PSA on password protected HDD

[hobbit709]

Don't unless you back up your data on a regular basis.

If drive is password protected,you cannot run the Windows Recovery Console if something glitches. Can't use a Linux Live CD to read the drive-it won't mount. Windows install sees drive as unsupported format. If you put drive on another computer as secondary drive it won't give it a drive letter so that you can open it. All this even if you know the password.

Been having major fun with a Toshiba Satellite notebook.

[CK_John]

1. Try mapping it as a network share on a second PC, might work or would

replacing the HD circuit board with exact same board and reading it on another PC.

Just random ideas.

[hobbit709]

2. The password data is kept on the hard drive

in the manufacturer reserve section. Can't map if if Windows won't give it a drive letter because it sees it as an unformatted or unsupported format drive.
The only fix appears to be to send it to a data recovery place-not cheap. Supposedly you can change the password and leave it blank but I'm not going to try until I get the customer's consent

If it was a Windows password problem, it could be done easily but this is in the hard drive at the boot level.

[CK_John]

3. Will Acronis or Apricorn clone the drive so that you can experiment with it.n/t

[hobbit709]

4. Nope

And even if it does, it will still have the same problem. Corrupted Windows files that that can't be repaired because they can't be accessed.

The problem is that Windows goes into a boot loop and you can't bootcfg/scan or rebuild because it can't read the files because of the password protection

[CK_John]

5. Last Idea: Put the drive in second PC as master and boot with a WinME floppy, and run fdisk /MBR. nt