Hard Drive Password Problems

[groupware]

No it wasnt.

There was no hardware encryption on the hard drive with the ATA spec.

The drafts are readily available for free and that detail didnt change.

Yep, and it says absolutely NOTHING about any ATA spec encryption.

Irrelevant to your pig ignorant claims about ENCRYPTION.

Pity the user is welcome to change that and obviously should do so.

Pity that only allows you to ERASE the drive, not access the DATA.

Drive locking protection is obviously degraded if such backdoor [master] passwords are common

No it doesnt if you actually have a clue and change that master password.

Thats for a different reason entirely, because its actually possible to bypass
that password protection when you have physical access to the drive.

Anyone with a clue has noticed that you mangled the story completely.

You dont even know that the OP is entering the password correctly.

No it isnt.

No they dont.

He didnt say anything like that. The ATA standard makes it very clear how it works.

VERY unlikely that it would be that pathetically implemented.

Because that would defeat the whole point of the ATA security feature.

Irrelevant to the ATA security feature.

Wrong again. You'd get a different result if that was the problem.

Pity that is irrelevant when the AUTO drive type is used.

Pity his isnt really old hardware.

Rod,

Those links are interesting but it would be nice to know when they were
written. They do not seem to relate to today's hard drive issues.

Regards

Thanks for all the replys (and discussion)

To answer a few questions:
- the hardrive is a Seagate Momentus 7200.1
- the original laptop is an LG and uses Phoenix Bios
- the hardrive is locked using ATA Password locking and not encrypted

Any further thoughts on why the HP laptop doesn't recognise the
password are appreciated.

Prior to posting I had researched this quite a bit and have checked
most of the links for geting to the Master password and will probably
try this in due course if I can;t solve the user password issue.

Thanks again.

Jason

 

[Rod Speed]

Vanguard wrote
Barry Watzman <[email protected]> wrote

Re: "The other half of the hash (to decode) was back in the
original laptop. Preventing someone from getting at it,
especially by stealing the drive, is just what that security
is for; i.e., unless the drive is in the original laptop that
hashed up the drive's contents AND you know the password, you
will never get at the decoded contents of the drive."

I don't think that's correct. This isn't windows,

I don't care what OS is on the drive, encrypted or not. The
whole-disk encryption is performed in hardware. Half of that
support is on the hard drive, the other half is back in the
mobo.
If the drive wanders off from the mobo that hashed up the drive,
that drive cannot be decoded. It is very similar to e-mail
encryption: the source (owner of the certificate or the mobo)
has
the "private" portion and the target (recipient or hard drive)
has
the "public" portion. Without both, there's no decryption, and
the
source controls that.

this is an IDE

Yep, as I said, this hardware encryption was first provided in
ATA-3 specification.

No it wasnt.

It is NOT solely implemented on the hard drive alone.

There was no hardware encryption on the hard drive with the ATA
spec.

Unfortunately it costs to get copies of the ATA specs
fromhttp://www.t13.org/and I really don't need them.

The drafts are readily available for free and that detail didnt
change.

Otherwise, as has happened here, if the computer motherboard
dies,
then the drive is lost, and that is beyond secure, it is "data
endangering".

Yep, that is what happens. And that is why you MUST do data
backups since they won't depend on the private key for the
encryption that the mobo has. The backups can either be open in
that anyone could restore from them or you would
password-protect
them, but that password protection is entirely within the backup
file so you could use another computer running the same backup
program to restore your data because the password was only used
to encode the file (i.e., there is no separation of private and
public keys, there is just the one key used to encode the file).

I am curious to know what the final word is on that issue. Until
reading your post, I shared Barry's opinion. If you are correct,
and you seem to know your stuff,

He doesnt, actually. Where the encryption is done is an entirely
separate issue to whether the ATA password can be reentered
for a drive that is moved from one system that supports ATA
passwords to another that also does.

The user password is normally used to unlock the hard drive.

Yep, and it says absolutely NOTHING about any ATA spec encryption.

The master password, if one exists, can also be used to unlock the
hard drive.

Irrelevant to your pig ignorant claims about ENCRYPTION.

That is why I've seen some backdoor lists floating around of what
some mobo makers have been found to commonly use for a master
password.

Pity the user is welcome to change that and obviously should do so.

The master password is also why you can call the maker of your
mobo as they may be able to tell you what is the master password
for you to unlock the drive.

Pity that only allows you to ERASE the drive, not access the DATA.

Drive locking protection is obviously degraded if such backdoor
[master] passwords are common

No it doesnt if you actually have a clue and change that master
password.

and maybe that's why security-conscious users and corporations
rely on whole-disk encryption instead.

Thats for a different reason entirely, because its actually
possible to bypass that password protection when you have physical
access to the drive.

Ron is correct in that I was mixing hard drive locking with
whole-disk
encryption. These are separate security mechanisms. From the OP's
post, perhaps just disk locking was employed and not encryption.

Since the OP gave absolutely no details on WHAT was the original
computer in which the drive was locked (and maybe encrypted, too),
guesses is all that can be profferred.

Anyone with a clue has noticed that you mangled the story
completely.

Since the OP already tried in another computer that prompted for
the password but it did not work then it sure seems that the BIOS
makers can customize how they support the drive lock feature.

You dont even know that the OP is entering the password correctly.

That is, just because there is an ATA standard, it could be rather
vague

No it isnt.

or the BIOS makers may even deliberately tweak it so to be almost
proprietary.

No they dont.

As Odie alluded, drive locking may not be compatible between
different BIOSes.

He didnt say anything like that. The ATA standard makes it very
clear how it works.

I'm wondering if a replacement of the PCB on the hard drive might
"repair" or unlock the drive. That is, get another exact same
drive and use its PCB on the problematic drive. Since the
replacement PCB hasn't been password enabled yet, maybe it would
permit access to the drive.

VERY unlikely that it would be that pathetically implemented.

Because that would defeat the whole point of the ATA security
feature.

I tried this once with an old drive (so getting an exact
replacement was pricey due to rarity) because a voltage regulator
component blew which rendered the drive useless (it wouldn't spin
up). The replacement PCB got the drive to spin up.

Irrelevant to the ATA security feature.

It could even be that the translation geometry for LBA mode of the
original computer doesn't match that used in the second computer.

Wrong again. You'd get a different result if that was the problem.

Start athttp://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/modesLBA-c.html. Then
readhttp://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/modesCaveats-c.htmlabout
the hazard (to data) of moving hard drives between computers,
especially with different BIOSes.

Pity that is irrelevant when the AUTO drive type is used.

I have ran into this when moving drives between hosts really old
hardware hosts to new hardware hosts.

Pity his isnt really old hardware.

Rod,

Those links are interesting but it would be nice to know when they
were written. They do not seem to relate to today's hard drive
issues.

Regards

Thanks for all the replys (and discussion)

To answer a few questions:
- the hardrive is a Seagate Momentus 7200.1
- the original laptop is an LG and uses Phoenix Bios
- the hardrive is locked using ATA Password locking and not encrypted

Any further thoughts on why the HP laptop doesn't recognise the
password are appreciated.

You've basically got to test the two obvious possibilitys, that there
is something about the different keyboard that matters, or that you
have managed to forget the original password, or the fine detail of it.

The obvious way to try the keyboard possibility is to try
it in a laptop with the same keyboard as the original.

 

[nemo_outis]

You've basically got to test the two obvious possibilitys, that there
is something about the different keyboard that matters, or that you
have managed to forget the original password, or the fine detail of it.

The obvious way to try the keyboard possibility is to try
it in a laptop with the same keyboard as the original.

For computers in which the BIOS does not provide an interface to the ata
password, you may wish to instead try the software program ATAPWD to
attempt to revive the drive. To obtain atapwd and read a discussion of the
issues, you can visit:

http://www.rockbox.org/lock.html

Regards,

 

[Vanguard]

The drafts are readily available for free and that detail didnt
change.

They are? Got a URL for the free copy of the full specs for all ATA
revisions? What I see at
http://www.t13.org/Standards/Default.aspx?DocumentType=3&DocumentStage=2
is a list (but no links for them) and the comment "Copies of published
standards may be purchased from: ANSI, ...". Where are the free copies
then? When I Google around looking for ATA specs, I end up following
links that take me back to t13.org and they redirect you to ANSI where
they charge for them ($30 apiece for each revision of the AT Attachment
spec, and ATA-7 has 3 volume where each is $30 or all 3 for $80).

Yep, and it says absolutely NOTHING about any ATA spec encryption.

Sorry, meant ATA spec hard drive password locking. I'm sure the spec
calls it something else. According to
http://www.heise.de/ct/english/05/08/172/, it's called "Security Feature
Set". It is part of the ATA spec.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

They are?
Yep.

Got a URL for the free copy of the full specs for all ATA revisions?

I never said anything about all ATA revisions.

What I see at
http://www.t13.org/Standards/Default.aspx?DocumentType=3&DocumentStage=2
is a list (but no links for them) and the comment "Copies of published standards may be purchased
from: ANSI, ...". Where are the free copies then?
http://www.t13.org/Documents/Default.aspx?DocumentType=4&DocumentStage=2
http://www.t13.org/Documents/Default.aspx?DocumentType=4&DocumentStage=1

When I Google around looking for ATA specs, I end up following links that take me back to t13.org
and they redirect you to ANSI where they charge for them ($30 apiece for each revision of the AT
Attachment spec, and ATA-7 has 3 volume where each is $30 or all 3 for $80).

You need to work on your google skills
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=ATA/ATAPI+draft
produces those drafts right at the top.

Sorry, meant ATA spec hard drive password locking. I'm sure the spec calls it something else.
According to
http://www.heise.de/ct/english/05/08/172/, it's called "Security Feature Set". It is part of the
ATA spec.

Pity it includes nothing about drive encryption.

 

[Vanguard]

I never said anything about all ATA revisions.


http://www.t13.org/Documents/Default.aspx?DocumentType=4&DocumentStage=2
http://www.t13.org/Documents/Default.aspx?DocumentType=4&DocumentStage=1

I was asking about the actual ratified and approved specifications, not
drafts of proposals for those specs. I don't believe "drafts" are the
actual standard. I had asked about getting the standards spec. I
didn't realizer you were pointing at a list that contained some drafts
that proposed those specs. Some entries are just 2-page descriptions or
placeholders, hardly what would be called a standard specification.
Some are docs containing corrections, so hardly a specification. Some
are just entries in the table listing but with no link to an actual doc.
The specs still cost money.

 

[Rod Speed]

I was asking about the actual ratified and approved specifications, not drafts of proposals for
those specs.

I already told you that that detail didnt change significantly
between the draft and the ratified standard.

And the later drafts include the ratified standard too.

I don't believe "drafts" are the actual standard.

You have always been, and always will be, completely and
utterly irrelevant. What you may or may not believe in spades.

I had asked about getting the standards spec.

And I told you how to see those for free, most obviously when a
later draft includes the earlier ratified detail on the security mode.

Not ever a single mention of the drive doing any encryption, which
is all that is needed to prove that you have never had a clue.

I didn't realizer you were pointing at a list that contained some drafts that proposed those
specs. Some entries are just 2-page descriptions or placeholders, hardly what would be called a
standard specification.

Pity about the other ones that cover that security mode completely.

Some are docs containing corrections, so hardly a specification.

Pity about the other ones that cover that security mode completely.

Some are just entries in the table listing but with no link to an actual doc.

Pity about the other ones that cover that security mode completely.

The specs still cost money.

Not when a later draft includes that ratified spec they dont.

Rule of Holes, child. When you are in one STOP DIGGING.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I was asking about the actual ratified and approved specifications,

Which obviously will wildly deviate from the last draft just before they
applied the stamp of approval to it.

 

[Vanguard]

Thanks for verifying that the real specs for the standards cost money.

 

[Rod Speed]

Thanks for verifying that the real specs for the standards cost money.

No they dont when you have enough of a clue to read the NEXT draft
that includes what was PREVIOUSLY ratified and you can see that
nothing changed with the bit you are interested from THAT draft.

Rule of Holes, child. When you are in one STOP DIGGING.