Hi,

My laptop has died and I have taken out the hard drive and connected
it to a USB connector.

Windows recognised the hard drive and it apears in Device Manager but
does not map a drive or apper in the Disk Management wndow.

I then remembered I had set a password for the drive.

Question 1 - Is there any way to enter a HDD passowrd via a USB/IDE
connection

I then put my Hard Drive into another laptop (a HP Compaq NC4010) and
as good as gold the Bios requested the HDDDrive Bay Password.

I entered the password but no go ?

Question 2 - The computer that the Hard Drive comes from uses a US
layout keyboard and the one i am trying to use it in now is a UK
layout. I use a ~ (tilde) in my password which is in a different spot
on these keyboards (although I have tried the various corresponding
key locations) but it continually rejcts my password.

Could this cause a problem ?

Or is there something else ?

Jason

groupware@rocketmail.com wrote:
British keyboard, but for some characters, I believe you must press
Alt-Gr (bottom-right of the keyboard). If the tilde is located at the
bottom right of a key, then, this is what you need to do. Try typing
your password in Word or Wordpad to make sure it gets the way you need
and then try for the hard drive.

Regards

--
John Doue

<groupware@rocketmail.com> wrote in message
news:1170496986.767710.158150@a34g2000cwb.googlegr oups.com...

You mention the 2nd but failed laptop where you tried using the password
but never bothered to mention the ORIGINAL laptop that was used to hash
your hard drive's contents. The other half of the hash (to decode) was
back in the original laptop. Preventing someone from getting at it,
especially by stealing the drive, is just what that security is for;
i.e., unless the drive is in the original laptop that hashed up the
drive's contents AND you know the password, you will never get at the
decoded contents of the drive. That's why you need to do backups (which
aren't hashed or you specify the password which is a software-based
password that you can use regardless of to where you restore the
password-protected backup).

I you don't have the original laptop to reinsert the hard drive, you'll
have to call the maker of the original laptop to see if they provide a
backdoor password, but I doubt it (although I have seen some lists
floating around of possible backdoor passwords). If you don't have
possession of the original laptop and it is usable, start looking for a
service bureau to do the recovery. Otherwise, you are stuck with
partitioning and formatting the drive to wipe it out, and use the
password, if wanted, for the new laptop that does whole-disk encryption.
Hardware-based security became available starting back with the ATA-3
specification.

http://www.pwcrack.com/bios.shtml
http://www.rockbox.org/lock.html
http://www.driverforum.com/harddrive3/1642.html (but sounds very
hazardous)
http://www.eevidencelabs.com/article..._Forensics.pdf
http://www.velocityreviews.com/forum...-password.html

I don't think that there is a way to get this to work over a USB connection.

I'm surprised that it didn't work on the Compaq. The keyboard could be
part of the issue, or the Compaq may just handle this "differently" than
your original computer. Or your memory of what the password was might
just be faulty.


groupware@rocketmail.com wrote:

Re: "The other half of the hash (to decode) was back in the original
laptop. Preventing someone from getting at it, especially by stealing
the drive, is just what that security is for; i.e., unless the drive is
in the original laptop that hashed up the drive's contents AND you know
the password, you will never get at the decoded contents of the drive."

I don't think that's correct. This isn't windows, this is an IDE
password. The implementation of that is supposed to prevent access, on
ANY computer, without the password. But as far as I know, it is NOT
supposed to tie the drive to the computer ... the correct password
should work on any computer. Otherwise, as has happened here, if the
computer motherboard dies, then the drive is lost, and that is beyond
secure, it is "data endangering". And I don't think that's how it works.


Vanguard wrote:

"Barry Watzman" <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote in message news:45c4b406$0$9009$4c368faf@roadrunner.com
It isn't. He's obviously one of those rocket scientists.

It doesn't.

[snip]

"Barry Watzman" <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote in message
news:45c4b406$0$9009$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
I don't care what OS is on the drive, encrypted or not. The whole-disk
encryption is performed in hardware. Half of that support is on the
hard drive, the other half is back in the mobo. If the drive wanders
off from the mobo that hashed up the drive, that drive cannot be
decoded. It is very similar to e-mail encryption: the source (owner of
the certificate or the mobo) has the "private" portion and the target
(recipient or hard drive) has the "public" portion. Without both,
there's no decryption, and the source controls that.

Yep, as I said, this hardware encryption was first provided in ATA-3
specification. It is NOT solely implemented on the hard drive alone.
Unfortunately it costs to get copies of the ATA specs from
http://www.t13.org/ and I really don't need them.

Yep, that is what happens. And that is why you MUST do data backups
since they won't depend on the private key for the encryption that the
mobo has. The backups can either be open in that anyone could restore
from them or you would password-protect them, but that password
protection is entirely within the backup file so you could use another
computer running the same backup program to restore your data because
the password was only used to encode the file (i.e., there is no
separation of private and public keys, there is just the one key used to
encode the file).

Vanguard wrote:
your post, I shared Barry's opinion. If you are correct, and you seem to
know your stuff, then I would look twice before passwording a hard-drive.

Regards

--
John Doue

John Doue <notwobe@yahoo.com> wrote:
He doesnt, actually. Where the encryption is done is an entirely
separate issue to whether the ATA password can be reentered
for a drive that is moved from one system that supports ATA
passwords to another that also does.

That should always be done, if only because you
need to be sure that you wont lose the password.

Vanguard wrote:
Vanguard,


All the drive manufacturers have their own method of enforcing password
protection at this level.

Some of them can be overcome quite easily (for instance, a typical
resurrection for Western Digital drives is to enter, as the password,
WDC repetitively for 32 characters) whereas others (most) require
hardware intervention.

We can recover / obliterate passwords for almost all drives - using
specialist equipment - but for the lucky user of a WD-type drive, it's
fairly straightforward.

The password is rarely stored on multiple media - as far as I can tell
with up-to-date information and experience. (i.e. it's never stored as a
combination of platter-based info (system area) and hardware (BIOS / ROM
/ NVRAM.)



--
Retrodata
www.retrodata.co.uk
Globally Local Data Recovery Experts

Re: "The whole-disk encryption is performed in hardware."

We are not talking about encryption at all. IDE drive passwords are not
encryption. The way that this works is that on startup, the drive will
one and only one command over the IDE port ... the password command.
Until that command is issued, with the correct password, the drive will
simply not respond to ANY other valid IDE commands, including the
"identify drive" command. Thus, until the password command is issued
and the drive activates itself, it's not even seen by the bios. The
system will act as if there is simply no drive installed at all. It has
nothing to do with encryption or keys.

I think that we are talking about two different things.


Vanguard wrote:

"Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:52kartF1nmg1sU1@mid.individual.net...

http://www.ami.com/support/doc/AMIBI...D_Security.pdf

The user password is normally used to unlock the hard drive. The master
password, if one exists, can also be used to unlock the hard drive.
That is why I've seen some backdoor lists floating around of what some
mobo makers have been found to commonly use for a master password. The
master password is also why you can call the maker of your mobo as they
may be able to tell you what is the master password for you to unlock
the drive. Drive locking protection is obviously degraded if such
backdoor [master] passwords are common and maybe that's why
security-conscious users and corporations rely on whole-disk encryption
instead.

Ron is correct in that I was mixing hard drive locking with whole-disk
encryption. These are separate security mechanisms. From the OP's
post, perhaps just disk locking was employed and not encryption. Since
the OP gave absolutely no details on WHAT was the original computer in
which the drive was locked (and maybe encrypted, too), guesses is all
that can be profferred.

Since the OP already tried in another computer that prompted for the
password but it did not work then it sure seems that the BIOS makers can
customize how they support the drive lock feature. That is, just
because there is an ATA standard, it could be rather vague or the BIOS
makers may even deliberately tweak it so to be almost proprietary. As
Odie alluded, drive locking may not be compatible between different
BIOSes.

I'm wondering if a replacement of the PCB on the hard drive might
"repair" or unlock the drive. That is, get another exact same drive and
use its PCB on the problematic drive. Since the replacement PCB hasn't
been password enabled yet, maybe it would permit access to the drive. I
tried this once with an old drive (so getting an exact replacement was
pricey due to rarity) because a voltage regulator component blew which
rendered the drive useless (it wouldn't spin up). The replacement PCB
got the drive to spin up.

It could even be that the translation geometry for LBA mode of the
original computer doesn't match that used in the second computer. Start
at http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/modesLBA-c.html. Then read
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/modesCaveats-c.html about the hazard
(to data) of moving hard drives between computers, especially with
different BIOSes. I have ran into this when moving drives between hosts
really old hardware hosts to new hardware hosts.

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Odie Ferrous <odie_ferrous@hotmail.com> wrote:

So basically a HDD password is only protection angainst amateurs and
even they can get it removed for a few thousand EUR/USD?

Hmmm. If this were crypto, it would fall into the ''ridiculous''
security level class...

Arno

Vanguard <no@mail.invalid> wrote
No it wasnt.

There was no hardware encryption on the hard drive with the ATA spec.

The drafts are readily available for free and that detail didnt change.

Yep, and it says absolutely NOTHING about any ATA spec encryption.

Irrelevant to your pig ignorant claims about ENCRYPTION.

Pity the user is welcome to change that and obviously should do so.

Pity that only allows you to ERASE the drive, not access the DATA.

No it doesnt if you actually have a clue and change that master password.

Thats for a different reason entirely, because its actually possible to bypass
that password protection when you have physical access to the drive.

Anyone with a clue has noticed that you mangled the story completely.

You dont even know that the OP is entering the password correctly.

No it isnt.

No they dont.

He didnt say anything like that. The ATA standard makes it very clear how it works.

VERY unlikely that it would be that pathetically implemented.

Because that would defeat the whole point of the ATA security feature.

Irrelevant to the ATA security feature.

Wrong again. You'd get a different result if that was the problem.

Pity that is irrelevant when the AUTO drive type is used.

Pity his isnt really old hardware.

Rod Speed wrote:

Those links are interesting but it would be nice to know when they were
written. They do not seem to relate to today's hard drive issues.

Regards

--
John Doue

groupware@rocketmail.com wrote:
No, it must be connected directly to an IDE port. If your laptop has a
removable media bay whereby you can remove the optical drive and replace it
with a second HD adapter then the locked HD will be correctly accessed on
BOOT and prompt you for the password.

Yes.
--
James

Visit the Thinkpad Forums
http://forum.thinkpads.com

Vanguard's posts have been totally "out to lunch" on this entire subject
and thread.

John Doue <notwobe@yahoo.com> wrote:
Yeah, thats always been one downside of pcguide, it tends to lag reality by quite a bit.

They are in the sense that its possible to use other than an AUTO drive type.
They arent when an AUTO drive type is used.

Barry Watzman <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote:

They have indeed.

On Feb 4, 9:41 am, John Doue <notw...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Thanks for all the replys (and discussion)

To answer a few questions:
- the hardrive is a Seagate Momentus 7200.1
- the original laptop is an LG and uses Phoenix Bios
- the hardrive is locked using ATA Password locking and not encrypted

Any further thoughts on why the HP laptop doesn't recognise the
password are appreciated.

Prior to posting I had researched this quite a bit and have checked
most of the links for geting to the Master password and will probably
try this in due course if I can;t solve the user password issue.

Thanks again.

Jason