I have approx 20 2.5" 40GB hard drives from IBM X30 laptops that have been password protected by users (who have either forgotten them, user unknown etc). Does anyone know how the protection can be removed?

thanks

How are they protected? Is it that the contents are encrypted or there's some form of BIOS-esque password on them?

In either case, it's not easy, or else there's be no point in such a feature in the first place.
GF

I don't think hard drives have any permanent hardware enabled password protection found in bioses. Are you trying to recover data or just salvage the drives?

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I want to salvage them, I know that some of the drives are faulty, but I need to find which ones. Additionally if I return them to IBM with the password on they will charge me.

Hello bella,

Why wouldn't just formatting (or FDISK) the drives work?

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It appears that the laptop password protects the drive

Ah, would it be the BIOS is password protected, so it doesn't allow access to the hard-drive until you authenticate yourself. Removing this is tricky, after all this wouldn't be much of a feature if it's easily removed, would it?

One option is to wipe the CMOS - a small chunk of memory that stores vital info about your hardware & system, plus any protection stuff. But doing this looses all your settings, so if you can access them, write them down. This can be achieved by removing the CMOS battery (and the laptop battery too) for a day. There is usually a panel at the botton of aa Thingpad allowing you access to this & the memory, so just pop out the battery.

There are rumours of super passwords that allow admins to get access to locked laptops, you could google for these, try Usenet groups too.

There's more 'advice' www.computing.net - take it all cautiously though! Don't be rash, or you may loose a motherboard!

Good luck!
GF

There is the ability for a bios password but there is also a hard disk password.