Re: Unlocking a locked SATA drive

[Franc Zabkar]

A friend of mine has managed to accidentally lock a laptop SATA drive,
and needs his files back.

If it's a WD drive, then here is a DIY method:
http://forum.hddguru.com/unlocking-ata-password-for-western-digital-t8374-240.html#p133276

Here is a DIY solution, but the software licence will cost you $50 for
one unlock operation:
http://www.hdd-tools.com/products/rrs/

- Franc Zabkar

 

[Franc Zabkar]

Have you tried this yourself? Certainly $50 is not too much to pay, but
I'd prefer to hear that someone has actually used it successfully.

No, but the following service is often recommended by the data
recovery professionals at the HDD Guru forums:
http://www.hddunlock.com

They in turn recommend the abovementioned service.

"While unlocking, HDD Unlock Wizard will erase and re-certify the
drive. If you need unlocking which is safe to your data, please use
A-FF Repair Station".

- Franc Zabkar

 

[Rod Speed]

David Brown wrote

Franc Zabkar wrote

Well, the hddunlock folk /would/ recommend the A-FF Repair Station
software - they are made and sold by the same people! However, if the
HDD Guru forums recommend hddunlock, then presumably the "Repair
Station" tool is of equal quality. It's definitely on my list to try
if my friend goes for a DIY solution.

If you dont use a commercial service because of the price of that,
you should be able to buy another copy of the toshiba drive off ebay
etc and try the software on that before trying it on the original drive.

Used drives dont cost much.

 

[Rod Speed]

David Brown wrote

Rod Speed wrote

Buying another drive (used if we can get it, new if necessary) of the same model for testing is definitely an option
for us.

Yeah, I'd personally be going that route myself rather than
paying a professional, as long as I could get the same drive.
Its very unlikely that you cant with something like that.

That would be particularly the case when doing the unlocking myself (with hdparm).

Yeah, thats what I meant, trying it with a drive whose contents you dont
care about, initially with the free hdparm and if that doesnt work, with that
$50 alternative, basically to check that it does do what it claims to do
successfully before doing it on the drive whose data you dont want to lose.