Forums Forums Enthusiast Forums A - Z Gadgets & Tech help with pata hard drive

hi all .just got a hard drive for my laptop but when i put it in the lappy it came up with "enter hdd password"and yes i dont know it (no wonder it was a fiver ).so i know this can be master unlocked but is there a master password and if so where do i find it cheers paul

oh yes the model no is seagate st93015a

If there's nothing on it you want drop it in at my place tomorrow and I'll clear it for you.

Is the password definitely on the hard drive and not the computer itself ?

yes i got the hard drive of my daughters boyfriend he thought it was his nephew who passworded it,but he doesnt know the password either .will get the wife to drop it or will drop it about 4.30 cheers

No problem, just tell whoever you give it to that it's for me and I know about it.

Dr sorry didn't get a chance will do tomorrow or Saturday cheers mate

Drive is ready, wiped and formatted for you to use

Cheers doc will see you tomorrow

Good luck with this, ATA specifications are two passwords and two security levels. The only time I've come across a drive being password locked it had exceeded its maximum number of tries and was permanently locked (as per ATA specifications). Only cure is to put a new board on the drive.

Hopefully this one hasn't got to this stage.

Seems to be okay, he had no personal files on it as it was a second hand drive, so once I'd cleared the passwords had a quick nosey to make sure I could read all three partitions before I deleted them.

I've forgotten the utility (I think you recommended it), unlocked the drive and the status came back as unlocked but it wasn't really, if you ran the program again the status was still locked.

Fortunately most drive manufacturers don't implement the ATA specs fully, but sod's law said the one I had, did grrrr.

Another set of magnets for my drawer

Cheers doc haven't tried it yet but it did come up as recognised cheers