Prev: Toshiba Satellite black screen after boot
Next: Where got 20 inch laptop for sale?
From: ~misfit~ on 28 Jul 2010 09:14
Somewhere on teh intarwebs Richard Bonner wrote:
> ~misfit~ (sore_n_happy(a)nospamyahoo.com.au) wrote:
>> I have a friend who is the IT guy for a company. Recently he was
>> tasked with disposing of several EOL (for them) laptops and company
>> policy for them is to remove and destroy (big hammer...) the HDDs
>> and then pass on the rest of the machine to the IT reseller company
>> which the always deal with.
>
> (Snip)
>
>> However, when I dropped them in a USB dock and went to run my HDD
>> scrubbing / over-writing software I got a message that the HDD was
>> password protected. (Snip)
>
>> Can anybody help me in my quest to keep perfectly good HDDs out of
>> the landfill and do my bit for reducing needless waste?
>> --
>> Shaun.
>
> *** If you know a repair tech, have him load a bootable DOS service
> disc into the CD/DVD drive or on to a flashdrive if the USB port is
> bootable. See if it can do the partitioning. I suggest Ranish because
> it can recognise Windows' (among others) partitions.

Nothing I do even allows me to see partions. They're locked at a HDD
firmware level.

> However, if the laptop itself is password protected and no removable
> media will boot, then you might try removing the CMOS battery and
> waiting for the laptop to forget what it is. Be aware that there may
> be dangers with this method given the relative newness of the laptop.
> Of course after you reinstall the battery, you will have to tell the
> CMOS about the laptop and reissue any non-default changes you want.

I don't have the laptops, just the HDDs that were to be destroyed.

> Finally, you might take it to your IT friend, get him to boot and
> unlock the machine with his password and then to hand it to you. At
> that point, you can wipe the system. Seeing it done in front of him
> will be a demonstration that you are being true to your word about
> not accessing company data.

The laptops are long gone to an IT re-seller. It's just the bare HDDs,
password-locked.
--
Cheers,
Shaun.

"Let food be thy medicine" Hippocrates.


From: Adrian C on 30 Jul 2010 15:20
On 28/07/2010 14:14, ~misfit~ wrote:
>
> The laptops are long gone to an IT re-seller. It's just the bare HDDs,
> password-locked.

Googling 'ATA password unlock' shows an industry of folks distributing
unlock online tools and demands for cash per unlock :-(

Same swizz as done for unlocking mobile phones, but among all that
googling you might strike gold. Good luck :-)

--
Adrian C
From: ~misfit~ on 13 Aug 2010 03:39
Somewhere on teh intarwebs Adrian C wrote:
> On 28/07/2010 14:14, ~misfit~ wrote:
>>
>> The laptops are long gone to an IT re-seller. It's just the bare
>> HDDs, password-locked.
>
> Googling 'ATA password unlock' shows an industry of folks distributing
> unlock online tools and demands for cash per unlock :-(
>
> Same swizz as done for unlocking mobile phones, but among all that
> googling you might strike gold. Good luck :-)

Thanks Adrian. However after spending more time than the drives were really
worth I decided I wasn't spending money as well. They've been destroyed.
:-( I hate that! Perfectly good drives.....
--
Cheers,
Shaun.

"Let food be thy medicine" Hippocrates.


First  |  Prev  | 
Pages: 1 2 3
Prev: Toshiba Satellite black screen after boot
Next: Where got 20 inch laptop for sale?