Thinkpads Forum

Hello all - an SSD I have crapped out partially on me(ironically, as I was trying to backup stuff off of it before it went belly up) and it appears to have a corrupted password on it now.

Not looking for a password cracker, but would appreciate background and ideas on how to proceed. Details:

* Had SSD password protected w/same pw as I use on my laptop. So, when booting up the laptop, I enter the pw and the laptop also applies that same PW to any drives I have configured with the same pw. No problems, blah, blah, blah.

* NOW, when booting up the laptop, I enter the normal pw and the laptop proceeds onward as normal, but instead of booting, it throws up another hard drive icon in the upper left and requests an apparently new/separate pw for the SSD. Naturally, nothing I enter works, including the default pw I've been using. Tried the drive in another similar laptop, with the same result.

* Never had pw issues, don't know much about this, but always figured the pw was stored on the drive in some encrypted format.

* While I don't think the entire SSD is hosed, I don't know if there's any way to proceed here, as I need to access the drive before I can go further...

* Unsure whether the Lenovo/Thinkpad software load on my laptop has any pw backup/work around or if I'm just SOL...

Ideas?? How the hell does this stuff work? I have recent enough backups to have gotten up and running on another SSD I have, so am ok there. However, wouldn't you know it, there's -one- file I'd like to recover...

So...?????????

Hiya AMA*....
........looks like somene didnt take day off when Santa was hard at work also!

Sorry to hear 'bout your SSD > if there is any comsilation- mine did same (died when needed most) on one of my W510. Luckly I was preWARNED - NOT TO USE Full Disk Encryption (FDE)!. My teckie geeks source have savedmy buhind lots of time with great tips/advise....
nayho.... not sure what research you did @Lenovo pages ,,,but here is a link<not sure you used LenoVO's FDE or Windows built in....)
Link>http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-69621

Note: one of my W710 does have normal HD and i found out (luckly) that that CONTRARY to what the ABOVE LINK/DOC says = 128bit encryption ITS NOT TRUE ...as LENOVO/IBM has switched to 256-bit encryptions for all HARD DRIVE from factory(if that option was seclected @order)

There are a number of TOOLS (google search) that can/would READ data from Hard Drives if they are readable etc.... which would comes in handy. My SSD was FIRIED (intel X25e series -pity warranty dont cover loss of produc'ityetc ) and I suspect your might be SAME. Sure I wasnt a happy chappy @ SSD failing over and NOT ONE ALERT/NOTICE/NOISE etc etc ....

One little bit of info was told (when my SSD died) that the PW for HD = stored in BIOS FILE...............and this is where it gets even more "silly in my view".... that BIOS INFO file is than stored in the SAME HD.................which made me laugh!. Ahh ..but then I was told; if you did your FULL BACKUPs - that BIOS file be in the backup!! > so I was very lucky that way....not sure IF you have previous backups...

Lenovo factory recovery partition does not have any PW, AFAIK.....

sorry not much help , but hope it does give you some thoughts /ideas...

ausmike wrote:Hiya AMA*....
........looks like somene didnt take day off when Santa was hard at work also!

Sorry to hear 'bout your SSD > if there is any comsilation- mine did same (died when needed most) on one of my W510. Luckly I was preWARNED - NOT TO USE Full Disk Encryption (FDE)!. My teckie geeks source have savedmy buhind lots of time with great tips/advise....
nayho.... not sure what research you did @Lenovo pages ,,,but here is a link<not sure you used LenoVO's FDE or Windows built in....)
Link>http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-69621

Note: one of my W710 does have normal HD and i found out (luckly) that that CONTRARY to what the ABOVE LINK/DOC says = 128bit encryption ITS NOT TRUE ...as LENOVO/IBM has switched to 256-bit encryptions for all HARD DRIVE from factory(if that option was seclected @order)

There are a number of TOOLS (google search) that can/would READ data from Hard Drives if they are readable etc.... which would comes in handy. My SSD was FIRIED (intel X25e series -pity warranty dont cover loss of produc'ityetc ) and I suspect your might be SAME. Sure I wasnt a happy chappy @ SSD failing over and NOT ONE ALERT/NOTICE/NOISE etc etc ....

One little bit of info was told (when my SSD died) that the PW for HD = stored in BIOS FILE...............and this is where it gets even more "silly in my view".... that BIOS INFO file is than stored in the SAME HD.................which made me laugh!. Ahh ..but then I was told; if you did your FULL BACKUPs - that BIOS file be in the backup!! > so I was very lucky that way....not sure IF you have previous backups...

Lenovo factory recovery partition does not have any PW, AFAIK.....

sorry not much help , but hope it does give you some thoughts /ideas...

HA! Santa was on YOUR side o' the planet, my boy...

Late night here now, will dig into your pointers more tomorrow. However, first glance at the url...I don't have an FDE/encrypted drive, just the pw for initial access at boot time. Interesting about the pw maybe being buried in backups, as I have C: full backup, along with the MBR. Anyone out there know if there's something I can retrieve from that?

The 'missing' file I want to retrieve is on another partition on the drive, so even tho I can(and did)restore the C: partition, that didn't help.

That's a load of bullcrap about passwords being stored in BIOS, and BIOS files also being stored on a hard disk (or SSD).
Passwords are NOT stored in BIOS on IBM/Lenovo laptops.
Hard disk passwords can be stored in the same location as regular passwords, but are also stored on the hard disk itself, in an area that is not normally accessible, unless you have a forensic laboratory.
I don't know (yet) how an SSD can be password protected.
It would obviously store the PW somewhere in a chip on that SSD.
I can't elaborate any further here (forum rules).

RealBlackStuff wrote:That's a load of bullcrap about passwords being stored in BIOS, and BIOS files also being stored on a hard disk (or SSD).
Passwords are NOT stored in BIOS on IBM/Lenovo laptops.
Hard disk passwords can be stored in the same location as regular passwords, but are also stored on the hard disk itself, in an area that is not normally accessible, unless you have a forensic laboratory.
I don't know (yet) how an SSD can be password protected.
It would obviously store the PW somewhere in a chip on that SSD.
I can't elaborate any further here (forum rules).

So, are you telling me I'm up the creek on this SSD? What would be nice is if there's some sort of routine/procedure to rebuild/restore the pw on the SSD. I'd think Lenovo woulda have something in place to handle a corrupted pw area on the SSD, as this is a pretty obvious single point of failure. Different situation from someone trying to crack a pw and break into a hard drive.

If HD password (HDPW) and Supervisor password (SVP) happen to be the same, that SVP is stored outside the BIOS but can be retrieved with appropriate hardware/software.
The HDPW is always stored on the HD itself and is normally NOT retrievable unless in the above mentioned lab.
This means you can take the HD out, and put it in a similar laptop, and use it there by entering the HDPW when asked.
If you lose the HDPW (when different from SVP), you're up the creek and need the lab...
But if the HD/SDD craps out on you, even if you know the HDPW, that's the end of it: doorstopper.

If a drive fails due to a hardware problem, you may get a replacement if under warranty.
And the warranty will most likely come from the HD/SSD manufacturer, not from IBM/Lenovo.
Don't expect any help with retrieving data from anyone (unless you want to pay big bucks).
And they definitely would not help you restoring a password (which they probably can't anyway...)
Besides, who says it's only the PW area that is corrupted?

RealBlackStuff wrote:If HD password (HDPW) and Supervisor password (SVP) happen to be the same, that SVP is stored outside the BIOS but can be retrieved with appropriate hardware/software.
The HDPW is always stored on the HD itself and is normally NOT retrievable unless in the above mentioned lab.
This means you can take the HD out, and put it in a similar laptop, and use it there by entering the HDPW when asked.
If you lose the HDPW (when different from SVP), you're up the creek and need the lab...
But if the HD/SDD craps out on you, even if you know the HDPW, that's the end of it: doorstopper.

If a drive fails due to a hardware problem, you may get a replacement if under warranty.
And the warranty will most likely come from the HD/SSD manufacturer, not from IBM/Lenovo.
Don't expect any help with retrieving data from anyone (unless you want to pay big bucks).
And they definitely would not help you restoring a password (which they probably can't anyway...)
Besides, who says it's only the PW area that is corrupted?

AhA! Thanks for the clarification. This is pretty much how I thought things work. I use the same pw for master & drives, to keep things simple...

Update Managed to find the missing data on another drive I'd forgotten about, so I'm just out some time/effort on this deal<whew>. I'm pretty paranoid & thorough about backups, but had one item slip through the cracks. Ironically, I was planning on year end full backups for all of my laptops later this week, but was grabbing stuff off of this particular SSD, as it was starting to have 'issues'. And, yes, I already know that there was corruption on the SSD other than the password...

So, I can now turn this SSD into fertilizer...already ordered a replacement, due later in the week, so everything oughta turn out ok.

Was particularly interested in how the password management works on these drives, and now I know more than before

Thanks to all for comments/ideas...

RealBlackStuff wrote:That's a load of bullcrap about passwords being stored in BIOS, and BIOS files also being stored on a hard disk (or SSD).
Passwords are NOT stored in BIOS on IBM/Lenovo laptops.
Hard disk passwords can be stored in the same location as regular passwords, but are also stored on the hard disk itself, in an area that is not normally accessible, unless you have a forensic laboratory.
I don't know (yet) how an SSD can be password protected.
It would obviously store the PW somewhere in a chip on that SSD.
I can't elaborate any further here (forum rules).

....

....is nice comments!!!! HAPPY New Year to you also !
but then I dont have any repair company for laptops - wont know much! didnt learn much @ I waisted my time and money @ some college over my masters in IT.....I think !

Shout out to my folks @ MIT & IBM !

@AMA*.... glad you got the info from OTHER HARD DRIVE ......... and added to you Knowledge Base !
cheers mate