Data Recovery Forums - Help & Discussions

Bastard · Joined: 07 Sep 2007 Posts: 2

I have a 300GB Maxtor Diamond Max 10 (model 6B300R0) drive that is locked. By locked I mean its security is set to Maximum and requires a password to do anything to the drive other than read its existence. This means I cannot format or access anything on the drive even if there was anything to access. I am not looking to recover any data; I just want the device unlocked. According to a company they sell a hardware solution that will permanently unlock this drive in 2 minutes. I’ve been quoted several hundred dollars for 2 minutes worth of work. For that much money I could buy several new drives. I’m looking to see who has this particular solution to help me out for a reasonable price. Any help/direction/advice would be greatly appreciated.

BTW - The search page is displaying a PHP error.

admin2 · Joined: 23 Jun 2006 Posts: 55

Perhaps there would be some information int drive firmware about security, the solution from the company you mentioned would be just changing some flags on drive firm-ware. By doing so they make the drive accessible. I don't know what they are doing but I must tell you that there is no generic solution for such problem we have to analyze every drive which is victim of such problem and after a very tiresome effort we become able to edit the desired device with 100 accuracy.

If by lock you means that drive is locked by some other utility or software then you can use software which access you drive and scan for partitions when you get your partitions the software allows to scan for data. After these two steps you can recover data on some other drive which is not locked.

But I must tell you that it will only work when drive is logically locked i.e via some software and not from Drive Firmware

Bastard · Joined: 07 Sep 2007 Posts: 2

Seems as though some of the links I posted were remove.

Locked hard drives: A few noted to get you guys up to speed:

Drive locking is part of the ATA specification. This "feature" is usually used on external and laptop hard drives as a means of securing the drive via a password protection scheme.

There are 2 levels of protection so-to-speak. A Master password and a user password. This password scheme enables a 10 MB (maximum) read state usually to acknowledge its existence to the BIOS, drive information etc. In order to do anything to the drive you need to enter in a password. Entering in a user or master password enables you to read/write/delete etc the drive for that given session. At restart the drive becomes locked again. Master passwords allow for the ability to disable the security settings all together.

The password is actually stored on the HHD platters in what is usually called a secure sector or negative tracks. These tracks are inaccessible to nearly all software means without entering the password.

The password at one time was stored in plain text because it was nearly impossible to access these secure areas. Now they are often stored as HEX values and on occasion encrypted depending on the drive and manufacturer.

There are 2 ways to access this information if you have misplaced the password (or in my case never had one). Sniffing/Reading the value from the EEPROM on the controller card as its talking to the BIOS (often used in XBOX drive hacking) or via a specialized piece of hardware. The XBOX method wont work here and I don’t have the skills to develop a solution.

During my extensive research, the hardware solution is the only answer to my technical issue. Without this, there is no solution for unlocking a locked drive. However, there are two companies that sell similar hardware YEC and Deepspar. Both of them are quite expensive for the average person.

I am hoping someone knows somebody who has either one of these products and can point me in the right direction.

One main issue is that Data Recovery services charge an arm and a leg to get your data back. Often they can do it via software; however I am not looking to recover data I am just looking to unlock the drive so I can use it. Otherwise its really just a huge waste. Both products say they can unlock "supported drives" (mine is one) in about 2 minutes. I am hoping someone here has either solution or knows someone with either solution and wouldn’t mind spending 2 mins of their day to unlock this damn drive and not charge me hundreds of dollars to do it. For that much, I can by several new HHD's. I'm just trying not to waste perfectly good hardware. I've contacted several "data recovery experts" in the area (Boston) and absolutely nobody can help.

Product Names:
YEC - HDD Rock
DeepSpar - PC-3000 Drive Restoration System

My Research links:
http://www.forensicfocus.com/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=15&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=locked+hard+drive&start=0
http://www.forensicfocus.com/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=78&highlight=locked+hard+drive
http://www.deepspar.com/products-pc-3000-drive.html
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Q_20423260.html - 2 Year discussion on Unlocking HHD's very informative

salvationdata.jessie · Joined: 26 Nov 2007 Posts: 11 Location: China

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