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Old 500GB Hard Drive Locked

SZ1357

Hi Community,

 

So I have a 500GB WD Hard Drive from a Lenovo laptop from about 2013-ish. After using said laptop for about 4 years, it died. However during the time I was using it I set a Hard Drive password on it, but could never revert it as it didn't let me remove the password?! So I assumed it would be fine, however by the time it died I am now left with a 500GB Hard Drive that can not be initialized by Windows. 

 

I really want to keep this hard drive for backups etc. But it's giving me a really hard time. I've tried diskpart, I've tried using Linux to format etc. it, I've tried MacOS, I'm honestly about to give up on this thing, as calling for recovery services isn't worth it since I don't have any important data on it (in fact it's all on my new laptop), I just want it to work.

BTW trying to load the disk now in Disk Management, it absolutely freezes disk management until I remove the drive (as an external drive using a SATA to USB Cable).

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

 

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Sorry wrong thread

Please quote or tag  @Ben17 if you want to see a reply.

If I don't reply it's probly because I am in a different time zone or haven't seen your message yet but I will reply when I see it ? 

 

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the drive sounds dead.

 

there is no recovery from a physically dead drive. password or no. if you've tried all the standard tools to partition the thing and all it does is crash your computer, than find the nearest electronic recycling depot and chuck it.

 

Hard drives are always the weakest link for data retention. especially spinning rust. I always recommend to treat a hard drive as a time bomb for data loss, unless it's redundant and backed up. Simply put, they are physically moving components. Any component that has physical moving parts has  a risk of burning dieing.

 

if you cannot afford a data recovery service, than it's safe to say that the drive and it's contents are gone. 

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46 minutes ago, Sprawlie said:

the drive sounds dead.

 

there is no recovery from a physically dead drive. password or no. if you've tried all the standard tools to partition the thing and all it does is crash your computer, than find the nearest electronic recycling depot and chuck it.

 

Hard drives are always the weakest link for data retention. especially spinning rust. I always recommend to treat a hard drive as a time bomb for data loss, unless it's redundant and backed up. Simply put, they are physically moving components. Any component that has physical moving parts has  a risk of burning dieing.

 

if you cannot afford a data recovery service, than it's safe to say that the drive and it's contents are gone. 

Good point, I'm probably going to end up chucking it anyway. Besides it's only about like 50 dollars for 500GB anyway. Thanks for the advice.

 

I don't mind too much about my data, but I have 7 hard drives and an SSD from old laptops that are unusable ( I mean the laptop) so might as well take advantage of it for now and use it for backup, even if it is a "time bomb for data loss"

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8 hours ago, SZ1357 said:

Good point, I'm probably going to end up chucking it anyway. Besides it's only about like 50 dollars for 500GB anyway. Thanks for the advice.

 

I don't mind too much about my data, but I have 7 hard drives and an SSD from old laptops that are unusable ( I mean the laptop) so might as well take advantage of it for now and use it for backup, even if it is a "time bomb for data loss"

Did u try using command prompt to reinnisilste it as sometimes disk mgmt is not able to

Please quote or tag  @Ben17 if you want to see a reply.

If I don't reply it's probly because I am in a different time zone or haven't seen your message yet but I will reply when I see it ? 

 

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On 1/22/2019 at 11:18 PM, Ben17 said:

Did u try using command prompt to reinnisilste it as sometimes disk mgmt is not able to

Yep I've tried diskpart, but it still does not recognize it.

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On 1/24/2019 at 11:57 PM, SZ1357 said:

Yep I've tried diskpart, but it still does not recognize it.

Sorry only noticed your message now

Please quote or tag  @Ben17 if you want to see a reply.

If I don't reply it's probly because I am in a different time zone or haven't seen your message yet but I will reply when I see it ? 

 

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On 1/21/2019 at 10:49 PM, SZ1357 said:

Any help would be appreciated.

I've salvaged a good handful of locked drives simply by doing a secure erase on them under Linux. I have no idea if other software would complain about the password or not, but hdparm is all happy to let you do secure erase: https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase

 

Obviously, all data on the drive will be a goner.

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.

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On 1/22/2019 at 2:47 AM, Sprawlie said:

the drive sounds dead.

 

there is no recovery from a physically dead drive. password or no. if you've tried all the standard tools to partition the thing and all it does is crash your computer, than find the nearest electronic recycling depot and chuck it. 

The symptoms the OP is describing are all typical of a password-locked drive: if the BIOS/OS doesn't supply a password to the drive's firmware via ATA-commands, it'll report read-errors on any and all operations and Windows refuses to even acknowledge the drive.

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.

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On 1/29/2019 at 12:13 AM, WereCatf said:

I've salvaged a good handful of locked drives simply by doing a secure erase on them under Linux. I have no idea if other software would complain about the password or not, but hdparm is all happy to let you do secure erase: https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase

 

Obviously, all data on the drive will be a goner.

Thanks for that, I'll get LInux installed on a dual boot at some point within the next few days and give you an update to see if it worked.

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18 minutes ago, SZ1357 said:

Thanks for that, I'll get LInux installed on a dual boot at some point within the next few days and give you an update to see if it worked.

You could just make a bootable Ubuntu-stick and do it in there, no need to even install it.

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.

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17 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

You could just make a bootable Ubuntu-stick and do it in there, no need to even install it.

Wait really? So I just create the installation on a USB and boot it from that? Wow my life is a lie

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1 hour ago, WereCatf said:

You could just make a bootable Ubuntu-stick and do it in there, no need to even install it.

Hmm, it says on the website itself that I shouldn't do this through the USB interface? Did you recover your drives through a SATA interface?

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25 minutes ago, SZ1357 said:

Hmm, it says on the website itself that I shouldn't do this through the USB interface? Did you recover your drives through a SATA interface?

Aye

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.

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