Hard drive says it's password protected?

[Tim Farren]

Hey guys…

 

I have a Maxtor One Touch II drive enclosure with a 300 GB DiamondMax 10 drive in it.  My client has very important archived records on it and went to go read the drive one day and it just showed up in windows as an unallocated drive.  I checked it out with Victoria, and basically all sectors return X’s – can’t read any sectors.

 

So, I cracked the enclosure open and put the drive onto my DDI.  The DDI detects the drive but says “PASWORD PROTECTED” during the detection process.  If I ignore and continue with imaging, I get ABORT errors on each sector.

 

I’m not sure what to do with this drive.  I can’t see how it’s possibly password protected, since it was never really exposed to a computer BIOS where it could have been protected.  I’m more inclined to think this is some kind of controller board error.  Can anyone give me an educated guess about what’s wrong and a possible solution?  I probably have some of these drives laying around and could steal a board from another drive. 

 

Thanks!!

 

Tim Farren, MCSE, CDRP

Farren Technology Group, Inc.

Cell: (904) 233-1982

Office: (904) 233-5876

 

[sup...@rambuscomputers.co.uk]

Im assuming you dont have a pc3000, atola or sd doctor?

Have you thought about aff repair station?  Says it supports all maxtor drives. 

Loki

Sent from my iPhone 4S

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[sup...@rambuscomputers.co.uk]

After thought:

 

I remember fzabkar on mhddguru forum mentioning recently that maybe a TV can lock a drive for DRM reasons?

http://forum.hddguru.com/wdbaau7500ebk-busted-t24530.html?hilit=locked#p165666

 

Have they done this maybe?

 

 

Loki

[Tim Farren]

Update..

I found an identical drive and swapped boards. The DDI spun up the drive and STILL shows "Attention: password protected".   Grr....  What can be done?

Sent from my TI-99/4A

[Alandata Recovery]

Sounds like security is set and its password locked...

Alandata Data Recovery -  (949)287-3282  
"Cleanroom Data Recovery of RAID, VMware, NAS, Linux, Tape, Disk, Forensics"

www.AlanData.com   www.AlanDataRecovery.com

[Tim Farren]

Weird. I have no idea how it could have gotten set. Has anyone ever seen a false report due to some odd issue?

And for giggles.. If I had the password, how would I attempt to unlock it?  Utility? Motherboard bios?  It was never attached to a PC like that. It came out of a one-touch enclosure and had never been removed. I broke the seal on the case removing it. 

Sent from my TI-99/4A

[M Y]

Did you try R-studio for detecting the File System at least? 

Regards

Maher

[sup...@rambuscomputers.co.uk]

A password can be set for the Maxtor OneTouch II drive through the Maxtor OneTouch Settings software. This article explains.

http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/188371en

From reading the link it shows the drives locked software under other in my computer then when you input the password it then shows the unlocked drive properly under hard drive devices in my computer

Similar to how Wd Smartware works. I wonder if the get around is the same?

I'd be interested in seeing high quality pics of the hdd pcb & enclosure pcb if it has one. 

WD encryption chip use initio, Symwave  or JM

Loki

Sent from my iPhone 4S

[sup...@rambuscomputers.co.uk]

Further searching doesnt reveal any mention of encryption on these so it looks like a software password security only but i could be wrong

Sent from my iPhone 4S

[David Hecht]

I recently received a drive as well that the customer insisted he didn't password protect it, and it showed up on the ddi as password protected. I tried using the hddunlock tool and it showed it as password protected as well, however it couldn't successfully remove the password.In the end I brought it to one of my colleagues with a pc3000 and he removed the password in a few minutes - I then successfully cloned the drive and recovered all the data.

Maybe try running the hddunlock tool to see if it picks up a password?

David Hecht

 

DH Data Recovery

(718) 509-9211

Cell: (347) 254-5800

email: dhdatar...@gmail.com

[franklyn lestau]

the initial steps that you should have followed isn't actually
swapping the PCB, the issue of being password protected is completely
out of the issue, if you didn't initially locked the drive with a
password.. the problem is from the system being unable to identify its
allocation table thereby assuming that the drive is locked, my best
bet is to change the entire enclosure , that includes the cables and
the casing , the if it doesn;t work try it out using a different
operating system (linux osx, preferred ). then see if the file
allocation table of the hard-drive will be installed, if not then
switch it back with the original system that runs the hard-drive, in
this case, i am referring to your client's computer, then try it out
with a new peripheral.. it will show or display , his will give you a
window of time to backup the files...i wouldn't recommend continual
usage of the drive after that..

On 12/2/12, David Hecht <dhdatar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I recently received a drive as well that the customer insisted he didn't
> password protect it, and it showed up on the ddi as password protected. I
> tried using the hddunlock tool and it showed it as password protected as
> well, however it couldn't successfully remove the password.In the end I
> brought it to one of my colleagues with a pc3000 and he removed the
> password in a few minutes - I then successfully cloned the drive and
> recovered all the data.
> Maybe try running the hddunlock tool to see if it picks up a password?
>
> On Sat, Dec 1, 2012 at 3:51 AM, Sup...@rambuscomputers.co.uk <
> sup...@rambuscomputers.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Further searching doesnt reveal any mention of encryption on these so it
>> looks like a software password security only but i could be wrong
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone 4S
>>
>> On 1 Dec 2012, at 08:33, "Sup...@rambuscomputers.co.uk" <
>> sup...@rambuscomputers.co.uk> wrote:
>>

>> **A password can be set for the Maxtor OneTouch II drive through the
>> Maxtor OneTouch Settings software. This article explains.**

>>> Hey guys…****
>>> ** **

>>> I have a Maxtor One Touch II drive enclosure with a 300 GB DiamondMax 10
>>> drive in it. My client has very important archived records on it and
>>> went
>>> to go read the drive one day and it just showed up in windows as an
>>> unallocated drive. I checked it out with Victoria, and basically all

>>> sectors return X’s – can’t read any sectors.****
>>> ** **

>>> So, I cracked the enclosure open and put the drive onto my DDI. The DDI
>>> detects the drive but says “PASWORD PROTECTED” during the detection
>>> process. If I ignore and continue with imaging, I get ABORT errors on
>>> each

>>> sector.****
>>> ** **

>>> I’m not sure what to do with this drive. I can’t see how it’s possibly
>>> password protected, since it was never really exposed to a computer BIOS
>>> where it could have been protected. I’m more inclined to think this is
>>> some kind of controller board error. Can anyone give me an educated
>>> guess
>>> about what’s wrong and a possible solution? I probably have some of
>>> these

>>> drives laying around and could steal a board from another drive. ****
>>> ** **
>>> Thanks!!****
>>> ** **
>>> *Tim Farren, MCSE, CDRP*
>>> *Farren Technology Group, Inc.*
>>> Cell: (904) 233-1982****
>>> Office: (904) 233-5876****
>>> ** **

>> *www.AlanData.com <http://www.alandata.com/>
>> www.AlanDataRecovery.com<http://www.alandatarecovery.com/>
>> *

> *David Hecht*

>
> DH Data Recovery
> (718) 509-9211
> Cell: (347) 254-5800
> email: dhdatar...@gmail.com
>