Hi,

I have approx. 30x Western Digital SATA 2.5" hard drives ranging from 80GB to 500GB. These are ex-Tandberg RDX QuikStor backup drives that I no longer use and would like to use them as spare laptop hard drives.

The only problem is upon installing the drive in a laptop it prompts for a hard drive user password.

Are there any open source methods to wipe the password (and data; I don't care about that)? I've tried using various wiping methods (dd, dban etc.) but the password still remains.

Any help is greatly appreciated; I really need these drives

P.S. Plugging it in via a USB HDD enclosure shows as /dev/sdb but does not respond to (c)fdisk or show any partitions (/dev/sdb1 etc).

Thanks

Here's a program you can buy, and run under Windows:

Here's a free program, with Linux support:
And here's a page with lots of possible alternatives:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=555334

Thanks for your suggestions. As I have a number I want to unlock, I don't want to have to pay to have this done.

The final post (regarding swapping the drives during the password change) from answers.google.com looked promising, but it did not work for me.

The Rockbox link seems related to their software locking the drive, not a hard drive that has had a password set; am I mistaken?

Your thoughts?

Thanks

You could go to a WD site and see if they provide a downloadable low-level format application. If they do, you could try a full drive reformat. That might remove the password protection (and data). Note that a full low-level format can take a long time, so - if you try this approach - I'd suggest you try it first on one of your smallest drives.

PTrenholme's suggestion also sounds promising:
Finally, this link suggests you might be able to do Magic with "hdparm":
http://www.mitsubishiforum.com/forum...ad.php?t=22994

'Hope that helps .. PSM

I can't find a formatting tool on the WD site. I've ran dban on one which I hear is a good wiping tool and that didn't remove the password.

Regarding the rockbox, I have found the atapwd tool to be available on the ultimate boot CD. But when I load it, it sees my CD drive but not my hard drive. I have tried 3 of my hard drives and none show up. I am having to remove the hard drive before booting the live CD otherwise I am asked for the hard drive password immediately after the BIOS screen shows. However, the hard drive is inserted before I load atapwd. I wonder if the BIOS is telling it there's nothing there. The CD drive is set to boot before the hard drive.

Ah, but atapwd website says "The password is empty, so just press enter at the prompt" which leads me to believe that it is true that their software has locked the drive with an empty password. The password on this drive is certainly not blank.

Look at the end of man hdparm for the ATA security feature set. If the password is empty, perhaps a hdparm --security-unlock "" /dev/sdb might do the trick. (Assuming that it's attached as sdb, of course.)

As to the "low level format" for WD, their diagnostic programs offere a "Write zeros to disk, restoring it to 'like new' condition," which might do the trick.

Thanks for you suggestions. I have tried specifying a blank password (both master and user) and it does not unlock. I've also tried every wiping software under the sun.

Out of curiosity, I paid hddunlock.com $10 to unlock an 80GB and to my surprise it actually worked! I am not however prepared to pay $30 for each of my 500GB drives that I want to use.

Any other suggestions? I've spent some time trying to help myself but I'm not getting anywhere. It seems I need some way to crack the password.

Here's a thread that talks about unlocking (and reformatting) a WD drive in a an X-box system that might work for you.

One post I noticed suggested that the (default) WD master password was "all blanks" not "empty." Did you try entering 8 (or 20) blanks as the master password?

Yes, I've tried the wdc and blank passwords but none let me in. I am sure this password is not "default", Tandberg have set their own password; I need a way to crack it.

I presume that you've asked the people from whom you purchased that drives for the password(s). Do they have some reason for not telling you what it is?

Does the hddunlock package report the password or just erase it? (If it reports it, then you could license the unlocking of one drive and, assuming that the "master" password, at least, is the same for all your drive, try to unlock the rest "by hand.")

Have you looked for "forensic" tools? There might be one that can bypass the drive password, although most of the software tools assume that the drive is readable, and, of course, the drive itself reports that it's unreadable unless the correct password is supplied.

Have you tried using something like DBAN on it?

> I presume that you've asked the people from whom you purchased
> that drives for the password(s). Do they have some reason for
> not telling you what it is?

I've tried contacting Tandberg but have not had a response. I believe the password is set so that only their drives will work with their "drive bays". The supplier I purchased these from has been completely useless, saying that it's impossible to clear the password (even though I've done it with HDDUnlock, but I don't want to tell them I've done that really).

> Does the hddunlock package report the password or just erase it?

Just clears it.

> Have you tried using something like DBAN on it?

> I've tried using various wiping methods (dd, dban etc.)

Appreciate the responses.

Presuming these are fairly cheap drives, and that you have the WD low-level format program, you could try the "brute force" approach: Buy a really strong permanent magnet from your local hardware store and use it it wipe the disk. (I.e, While the disk is unpowered, move the magnet slowly across the drive housing a few times.) That might randomize the "manufacturer" cylinder (and everything else) so you could reformat it. OF COURSE, IT MIGHT COMPLETELY DESTROY THE DRIVE. (Oops: Sorry for shouting - my caps lock stuck. But, hey, it seems worth emphasizing.)