topic: BIOS Password Removal for Laptops. Many thanks to the author of this resource. Upon my request (entered my Encrypt HDD Key), two unlock codes were issued, for Acer, HP and Fujitsu-Siemens. The code for Acer suited me perfectly, because eMachines is practically the same Acer. The HDD password was successfully removed :)

mdex-nn.ru

How to remove password from hard drive?

Removing the password on the laptop's hard drive and BIOS is a fairly common problem that users often encounter. There are several methods (utilities) that can help you remove your password. At this point in time, many utilities are popular in solving this problem. To correct this situation, you need to follow certain rules.

Instructions

If you set a password and forgot it, these programs will be useful to you:

BIOS_PW.EXE (18KB) to remove the computer BIOS password.

HDD_PW.EXE (18KB) to remove the password from the hard drive.

To do this, press “F2” during boot and enter the incorrect password three times.

Enter the five-digit error code, separated by a space, that the laptop produces when the password is entered incorrectly.

Add the number 0 separated by a space.

Now press “Enter”. The program will provide you with several passwords. One of them should fit the BIOS.

After you enter passwords to the BIOS or HDD, do not forget to change them to new ones.

If you try to do the steps described above on a 64-bit platform, difficulties may arise.

The system will tell you that the utility or component cannot be launched because the program is not compatible with the 64-bit version. The solution is quite simple.

Download DOSBox from the developer’s website, install and run.

First mount drive C. You can do this with the following command: “mount c c:/”.

imguru.ru

Password system of modern HDDs

Let me make a reservation right away that the article is not mine and is quite ancient (approximately 2005). It is an addition to the previous post How to remove the password from the BIOS and HDD on a laptop. It was not possible to establish the exact source, so if you have information about the author, I will be happy to post a link.

Any modern drive supports a password system. Before you start working with the drive password system, you need to understand two things:

The drive can be password protected with either a high ("High") security level or a maximum ("Maximum") level of protection. The difference is described below. MHDD reports the protection level when identifying the drive (F2).
You can password protect the drive by sending the appropriate command, selecting the mode (high or maximum), and sending the drive a new User password. In MHDD you can lock the drive using the PWD command.

If the protection level is “Maximum”, the User password is unknown, but the Master password is known, then it is possible to unlock the drive and destroy all data using the Security Erase Unit ATA command. This is implemented in MHDD (FASTERASE command), however this procedure in MHDD only works with User passwords.

Thus, a drive locked with the “High” security level can be unlocked using either the Master or User password. If the protection level is “Maximum”, then the drive can only be unlocked using a User password, or using a Master password, but with the destruction of all data.

Manufacturers set factory Master passwords, and if they are not changed in advance, they can be used to unlock a password-protected drive whose security level is “High”.

If the password is not encrypted by the drive itself, you can try to read it from the surface using technological commands;
Unlocking is possible using specially developed methods.

If the password is known, then the procedure for unlocking the drive in MHDD is as follows:

issue the UNLOCK command, select User password, and enter the password. This temporarily unlocks the drive (until you turn off the power).
issue the DISPWD command, select User password, and enter the password again. This completely removes the blockage.

According to the ATA/ATAPI standard, you cannot suppress the DISPWD command without first unlocking the drive with the UNLOCK command.

List of known Master passwords

Fujitsu hard drives: thirty-two spaces. In MHDD, you must enter 32 spaces when prompted for a password.

Seagate hard drives: the word "Seagate" without quotes, capitalized, padded with 25 spaces to 32 characters. In MHDD, when prompted for a password, you must enter the word Seagate followed by 25 spaces.

Maxtor hard drives: the phrase "Maxtor INIT SECURITY TEST STEP" - case is important! There is one space at the end of the phrase. Password length is 31 characters.

Samsung hard drives: 32 "t" characters. In MHDD, when prompted for a password, you must enter 32 characters t.

Western Digital hard drives: the phrase "WDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWD", without quotes.

IBM hard drives:

DTTA series: "CED79IJUFNATIT", padded with spaces up to 32 characters. In MHDD, when prompted for a password, enter the given phrase, followed by 18 spaces.

DJNA series: "VON89IJUFSUNAJ", padded with spaces up to 32 characters. In MHDD, when prompted for a password, enter the given phrase, followed by 18 spaces.

DPTA series: "VON89IJUFSUNAJ", padded with spaces up to 32 characters. In MHDD, when prompted for a password, enter the given phrase, followed by 18 spaces.

DTLA series: "RAM00IJUFOTSELET", padded with spaces up to 32 characters. In MHDD, when prompted for a password, enter the given phrase, followed by 16 spaces.

Hitachi hard drives, DK23AA, DK23BA, DK23CA series: thirty-two spaces. In MHDD, you must enter 32 spaces when prompted for a password.

Toshiba hard drives, all series: thirty-two spaces. In MHDD, you must enter 32 spaces when prompted for a password.

Important note: if you are trying to unlock a drive that has been locked by a laptop, please note that laptops change Master passwords automatically. Also, the password entered from the laptop keyboard differs from the password that the laptop sends to the drive. The password entered from the keyboard is pre-encrypted and only then sent to the drive.

If you find the article useful, do not be lazy to like and share with your friends.

How to Recover deleted files is not a problem; there are dozens of utilities for this. But what if the drive is damaged, has an erroneous geometry description, or is locked with a controller-level password? Then the Victoria utility comes to the rescue. It is written in assembler, takes up a few kilobytes and works directly with the controller.

FROM MS-DOS TO WINDOWS 10

Victoria was conceived as a tool for advanced diagnostics of drives (then hard drives, and today also SSDs) and management of their operation settings through low-level commands. Belarusian programmer Sergei Kazansky developed it for ten years and released his own set of utilities for data recovery. During this time, many commercial releases of Victoria were released, several free versions and one unofficial one, which we will pay special attention to.

Victoria was originally a disk utility for MS-DOS, written in assembly language. The ancient operating system was better suited than Windows due to the fact that
In a single-tasking environment, it is easier to provide exclusive access to the disk. With the advent of support for the porttalk.sys driver version 4.xx, Victoria has learned to work in the WinPE multitasking environment, as well as in Windows from XP to 10 of any bit size. It has become easier to launch it, the actions in the graphical interface have become clearer, and the operating mode itself has changed. But here's the problem: without understanding the new features of the program, some users began to lose data and entire disks instead of restoring them. Therefore, the latest official version 4.46b has developed “fool protection”.

By default, only non-destructive operations with drives are available. This is not just a read-only mode, as in other utilities that access the HDD/SSD using the Windows driver. Victoria also blocks the ability to change the HPA (and screw up the disk geometry) at the first start, accidentally launch low-level formatting, and “shoot yourself in the foot” in more sophisticated ways.

Victoria is the most universal utility. It addresses any type of drive (HDD, SSD, USB Flash) and any ATA-compatible interface. Its job is to transmit ATA commands to any device that supports them. Therefore, everything that has been said about Victoria’s work with disk drives is also true for solid-state drives, with the exception of what relates to their design features. It is clear that for an SSD it is pointless to watch the spindle spin-up time and try to control the head positioning speed - it has neither one nor the other. Nevertheless, it is quite possible to test and even restore an SSD using Victoria.

Recover data on hard drive using VICTORIA 4.47

This version was made in 2013 by a programmer from Moscow Oleg Shcherbakov. He patched the latest official Victoria 4.46b build. It's better to download (zip). On this site Shcherbakov published it along with the source codes of the patches. Other resources can distribute anything under the guise of the new “Victoria”.

Although Victoria is far from a new program, it also contained critical errors that required correction. One of them led to the fact that it was impossible to run Victoria on 64-bit versions of Windows. Another could cause problems when working with large disks. If the volume was higher than a terabyte, then Victoria 4.46b simply spent all the virtual memory on drawing and color marking the LBA blocks being checked. In version 4.47 Shcherbakov fixed all this.

Running Victoria 4.47 on Windows 7 SP1 x64, API mode

Victoria has two operating modes: PIO (Programmed Input/Output) and API (Application Prgoramming Interface). In PIO mode, the drive controller is polled by the program through the porttalk.sys driver. If you select API, operating system tools will be used. Disk performance in PIO mode is reduced because DMA and high-level read and write optimizations are not supported. However, PIO mode allows you to use all the features of Victoria and send any ATA commands directly to the disk controller, bypassing the OS and standard drivers. It is through PIO that they most often work with disks in data recovery laboratories. Victoria supports both drives with the modern SATA interface and the old ones - PATA (often mistakenly called IDE). Victoria can also work with external drives (features will be described below).

Having selected the PIO mode, at the beginning of work you need to scan the bus and identify the disk controllers using the PCI-Scan button. To the right of it, a window for selecting a disk port is displayed. Internal ones are usually detected without problems, but for external drives you will first have to find out their port numbers. This can be done in the hardware properties or in any diagnostic program (for example, AIDA64). After this, you need to manually set the port in Victoria. Also, even at the scanning stage, you can check the All dev (all devices) checkbox and use the exclusion method to find the desired disk in the list of found ones.

Victoria 4.47 in PIO mode

It is advisable to use the PIO mode specifically for low-level commands. A simple search for bad sectors and their reassignment to the spare area of the disk is much faster (but less reliable) in API mode.

The API mode restrictions are as follows: you cannot set or remove ATA passwords; work with the Host Protected Area and viewing registers are also disabled. If any of these functions are needed, you can switch to PIO mode. However, there are times when PIO mode is not available. This happens when using older versions of Victoria on 64-bit OSes. Another reason could be errors in working with the porttalk.sys driver or the selection of the SATA AHCI mode in the BIOS/UEFI. There is a guaranteed way out of the situation as follows.

We record with WinPE x86 and place the Victoria program on it by simple copying.
Connect the desired drive to the SATA/PATA port, if you have not already done so.
Disable all other HDDs or SSDs (optional).
Go to CMOS setup, switch the SATA controller mode from AHCI to compatible (compatible, native or IDE).
Download WinPE. If necessary, we install drivers, including porttalk.
We launch Victoria in PIO mode, initialize the desired HDD or SSD and execute the necessary command.

Settings can be set via the GUI or in the vcr40.ini file. The same file will help to remove the blocking of work with the primary port. By default, it is enabled in order to protect the system disk from accidental modification. To be able to select Primary in the list of ports, you need to do two things:

1. Disable the “only non-destructive functions” option and close the program.
2. In the section of the vcr40.ini file, add the line Enable PM=1, save the changes and restart the program.

PORTTALK

The latest versions of Victoria can automatically install the porttalk driver, but it is completely useless on 64-bit systems. The fact is that for the sake of greater security, they removed a couple of functions that are necessary for porttalk and Victoria to work. Therefore, the porttalk driver (and, accordingly, the PIO mode) only works on 32-bit versions of Windows, which have the Ke386SetIoAccessMap and Ke386IoSetAccessProcess functions.

EXTERNAL STORAGES

External drives are regular laptop (2.5′′) or desktop (3.5′′) models in containers with USB and FireWire interfaces. They are equipped with various controllers with the general name “SATA bridge”. Many of these bridges do not broadcast low-level commands. Therefore, Victoria can immediately work with some external drives in PIO mode in the same way as with internal drives, while with others you will have to suffer at first. In the simplest case, it will be enough to remove the disk itself from the case (do not open the HDA!) and connect it to the port directly.

SATA hard drive without SATA port

Western Digital and, possibly, other manufacturers produced some external hard drives with a soldered SATA - USB bridge. Therefore, they do not have a regular SATA connector. However, they can still be connected directly to the port by soldering a SATA cable to the pins on the drive board. To understand whether your disk belongs to such a series, you will have to disassemble it, or google by model number and look for datasheets.

HDD password recovery

One of the most popular low-level commands in PIO mode is working with passwords. According to ATA certifications, disk access can be restricted using a password. It is set by the user from the BIOS or using external utilities. There is also a master password preset by the manufacturer. The drive can only be locked using a user password. If you have forgotten it, you can remove the lock using the master password.

Depending on the specified security level, the result of entering the master password will be different. At a high level, the master password acts the same as the user password. It just unlocks the drive and that's it. If the maximum security level is set (max), then entering a master password instead of a user password will unlock the disk only after all data on it is completely erased (secure erase).

Working with ATA passwords is also complicated by the fact that according to the standard they always consist of 32 bytes (no matter how long you specify it). Extra characters are ignored, and missing ones are added automatically. The problem is that different programs add them in different ways. Standard security utilities on some laptops are especially guilty of this. Instead of traditional zeros (or at least spaces), they use non-printable characters. The code 00h cannot be entered from the keyboard at all (even through (ALT)+code). There is only one way out: do not enter the password in the program window, but read it from the file. Any characters can be written to a file using a hex editor.

Often the user cannot unlock the drive even when he enters the correct password. If you change a laptop or lose the standard utility, any other one (for example, HDDL) will add up to 32 bytes to the password with its own characters.

There is also a preliminary modification of the password. On many laptops it is actually encrypted before it is sent to the controller. Usually these are the simplest logical operations, but this doesn’t make it any easier. The user thinks that this is a password he knows, while in reality the controller accepts a completely different one. If you have tried all the options for the proposed user and standard master passwords, but have not achieved any results, then there is only one way out - take the drive to the laboratory, where they will work with it in technological mode.

HOW to get back a lost terabyte

Sometimes Victoria's ability to work in PIO mode with HPA (Host Protected Area) - a service memory area in which the disk geometry is recorded - is very helpful. It determines the storage capacity by specifying it as the number of LBA blocks.

There was an interesting case in my practice. I received a standard complaint: “the computer does not turn on” (read, the OS does not load). The owner complained that he had been suffering for about a month. First, he visited all the service centers, then invited various Enikey people - to no avail. I came, looked and also thought deeply. All components are in good condition. The disk is detected in the BIOS, but booting from it does not work. I launched Linux from a flash drive. The hard drive is visible, but logical partitioning utilities show a strange picture: 64 MB of total volume and one partition with an unknown file system.

And then I realized that the HPA had simply failed on the hard drive. As a result, a terabyte disk began to be defined as a 64-megabyte stub. I switched the SATA port mode from AHCI to compatible in CMOS setup, took a USB flash drive with WinPE and launched Victoria in PIO mode. Next, I sent the NHPA command (restore factory volume).

Usually in such cases it is possible to instantly restore the passport value of LBA blocks, but this time the miracle did not happen. Therefore, I found a service utility for hard drives of this series and sent a similar HPA recovery command from it. A terabyte of data returned from oblivion on the next reboot.

Why did Victoria fail? I assume because this disk had some specific features unknown to me or the universal program.

BAD SECTORS HDD

Most often, Victoria is used to find and fix bad sectors. If everything is fine with the disk’s HPA and there is no password protection, but no utilities can read files from it in a reasonable time, then it’s time to perform a surface test. Victoria can do this in any mode (PIO/API) using sector-by-sector reading (read), writing (write) and writing with verification (verify).

Bad sector detection

When restoring data, you can use read-only, but its options also vary. The simplest of them is sequential: from the first block to the last. The starting and ending LBA values can be specified manually, which is convenient for many reasons. Firstly, this makes it possible to check disks of any size, simply by performing the test in fragments of up to one terabyte. Secondly, you can re-check the suspicious area and exclude external factors. Victoria analyzes the time it takes to access the sector. Typically, for new disks it does not exceed 5 ms for 80% of sectors. Sectors with a polling time of less than 50 ms are also considered normal. Those for which it is measured in hundreds of milliseconds are candidates for bad sectors.

If the sector was counted after a few seconds, then this is a clear bad block. The disk controller must independently identify such disks during idle time and replace them in the address table with good sectors from the reserve area. However, in practice this does not always happen. Victoria can ask the hard drive to perform such an operation (Remap) for those sectors that have not responded to requests for too long. Formally, part of the information is lost during this procedure, but in reality it was already lost at the moment when the sector became faulty.

In the paid version of Victoria, the Restore function was available - an attempt to read data from a bad sector at any cost and then rewrite it to a good sector. However, the program has not been officially supported since 2008, so it is unlikely that you will be able to purchase its full version. Free Victoria has helped out more than once by restoring HPA, resetting passwords, and eliminating bad sectors that caused other data recovery programs to freeze.

Reading graph during HDD surface test

HOW free Victoria saved a secret job

I'll share one more story with you. Laboratory at a research institute, our time. The analytical instrument is controlled from the computer that came with it. The computer comes pre-installed with very specific software that the developers no longer support. There is no distribution kit either on the disk or on the website. There is only an installed program, and it has stopped working. The laboratory carried out research under a multi-year government contract. Without the miracle device, the employees found themselves tied hand and foot. We struggled and found out that the problem was with the disk. From ancient times it became covered with bad things, and normal work became impossible. An attempt to make a disk clone by skipping bad sectors was unsuccessful - the cloning program froze. We ran the disk through the Victoria test with the Remap function. We have pre-selected the necessary settings. By the evening of the same day, we successfully removed the disk image, and then restored everything from it to a new hard drive. The device came to life, the contract was completed on time.

Victoria has four methods and three types of surface testing (twelve modes in total). In each, it automatically counts the total number of defective blocks and writes their addresses to the log. Like a disk editor, Victoria can show the contents of sectors and allows you to change them. In PIO mode, Victoria displays information about logical partitions on the media even if it is not detected at all in the BIOS. No utility with API access is capable of this.

Additionally, Victoria can control the level of acoustic noise of the disk (AAM), adjusting the speed of movement of its heads during search, launch low-level formatting, change the HDD capacity and run benchmarks. It can even be used to check the physical interface (the status of cables and ports). At home, it will save an HDD or SSD in many difficult situations, except for severe mechanical damage that requires opening the HDA. The laboratory will cope with them too, using Victoria as one of the proven utilities.

Situations with laptops locked by BIOS and HDD passwords arise mainly for the following reasons: you installed it and can’t remember the password, or your relatives decided to play with the laptop, installed it and forgot. When replacing HDDs (hard drives), password requests are also possible. What should an ordinary user do in this situation?

There are accessible ways to solve this problem, which you can try to implement yourself, and more complex cases, in which you cannot do without the help of a specialist from service companies with special equipment; we will talk about these two options further.

For this we need:

Find out the manufacturer and exact model of the laptop, they are on the label under the battery compartment or directly on the underside of its case (bottom). Record this data;
Find out what prompts in the form of codes the laptop gives on the screen, if any, after several unsuccessful attempts to enter a password in the request window. Write down these codes.

The laptop model and codes are our initial data, then we begin to search for solutions available on laptop manufacturers’ websites and help forums, both paid and free: special utility programs, tables with response codes (ASUS), universal master passwords of laptop manufacturers . Each laptop manufacturer has its own specifics, and we will discuss them below.

The exception is Lenovo laptops (most models) and some Hewlett-Packard models, for which the manufacturer offers only one solution in case of such an incident - replacing the motherboard, but we will talk about this in the second option.

The specifics of obtaining master passwords from laptop manufacturers are as follows:

ASUS

The master password to unlock the laptop is looked at in the password table by date, which will appear after entering 3 incorrect passwords. The date format is, for example, 07-07-08.

SONY

SONY BIOS password generation utility calculates the master password using the last 7 digits of the laptop serial number, which must be entered into the utility field.

Samsung

After 3 attempts to print the password, the laptop shows a message System disabled, Where 12345678901A1234— service code consisting of sixteen letters and numbers. The program will show the master password for the entered service tag, which is printed after launching the utility. Fig.3. Download the utility.

Fujitsu-Siemens

There are 2 utilities available for obtaining master passwords, depending on what error message the laptop displays.

Dell

The utility is offered for Dell laptops in two series: 595B and D35B. After 3 incorrect password entries, the laptop displays System disabled, Where 12ABC1A— service code (seven letters and numbers). The program itself calculates the master password using the entered service tag after launching the utility.

Hewlett-Packard and Compaq

The utility is offered for some models of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq laptops.

After 3 attempts to enter the password, the laptop will display a message System disabled, Where ABC1234ABC— service code (10 arbitrary letters and numbers). The program will calculate the master password using the entered service tag, which must be printed after launching the utility.

InsydeH20 BIOS Notebook Acer, Hewlett-Packard

The utility is offered for some models of Hewlett-Packard and Acer laptops with BIOS InsydeH20. After 3 unsuccessful attempts to enter the password, the laptop will display a message System disabled, Where 12345678 — service code (arbitrary letters and numbers). The program will calculate the master password based on the entered service tag, which must be printed after launching the utility.

Phoenix BIOS Notebook

A utility is offered for laptops with Phoenix BIOS installed. After 3 attempts to enter the password, a message appears System disabled [*], Where * — service code (arbitrary letters and numbers). The program calculates the master password based on the entered service tag, which must be printed after launching the utility.

We turn to specialists for help

It is recommended to start by contacting technical support (Support) of the laptop manufacturer, go to their official website and write a letter. It will be a plus to have a receipt and guarantee; take a photo of these documents and attach it to the letter. Describe in detail the problems that have arisen, the laptop model and the codes that the laptop produces, send it and wait for a response. There are usually two answer options: they can send you a master password, which will immediately unlock your laptop, this is the best option, or they will suggest you contact a local branded service center.

If in response to the letter they suggested contacting a company service, then we call them and clarify the options for solving the problem: remote using a master password or need to take the laptop to them.

Conclusion.

Before setting a password in the laptop BIOS and HDD, read the above-described options for removing passwords in the event of a force majeure situation, so as not to find yourself without a working laptop and to understand the existing methods for solving this problem, their cost, specifically for your laptop model.

Another IT riddle about passwords on storage media.

We have a WD400 hard drive like this:

Playful hands (or evil fate? (-:)) set a password on it.
On numerous forums, smart people write that this (setting a password) sometimes happens with storage media from WesternDigitall due to a power outage or incorrect termination of programs such as PQmagic or Acronis.

So, there is a task to remove.

A little theory from the help to Victoria:

Manage security options. Passwords, password removal, temporary unlocking.
Theoretical introduction:

Modern hard drives have 2 types of passwords and 2 security levels. First, let's look at the types of passwords:

User password: serves to restrict access to user information. When setting a User password, the hard drive rejects commands such as reading and writing. Consequently, information from a password-protected hard drive cannot be read, changed, or erased. This can only be done after removing the password or after temporarily unlocking it.
Master password: NOT intended to protect information. Its purpose is to delete the User password in case of loss of the latter. The master password, once installed on the hard drive, will not affect its performance in any way.

Let's return to the levels of secrecy. There are 2 of them, and they relate only to the User password:

High: high level. The High level password can be deleted using the Master password while saving the information on the hard drive.
Maximum: maximum level. If a User password of the Maximum level is set on the hard drive, then the Master password cannot be used to remove it (the screw will generate an error), and to remove the password you will have to use Security Erase. This is a special command that will ask you to transfer the Master password to the screw, after which it will erase all information from it, and only after that it will unlock it.

If you lose both the User and Master passwords, the password-protected hard drive becomes physically unsuitable for storing information. Without knowing the Master password, you cannot unlock it. Therefore, be careful with the HDD security system.

Is it possible to “find” a lost password using brute force? In the case of a hard drive, it’s almost impossible. According to the ATA standard, after FIVE unsuccessful attempts to enter a password, the screw blocks the commands (in this case, the “Expired” status will appear in the passport). Re-entry is possible only after turning the power on and off. There is no limit on 5 attempts if you use erasure via the master password to remove the password. In this case, a natural obstacle to brute force will be the readiness pause (about 1 second) issued by the screw.

Practice setting and removing passwords.

There are keys for working with passwords And , as well as alternative console commands:

PWD: set disk password;

DISPWD: remove password from disk;

UNLOCK: temporarily unlock the screw (before turning off the power);

LOCK : Temporarily disable the password system (before turning off the power);

After entering the commands, a menu will appear on the screen with a choice of password options and privacy level. Navigate through the menu using the arrow keys (up and down), selecting the desired item using the ENTER key. Next you will be prompted to enter a password:

Enter password:_

After entering the password, press ENTER. If the screw does not generate an error, the password will be set immediately.

It should be borne in mind that master passwords for most hard drives are preset at the factory, and thanks to the Internet, they can be known to a wide range of people. Therefore, it is better to change the master password immediately. The set master password will not affect access to information in any way.
On the contrary, if someone locks the hard drive (for example, a malicious program-virus), knowing the master password you can unlock it.

To remove the user password using a known master password, you need to:

By pressing F10, select the “master password” item in the menu;
enter the master password (up to 32 characters). The Winchester will be unlocked.

This method will only work if the password security level = High. If the level is set to Maximum, a disk erase warning will be issued. You can agree or cancel (if the information cannot be lost). If you agree, the program will prompt you to enter a master password, after which the hard drive will set it to BUSY and begin erasing information. If at this moment you turn off the power of the hard drive, or give it a soft reset command, the erasing will stop, but the password will remain. You should wait until BUSY is removed, and only after
Therefore, after receiving your passport, make sure that the passwords have been removed.

A useful use of the password erase option is to quickly delete all information (for example, before selling the HDD). In addition, security erasure, being by its nature a recording, has its own
ability to eliminate some types of surface defects and update SMART statistics. In order to perform a quick erase through the security system, you must:

set any Maximum level user password to the screw;
set any master password to the screw, for example 1234. Both passwords can be the same;
By pressing F10, select a master password, then enter it and wait for the operation to complete.

Sometimes it happens that security erasing fails with an error some time after it starts. This can happen if the hard drive is physically faulty.

Note:

If you have already called up the password entry line, but have changed your mind about entering it, press ESC.
To prevent forgetfulness, the program creates a small (32 byte) text file in the current directory, in which it places the entered password. The next time you enter the password, the program itself will read the contents of the file and slip it under the user’s nose :) This option can be easily disabled; how to do this, read the “Working with ini file” section.
If the tested drive stated in its passport that it does not support security options, a message will be displayed in the bottom line of the screen: “Attention: this HDD does not support working with passwords!” The inscription will not prevent you from _trying_ to set/remove the password to verify this practically.

After some poking around Google, it turned out that the standard master password for WD hard drives is 32 characters like this: " WDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWD".

At first nothing worked:

Then, apparently, a miracle happened and we saw the wonderful inscription “Done” after executing the password reset command:

And it seems like already HURRAY! ....but after the reboot the password appeared again and now it can’t be removed...

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

P.S. Acelab PC-3000 and A-FF REPAIR are not offered, since the use of these products is much more expensive than the cost of a hard drive.