The manual points out that the battery is attached to the system board with double-sided tape. This is an interestingly cheap system, in that the battery is not your typical "button" battery, but is one connected with a pair of wires and a "plug" type connector. I removed the CMOS battery for about 10 minutes, which I will tell you is not easy on this particular box. I had not tried that, yet, because I found several references that indicate the status of drive passwords are kept in a "security chip", separate from the bios settings and that disconnecting the battery would have no effect, but it's worth trying.
It may not be possible to recover the hard drive password or to unlock it however, it is possible to remove the password together with the data, thus making your hard disk accessible and usable again.Ĭlick to expand.Thanks for the suggestion, pclover. Download HDD Unlock Wizard now! 2.8MB only!
HDD Unlock Wizard incorporates proprietary unlocking algorithms which allow removing an unknown HDD password and making hard drive usable again. Please note that while unlocking, HDD Unlock Wizard will erase and re-certify the drive, meaning to say all data in the disk is lost and not recoverable. Both User and Master password can be removed. IDE and SATA hard disk drives are supported. HDD Unlock Wizard is a user-friendly application which allows you to easily remove HDD password. (Word 89 in the IDENTIFY response indicates how long the operation will take.) The operation is rather slow, expect half an hour or more for big disks. The SECURITY ERASE UNIT command requires the Master password and will completely erase all data on the disk. In Maximum security mode, you cannot unlock the disk! The only way to get the disk back to a usable state is to issue the SECURITY ERASE PREPARE command, immediately followed by SECURITY ERASE UNIT. There is an attempt limit, normally set to 5, after which you must power cycle or hard-reset the disk before you can attempt again. In High security mode, you can unlock the disk with either the user or master password, using the "SECURITY UNLOCK DEVICE" ATA command. Bit 8 in word 128 of the IDENTIFY response tell you which mode your disk is in: 0 = High, 1 = Maximum. A value of 0xFFFE means the Master password is unchanged.Ī disk can be locked in two modes: High security mode or Maximum security mode.
The revision code is word 92 in the IDENTIFY response. Most disks support a Master Password Revision Code, which can tell you if the Master password has been changed, or it it still the factory default.
It is part of the ATA specification, and thus not specific to any brand or device.Ī disk always has two passwords: A User password and a Master password. The disk lock is a built-in security feature in the disk. If the above suggestions don't work, here's some background info about the disk lock feature:
Apply the patch to a 2.4.18 linux kernel tree.
This modified driver will automatically unlock the disk when you connect your Archos via USB, so you don't have to do anything special. Looking for ways to determine if the drive can be salvaged or, if the drive is junk, whether it is safe to try installing a new SATA drive and reloading an OS.įor those of us using Linux, we have written an isd200 driver patch for unlocking the disk.
Tried to reboot the Windows system with this USB drive plugged in, but the Windows system would not POST.Īre currently considering replacement of the solid state hard drive with new SATA 2.5" 40GB drive, but some information I have read indicates that when this condition has been reached, there is a risk that a new drive may become "locked", too, due to residual in the BIOS. Tried to add it to a Windows XP system, but Windows could not find the drive (remember it is a Linux boot disk). Removed the hard drive and installed it in a USB case. Windows appears to boot, but fails (BSOD) with a hard drive error (0x7D). We have tried to boot the system from an external USB CD drive (no internal drives on this box), with UBCD4WIN. We have removed the hard drive and reseated the connections. We have tried all of the master passwords, as found on web sites across the web. No strangers or pranksters have had access to the netbook. There has not been a password on the hard drive and the BIOS password screen indicates none present. Press F9 to boot from the Restore Partition Press F12 if you want to boot from the network The monitor shows the following at the time of failure.ĪMIBIOS(C) 2006 American Megatrends, Inc.īIOS Date: 04/02/08 09:56:47 Ver: 08.00.14 Was running fine, but failed to boot to Linux a few days ago. Have HP 2133 netbook with 4GB solid state SATA drive, 512 MB RAM, running SUSE Linux.