Hdd locked?

[justin4pack]

So I picked up a used laptop for great price. I was able to get it going but I had to pull the hard drive because it was not accessible. The computer had a bios lock but that was easy to get around. My question is, is this hdd junk or is there someway to unlock it so it's usable again? I don't care about anything on it obviously because it's not my stuff just want it cleaned and usable.

 

[dma0991]

If that HDD reads as a partition in another PC, you could try formatting it. If that doesn't work you could use DBAN but I think its unnecessary.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If that HDD reads as a partition in another PC, you could try formatting it. If that doesn't work you could use DBAN but I think its unnecessary.

You don't get it. If a HDD is password-locked, you cannot read it, not even the partition table. None of the user-accessable LBAs are accessable without the password.

Sometimes, you can secure-erase it.

 

[nightspydk]

This might be tricky, but you might want to load the disk in linux depending on the software used for encryption.

Just an idea. 🙂

So much for all that funky stuff maybe. 😛

PS - You can 'live' boot the distro.

 

[fzabkar]

So I picked up a used laptop for great price. I was able to get it going but I had to pull the hard drive because it was not accessible. The computer had a bios lock but that was easy to get around. My question is, is this hdd junk or is there someway to unlock it so it's usable again?

What do you mean by "not accessible"? Are you sure it is password locked? Sometimes a drive fails in such a way that it appears to be locked. Can you see its SMART data? Does it report its correct model number and capacity?

Otherwise, if it is indeed locked by a password, then try ZU.

 

[justin4pack]

Thanks for quick responses guys. When booted too. As a primary it asks for a password directly after post. When added as a secondary I don't remember and I won't be home for a while so I'll check again. I think it's seen just fine, but when u go to format it, it says the action cannot be completed.

 

[justin4pack]

What do you mean by "not accessible"? Are you sure it is password locked? Sometimes a drive fails in such a way that it appears to be locked. Can you see its SMART data? Does it report its correct model number and capacity?

Otherwise, if it is indeed locked by a password, then try ZU.

I can see it in disk management, but it shows its unallocated. When attempting to initialize it gives an I/O error. Also what's ZU?