HDD pw Recovery - How is it done?

[ForsitheComputers]

I've got a client that wants to remove the HDD password on a Toshiba Laptop (whom I do believe is actually legitimate by the way, I wouldn't do it otherwise). I have been doing some research on the issue and I have learned four things. (1)It sometimes requires extra hardware (other than a 2.5 to 3.5 adapter), (2)it costs money to outsource it to another business, (3) businesses charge you per recovery instead of just for the software, and (4)the software available actually requires an internet connection to work (*REALLY IMPORTANT* Probably either because they don't want people having the software to do it themselves because they use it to make money or because it uses a large rainbow table to crack some kind of hash in the firmware).

I want to learn to do it myself. Why cant I provide the service to customers myself? I find a per basis recovery ridiculous.

I understand that such a feat is a little bit harder than the average job. Everything else is all software based and can usually be removed with ONTPwR. But this is a challenge I want to learn about. I am okay with buying some hardware for the job, such as an IDE adapter as stated above, but this really expensive bulk wiping stuff is just out of my league. I don't have 2, 3, 4 grand to blow, haha.

I have been told that it is impossible and that my client should just buy a new HD. Impossibilities are lies in the form of ignorance. If someone can have the nerve to tell me that it is impossible and then subsequently tell me to go to a business that can do it, then it can be done. Period.

 

[B Trevathan]

A HDD password is not the same as a BIOS password or a Windows password.

Search Technibble and you will find information on HHD passwords.

If it is a HDD password you can not use an IDE adapter to reset the password. It can not be reset by clearing the CMOS by using the jumpers or removing the battery or by jumping the pins on the 24C02 chip on the motherboard or by updating the BIOS. If you slave the drive it will still be locked, you can not access it with a boot or recovery CD and you can not format the drive. The drive has to be in the computer that it was lock in for it to be unlocked.

Most laptops now and some newer desktops have the ability to set a hard drive password. The password is stored in the drives firmware. The password may or may not be encrypted in the firmware.

There are a few places online that will unlock the drive, one place offers a basic unlock service for 49.95 but it will erase all the data on the drive, if you want to unlock it and keep the data you will have to use their more advanced service but it does cost more. There was also one place that was doing it on Acers I think for only $10.00

 

[MobileTechie]

I could be wrong but don't these online places just give you an unlock code based on some information you provide them. Sounds like they've either got hold of some manufacturers software or worked out the code system.

 

[wimwauters]

I could be wrong but don't these online places just give you an unlock code based on some information you provide them. Sounds like they've either got hold of some manufacturers software or worked out the code system.

Neat. That makes the whole system useless

I'll stick to truecrypt

 

[MrUnknown]

TrueCrypt is definately a better option.

While the HDD passwords is nice, technically the data is still all there on the platters. Sure, regular recovery is basically impossible, but not completely.

 

[Morrison5891]

There was a way to do this with morphix but its not around anymore and I don't have a copy of it. If you can somehow find a copy of morphix, it would be ur only chance really other then some sites that charge for this. I wouldnt give up tho... I know there has gotta be something out there to reset this password

 

[ForsitheComputers]

Morphix...I think I saw that somewhere. Oh and yes an adapter can help. If you don't have a SATA connection. Apparently this situation and its possibilities are all really weird. If you want to reset/wipe the drive you have to master the drive you are using and the drive you are recovering but not on the same cable (Only counts if your using IDE obviously) Then you use this paid for software to reset the HDD. Thats the process.

But why cant I do this stuff by myself? UBCD has a utility but I have yet to figure out how to work it. Its not exactly documented and I tested it kind of inconclusively.

*hunts for morphix*

 

[B Trevathan]

Morphix...I think I saw that somewhere. Oh and yes an adapter can help. If you don't have a SATA connection. Apparently this situation and its possibilities are all really weird. If you want to reset/wipe the drive you have to master the drive you are using and the drive you are recovering but not on the same cable (Only counts if your using IDE obviously) Then you use this paid for software to reset the HDD. Thats the process.

But why cant I do this stuff by myself? UBCD has a utility but I have yet to figure out how to work it. Its not exactly documented and I tested it kind of inconclusively.

Maybe I'm confused here but an IDE/SATA adapter is not going to help you with a hard drive password, a password protected hard drive has to be in the computer that it was locked in for it to be unlocked. You can not even format a password protected hard drive.

With a boot CD yes you can reset or read a Windows password but not a hard drives password. Most passwords are easy to reset or read or even guess but not a hard drive password. Be careful if you reset a windows password and the user has encrypted data, you will not be able to read the encrypted data if you reset the password.

 

[iisjman07]

I've never gotten a hard drive password back, and I don't know whether this statement is 100% true:

a password protected hard drive has to be in the computer that it was locked in for it to be unlocked

, but if it is, it makes me wonder even more how these companies can unlock drives...

 

[shamrin]

You can try looking for some help over at hddguru.com (if you haven't tried that already). Be forewarned that those guys mostly just like to taunt people looking for help, but you may find out some useful bits by reading the threads.

 

[B Trevathan]

I've never gotten a hard drive password back, and I don't know whether this statement is 100% true: , but if it is, it makes me wonder even more how these companies can unlock drives...

Based on the service tag and model number and system hash


http://www.technibble.com/forums/showpost.php?p=106077&postcount=12

He will be able to give you a master ata password based on the system hash found in the bios.

This is th only way to unlock and save the data.

http://www.technibble.com/forums/showpost.php?p=127422&postcount=18

I had this issue on a Dell recently, and their tech support was able to generate a master password based on the service tag and model etc of the machine.
Entering this supplied master password not only allowed access to the system (HDD) but also removed the previously set password.

http://www.technibble.com/forums/showpost.php?p=100806&postcount=6

I found a guy in a hard drive forum who was able to generate and unlock code based on the system hash code. The unlock code WORKED, and all data is intact.

The PC was infected with Antivirus2010.

HDD passwords have been around for a while, techs used to use programs like atapwd.exe or gunlock.exe and put them on bootable DOS floppys.

 

[ForsitheComputers]

Ok well we got a service that does and and we downloaded their software and it only cost 10 measly bucks for the license at what hdd size we had.

To be clear to everyone, Nothing is impossible. however, at this time and as far as I have researched, the only way to get past a HDD Password is a service such as the one I used. They have two services one is recovery and one is reset. the reset wipes the drive. the recovery doesn't. Obviously the recovery costs more.

Now to be more clear we had to buy a SATA cable and a Molex to SATA Power adapter. For those that only have IDE you need an adapter. That's what I meant. We used it to connect the Laptop HDD to our test computer and run the reset software. It was 10 dollars well worth it but still. I WANT to know how its done. Why is it so secretive?

Oh and I didnt post in time to see that last post but I wasn't given squat. But it seems that it is some kind of hash table they use to reset/recover. Ohhhhhh! Now I see why its so secretive. Because the HDD Manufacturers dont want that stuff getting leaked. Im rather surprised that I havn't found any HDD Rainbow Tables though. I wonder why.

 

[bagellad]

because they want your $$

 

[ForsitheComputers]

Actually it's because they don't want hackers raping hard drives left and right.So they dealt a service to deter hackers. Hackers don't like paying for things.

Do atapwd.exe and gunlock.exe still work?

 

[B Trevathan]

Do atapwd.exe and gunlock.exe still work?

I'm not sure if atapwd.exe or gunlock.exe still work, for fun you could always try them on an older machine with small IDE drives that you don't care about, I would NOT try them on a clients machine. Here is a link to information about atapwd I don't know where to find gunlock but I think it was use mostly on hard drives in Tivos anyway.

Passwords are like locks on your doors, they're only there for a little bit of privacy. Do you really think that a locked door will stop a burglar or a locksmith, same with a password do you really think a password will stop a hacker or a tech?

HDD passwords seem to be a gray area for most of us techs, can you post the name or a link to the service? was the license just for the one machine only? how long did the software take to unlock the drive? How big was the drive, would you have to pay more if the drive was larger? since you were able to slave the drive to unlock it did you have to give them any details about the clients machine such as service tags and model numbers for the software to work?

 

[ForsitheComputers]

"can you post the name or a link to the service? was the license just for the one machine only? how long did the software take to unlock the drive? How big was the drive, would you have to pay more if the drive was larger? since you were able to slave the drive to unlock it did you have to give them any details about the clients machine such as service tags and model numbers for the software to work?"

(1)HDD Unlock Wizard
(2)http://www.hddunlock.com/
(3)Licenses are for single HDDs only though licenses can be bought in bulk and price depends on the size of the HDD.
(4)well it wiped and wrote over the 75GB drive. It took 47 minutes (It says, its probably right)
(5)If the drives are larger then you pay more. If you want to recover the data instead of reset then its more as well.
(6)If its on IDE it actually has to be master. If its SATA it doesn't matter.
(7)No. I didn't give the service anything. You download the software, you buy a license, you activate the software, it starts. That's what we did. It may be possible that that is what the service does however.

 

[shamrin]

Thanks for finding and sharing this. It could be quite helpful in the future.

 

[cramped]

I know with the old xbox, one of the reasons for the modchip was to unlock the harddrive. Coz xbox had the same setup where the harddrive and motherboard was matched as a pair. Could be possible to unlock a hadrdrive and format it with a modded xbox although I have never tried. But maybe something to look into.

 

[ForsitheComputers]

Hmm, That would be an issue because technically an HDD can only be unlocked by the device it was locked with. The BIOS keeps a copy of the hash stored.

That's a start though. Maybe a mod chip could be configured to crack certain HDD locks. or even a softmod. Or maybe if we flashed the bios on an old xbox with an older bios it would bypass the HDD security. That has been known to work because certain older versions of Bios don't support HDD locks.

Clever clever. Not exactly right but another possibility is revealed, alright!

Where the hell am I gonna download an old BIOS though?

Okay seriously guys this is making me all excited and stuff. If we can find a way to flash an xbox with an old bios to bypass the HDD password and recover data it wouldn't mean necessarily perfecting a way to bypass HDD password but it would be the cheaper way because then all you would need is the cheaper service that just wipes the HDD. Again we only paid 10 bucks. This is awesome. Is there anyone willing to help with this? we need an old BIOS, instructions to flash an XBox mobo and information on whether all of this is even possible.

 

[cramped]

I do know you can take a locked xbox drive from a unmodded machine and put it in a modded machine and gain access to it. Although I dont know how well it would work with password locked pc drives. Ive modded a few in the past eg. running linux and stuff but never actually tried to unlock a pc hdd. But I dont want to try now. I will see what xbox goodies I have in attic.