Serial ATA Password Locked HDD recovery/password wipe software

Seagate comes right out and says, "If you lose the password, the drive is not recoverable.  There is no backdoor, no override password, we can't help you."  Other drive manufacturers have also taken to to this model -- it prevents legal issues, having to prove who owns the drive, customers screaming "I HAVE VALUABLE DATA ON THAT DRIVE YOU MUST HELP ME!", worrying about the override password getting loose, and (certainly not least) it prevents the government from bothering the drive manufacturer fifty times a day with "You must unlock this for us, for free."

For some drives, and "some" is a really big word, the drive can be unlocked by issuing the Secure Erase command.  After the Secure Erase completes, the drive will unlock and is ready for use again.  There's nothing left on it, of course, but at least it can be reused.  But for other drives, the assumption is that if you don't know the password then it's not your drive, and issuing Secure Erase just results in an empty drive that is still locked.

As far as trying random passwords, sure.  But most drives have a limited number of attempts before refusing to accept more passwords.  Then the system must be powered down, powered up again, and you get three more tries.  It takes a long time to do a dictionary attack at three attempts per minute, 180 attempts per hour.

There are companies that claim to be able to break drive encryption or recover a password.  There are several problems with this.

• It's going to be expensive.
• It's going to take a lot of time if they do a dictionary attack.
• Results are not guaranteed.
• Do you really want that drive with sensitive information in somebody else's hands?

Its cheaper (in time and money) to destroy the disk and buy another one
Most secure would be to have it chipped, but smashing with a hammer and/or incinerating would probably be sufficient for most people

most of the time - they want the data on it imo. - since drives are so cheap now