Locked Harddrive due to Windows error!

[Avril]

Hi there,

I bought a gateway PC in June 2002 which has a Phoenix
Bios 4 Version 6 on it. (I have receipts to prove that I
purchased it new) Three days ago I had a fatal blue
screen of death which was:

STOP: 0x0000007A (Ox C02FFDD8, Oxc000000e, OxbFF766C0e,
Ox078 b4860) KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR Address BFF76C0E
base at BFF68000, Date Stamp 3CC9DAB2 - atapi.sys
Beginning dump of physical memory

When I rebooted I had a hard drive password that I did
not set and do not know.

I have tried a couple of programs on the net, including
rempass & killcmoss, but they do not effect the hard
drive password.

What can I do to fix my computer? I cannot get passed the
password. I have contacted toshiba, who made the hard
drive, they cannot help, Gateway is no longer here. I am
in Sydney Australia and am happy to take it whereever
it needs to go, I have two years worth of data that I
really don't want to loose.

Please tell me this is not the end of my hard drive and
my data!

Thanks for your help.
Avril

 

[Bigus]

Have you tried clearing the CMOS via the jumper on your motherboard?
Normally, you power off the PC and disconnect the mains lead, open up the
box, change the jumper position and leave for ~30 seconds, and then put the
jumper back to how it was, then switch your machine back on again. That will
reset the motherboard to factory defaults (that might be what killcmos does,
but it's probably better to do it at hardware level). I must admit I've not
heard of a hard drive password before.

 

[Blare Sutton]

Mate,

I'm in Melbourne. I specialise in data recovery and forensic imaging of hard
drives (see www.forensicit.com.au). If you want the data off your drive, you
can air satchel it to me. Standard fee is $110 to inspect a drive, then
we'll provide a quote.

However, it just sounds like a BIOS password. Try taking the hard drive out
of your pc and putting it in someone elses before you go shipping it down
here.

Cheers,

Blare

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi there,

I bought a gateway PC in June 2002 which has a Phoenix
Bios 4 Version 6 on it. (I have receipts to prove that I
purchased it new) Three days ago I had a fatal blue
screen of death which was:

STOP: 0x0000007A (Ox C02FFDD8, Oxc000000e, OxbFF766C0e,
Ox078 b4860) KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR Address BFF76C0E
base at BFF68000, Date Stamp 3CC9DAB2 - atapi.sys
Beginning dump of physical memory

When I rebooted I had a hard drive password that I did
not set and do not know.

I have tried a couple of programs on the net, including
rempass & killcmoss, but they do not effect the hard
drive password.

What can I do to fix my computer? I cannot get passed the
password. I have contacted toshiba, who made the hard
drive, they cannot help, Gateway is no longer here. I am
in Sydney Australia and am happy to take it whereever
it needs to go, I have two years worth of data that I
really don't want to loose.

Please tell me this is not the end of my hard drive and
my data!

Thanks for your help.
Avril

After Blair Sutton has fixed you up, review your backup strategy.
Electronic data must NEVER be kept in just the one place.

 

[Chris Knapp]

Actually, to clear the cmos, you have to power the system back up with the
"clear cmos" pins jumpered. This will set the bios back to defaults, You
then have to shut down again, un-jumper the pins, and power up again.. You
should then be able to boot up normally.

So:
Power down
Jumper clear cmos pins
power up
power down
Un-jumper clear cmos pins
power up

Good luck. . .