RE: HardDisk Password recovery.

["Beauford, Jason" <jbeauford () EightInOnePet com>]

What tool was used to set this password?

JMB

-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Forbes [mailto:jftitan () gmail com] 
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2004 7:04 PM
To: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: HardDisk Password recovery.


 I have a problem that happens to be absolutely annoying in the since
that I cannot find the solution. either google, or other security forums
all seem to say to take this HDD to a Data Recovery.

  What has happened is that one of the employees of the contract company
I work for has password locked her notebook (Dell Latitude LS). Story
told is that she wanted to make sure if the notebook was to be stolen or
lost no one could get the data off of it. The usual. and like always, a
new password, but not remembering what it was later on.

  I was able to reset the BIOS, because at the time I thought the
password was BIOS set, but after I pulled the battery that is when I
reliazed the password placed on the hardware was firmware encoded.

 So far i have been able to get leads towards downloading the
UltimateBootCD to use the ATA Harddrive password recovery tool, but
because the harddrive is locked the software won't touch the drive with
a ten foot pole. I have tried placing the HDD on an adaptor and putting
it into one of my desktop machines, but the drive is locked before I
even pass POST.

So I am wondering what many others I have found in the same situation
is, if professional data recovery businesses can recover/forensic/unlock
harddrives, then there has got to be a way to recover this hard drive.

This is a Hitachi/IBM 6.01GB HDD (IBM-DARA-206000) in a Dell Latitude LS
PP01S. Both of which are well out of the warranty. Other than spending
money on a new HDD for more than what the notebook is worth. It would be
much better, (and ego boosting for me) to get this drive unlocked. I
have been at this for 2 days, but I'm still looking for recommendations
online, so if no one has any ideas, I will hopefully be able to follow
up

-- 
Joseph Forbes  "Don't Forget to Salt the Fries!"
Network Security Administrator
SwapNEtwork eXtreme, Inc. 
jftitan () satx rr com (jftitan () swapnetx com)
cell 210.834.3450 fax 775.415.9280