How to bypass toshiba laptop HDD password

I would recommend using an adapter to connect it as a slave in a regular system, then format the drive and re-install in the laptop.

Adapter can be found here: http://www.cablesnmor.com/hard-drive-converter.html

Hope this helps!

:o)

Bartender_1

The pasword either resides in the bios, which I think from your not that you cannot get into windows. One idea is to remove the small battery and then place across the connections where the battery was a copper wire. This will immediately eliminate the pasword.

gonzal13 (Joe)

Gonzal13, i think your quite wrong on this issue, as the password is being prompted on two different systems... this would suggest that the password is encrypted in the drive itself rather then in both bios's on the two different laptops.

Wirlybird:
You could try a low-level format of the drive and see if that fixes the problem. Try searching toshiba's site for a harddisk diagnostic tool, most harddisk manufacturer's have those available and it should allow you to clean the drive, and hopefully whipe the password on it.

Good luck,
rigor mortis

rigor mortis> I accept your comment.

gonzal13(Joe)

Can you tell us what the exact message you are getting is?  It should not be the hard drive, unless you are trying to save some data on it, you can re-install an operating system on it.  There is no password protection on Dell supplied disks that would prevent an fresh installation.  I could be wrong, however, which is why we could help you better if we knew the exact message.  Thanks!

I'm sorry, but we've been over this topic again and again here. It's a frustrating issue. Some people have purchased laptops at auction, some have claimed malicious code was responsible, some have machines that were locked by a former employee, some have simply forgotten the password.  

A:IF there were a way to circumvent the password, it would violate the terms of service of EE to post it.
II: In those posts that have not come to the attention of the moderators, no one has ever even intimated that there is a consumer-level way to do this with any credible evidence.
3: If you drive has been locked in this manner, your physical possession of it will be enough for a service bureau (with that capability) to assume you have rights to it's contents.

So: I'd start searching for a service bureau that can accomplish this and compare the costs to replacing the drive and reconstructing the data.

Bartender>
ATA password security is an integral part of the ATA spec.
This is the reason tricked-out hardware is required.
There are firms that sell the hardware for forensic purposes, but it costs an arm and a leg and most require you provide evidence of being a public entity. If you have proprietary technology you don;t want to dilute the value of your services. It's probably obtainable, but not cost effective for a one-off problem. It would be like buying a tow truck because you had a flat tire.

HARD DISK LOCKS
 
 
Some laptops provide a utility to lock a hard disk with a password. These passwords are not the same as BIOS passwords. Moving a locked hard disk to another machine will not unlock it, since the hard disk password is stored in the hard disk firmware and moves with the hard disk. Also, adding a new (unlocked) hard disk to a locked machine may cause the new hard disk to become locked. Also, note that hard disk lock passwords cannot be removed by reformatting the disk, fdisk or any other software procedure. Usually, the BIOS password and hard disk lock passwords are the same and we can recover the BIOS password directly from the laptop security chip (after it is removed from the system board.) However, it is possible that the BIOS password and hard disk lock passwords may be different. In this case the BIOS password will not unlock the hard disk. You can test to determine if your hard disk is locked by attempting to access it in another laptop.
 

> adding a new (unlocked) hard disk to a locked machine may cause the new hard disk to become locked

>we can recover the BIOS password directly from the laptop security chip

jayca>
Do you have a reference for those issues?

this seems dead, but just in case.

I'm dealing with Toshiba on a 75% failure rate of Sat Pro's (6100) and when the "enter HDD Password" apprears, their answer is "dead drive" and they replace it.

You may have bought a dud.

Thank you much.    : )

Thanks!

Cheers all!

:o)

Bartender_1

Well, this I am sure will not work for everybody. My toshiba 2010 cracked while I was attempting save a file, after that the screen becomed blue and I got a very clear message 6632t66@FFF.... then black  and restarted asking first the bios pwd and then the HDD password. So after attemting several times (turned on giving the bios password and turned off and on) I could skip the HDD passwords. Don't ask me how o why but it worked. My conclusion:  unless you hardly need this kind of computers you better get a different one and kick their toshibas.

Cheers,

Victor

Interesting problem .. here is my 2 cents worth.   good luck.

Go here and follow instructions:
http://www.rockbox.org/lock.html

I am not sure how to remove the password, but I have heard that on some Toshiba laptops if you hold down the left shift key it will by-pass the Hdd password.