Hi.
Is there a freeware program that can totally PASSWORD protect my entire
computer??
There are commercial programs that will do what you want but I don't
know of any free ones. If your system doesn't support IDE passwords then
it may be cheaper to buy a motherboard and hard drive that supports that
feature than to buy a well-made security product. This approach will
also be faster than using software to decrypt every disk access
on-the-fly.
IDE passwords are not the same as the old BIOS password and cannot be
defeated by pulling the battery. They're built into IDE drives made in
(about) the past three or four years. If you recall the big brouhaha a
while back when the RIAA wanted to put DRM on every hard drive, the IDE
password is the only part of it that drive manufacturers thought was a
good idea. The password itself is maintained on a protected area of the
hard drive platter and managed by the disk electronics. If you've
password protected the drive then during bootup the drive notifies your
motherboard BIOS that the drive is protected. The BIOS asks you for a
password. You type it in and this is passed along to the drive. The
drive's own electronics check the password you provided against the one
on the platter and decide whether to allow access to the rest of the
platter. No outside program can access the password area nor can you
low-level read the drive or even low-level format it to wipe the
password. Also, since the password is on the platter, nobody can disable
it by swapping electronics with another drive.
Early implementations had flaws and you'll find services and tools
around the Internet that can unprotect those drives/systems. Later
implementations are more secure.
Be aware that the system provides for an administrative password which
the drive manufacturer holds and has very likely provided to law
enforcement. It would defeat the whole idea if the password got out so
they won't give it out to users who've forgotten their passwords. If
you've forgotten your password, you have to send the drive in and let
them unprotect the drive for a largish fee. Or, some manufacturers will
first make you jump through hoops to prove you legally own the drive,
then send you a program that unlocks only a HD having your drive's
serial number.
Some manufacturers add additional encryption to your password on its way
to the drive. Depending on how they do it, this can lock the drive to
that specific motherboard, machine model, or manufacturer. So the
password may no longer work if you move the hard drive to a machine
made by another manufacturer. This snags a lot of upgraders - the
password no longer works on the new motherboard, so they have to tear
everything apart again, put the old motherboard back in, disable the IDE
password, tear everything apart, put the new motherboard back in, and
re-password the drive. Yeah, I've been there.
If it's a laptop you're trying to protect, many laptop motherboards are
also locked with the same password. On the motherboard it's stored in a
piece of flash RAM inside one of the big IC's rather than battery-backed
CMOS RAM. Using a password on these systems to lock both motherboard and
hard drive is a very effective way of rendering the whole laptop useless
to the typical thief.
