Hello everyone, new to the forum and hoping you can help me out.
have an external drive that is encrypted with storagecrypt, whic
stops the drive from initializing until a password is put in t
unlock the drive. Being the idiot that i am i have forgotton th
password :crybaby: . I have managed to retrieve the files with fil
scavenger, but im wondering if anyone knows how to bypass th
encryption so that i can format the drive, any help would b
gratefully received, Many Thanks, MeNTaL CaT

MeNTaL CaT <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote

> Hello everyone, new to the forum and hoping you can help me out.
> I have an external drive that is encrypted with storagecrypt, which
> stops the drive from initializing until a password is put in to unlock
> the drive. Being the idiot that i am i have forgotton the password
> :crybaby: . I have managed to retrieve the files with file scavenger,
> but im wondering if anyone knows how to bypass the encryption
> so that i can format the drive, any help would be gratefully received,

What sort of drive is it ? A normal hard drive in
an external housing or a flash drive of some kind ?

You should be able to wipe the drive with something,
depending on how the encryption is implemented.

Even if it does have some rather sophisticated access control,
and thats unlikely given that you could get the files back, you
should be able to remove the drive from the housing, put it
into the PC and wipe it with something like clearhdd, if its
a normal hard drive and not say a flash drive.

If its a flash drive, one of the utes that allows access to damaged
drives can likely monster the encryption and format the drive.

Its a normal hdd in an external shell, i was surprised that fil
scavenger recognised it, nothing else i have tried will eve
acknowledge the drive exists. The encryption sits in its own volum
on the hdd, the encryption is 256 bit. How tricky is it to remove th
housing on the ext hdd and placing in my pc case ?, and wil this mak
it easier to access ? Thanks for your help, MC. :

Previously MeNTaL CaT <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Its a normal hdd in an external shell, i was surprised that file
> scavenger recognised it, nothing else i have tried will even
> acknowledge the drive exists. The encryption sits in its own volume
> on the hdd, the encryption is 256 bit. How tricky is it to remove the
> housing on the ext hdd and placing in my pc case ?,

No idea.

> and wil this make
> it easier to access ? Thanks for your help, MC.

If the protection really does not let you format, then
it is ion the hardware of tha case. There are very few
disks on the market that can do encryption themselves and
they are expensive, so it is unlikely that you have one of
them.

So removing the disk from the case should allow you to
remove the partitions. If it does not, then an ATA
passwiord may be used. In that case thereis no encryption,
but also no way around hving the password.

Arno

MeNTaL CaT <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Its a normal hdd in an external shell, i was surprised that file
> scavenger recognised it, nothing else i have tried will even
> acknowledge the drive exists. The encryption sits in its own volume
> on the hdd, the encryption is 256 bit. How tricky is it to remove the
> housing on the ext hdd and placing in my pc case ?,

Pretty trivial for someone like me. May be a bit daunting for you.

I'd try some of the wipers first, like
http://dban.sourceforge.net/
That one has a list of others at the bottom too.

One of the ones on the knoppix bootable CD should work too.
Or the Ultimate Boot CD.

> and wil this make it easier to access ?

Yes, clearhdd will certainly wipe it if its internal.
It likely wont see the drive in the external case.

Arno Wagner <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Previously MeNTaL CaT <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> Its a normal hdd in an external shell, i was surprised that file
>> scavenger recognised it, nothing else i have tried will even
>> acknowledge the drive exists. The encryption sits in its own volume
>> on the hdd, the encryption is 256 bit. How tricky is it to remove the
>> housing on the ext hdd and placing in my pc case ?,
>
> No idea.
>
>> and wil this make
>> it easier to access ? Thanks for your help, MC.
>
> If the protection really does not let you format, then
> it is ion the hardware of tha case. There are very few
> disks on the market that can do encryption themselves and
> they are expensive,

That is just plain wrong. Most of the laptop
drives will do the ATA standard protection.
Some of the 3.5" drives too.

> so it is unlikely that you have one of them.

> So removing the disk from the case should allow you to
> remove the partitions. If it does not, then an ATA
> passwiord may be used. In that case thereis no encryption,
> but also no way around hving the password.

That last is just plain wrong too. Not that hard
to format the drive if its that level of protection.

Does your HDD has ATA password on it ?

--
Alan Kakareka
Data Recovery Service
786-253-8286 cell
http://www.247recovery.com
--
"MeNTaL CaT" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:eNlng.272486$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hello everyone, new to the forum and hoping you can help me out. I
> have an external drive that is encrypted with storagecrypt, which
> stops the drive from initializing until a password is put in to
> unlock the drive. Being the idiot that i am i have forgotton the
> password :crybaby: . I have managed to retrieve the files with file
> scavenger, but im wondering if anyone knows how to bypass the
> encryption so that i can format the drive, any help would be
> gratefully received, Many Thanks, MeNTaL CaT.
>

> If it does not, then an ATA
> passwiord may be used. In that case thereis no encryption,
> but also no way around hving the password.

Actually there are two levels of ATA pass protection, HIGH and MAX.
You can use master password to unlock HDD, if security level was set to
HIGH, using master password will not delete all user data, if security level
was set to MAX then using master password will delete all user data.

Or use special software and techniques to see what actual user password is

--
Alan Kakareka
Data Recovery Service
786-253-8286 cell
http://www.247recovery.com
--

The only encryption on the drive is the storagecrypt program that
put on it, taking the case off and putting it in my case sounds a bi
difficult (im a pc newbie).File scavenger names the drive "Dis
0" (no drive letter). Are there any programs out there simila
to clearhdd, that may be able to access the drive ? (im trying th
linux progz atm), thanks for your replies, MC

MeNTaL CaT <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> The only encryption on the drive is the storagecrypt program that i
> put on it, taking the case off and putting it in my case sounds a bit
> difficult (im a pc newbie).File scavenger names the drive "Disk
> 0" (no drive letter). Are there any programs out there similar
> to clearhdd, that may be able to access the drive ?

You'd have to try them, I havent tried them in that particular situation.

> (im trying the linux progz atm),

If that doesnt work, get the Ultimate Boot CD, one of
those on that should be able to wipe/format the drive.