Thinkpads Forum

After reading that any pre 8.1 laptop can have it's hard drive files read with a simple usb Linux booted os, I've decided on putting a password on my hard drive. It may not be full encryption, but it's the next step.

So just to check, just go to the bios and add a hard drive password? It should be that simple right?

Backup your data first.

If the password is used for full disk encryption, you might find the SSD empty after setting or changing the password, and some Intel SSDs have encryption.

After setting the password, keep in mind that some HDDs/SSDs will not boot in other machines except the machine that issued the password, or until the password is removed using the same machine. So if something were to happen to the motherboard, you may not be able to just stick it into another machine and boot it up. The correct password will be rejected.

I noticed this on two of my own storage drives (1 ssd, 1 hdd) and still do not know why this is the case.

Also note that on T6x era machines, there is a BIOS option to use a "passphrase" for a password which could complicate things if you transfer the drive to another Thinkpad (generally much earlier machines) or another computer that does not support this type of password option.

brchan wrote:After setting the password, keep in mind that some HDDs/SSDs will not boot in other machines except the machine that issued the password, or until the password is removed using the same machine. So if something were to happen to the motherboard, you may not be able to just stick it into another machine and boot it up. The correct password will be rejected.

I noticed this on two of my own storage drives (1 ssd, 1 hdd) and still do not know why this is the case.

Aha! That's probably why one of my 160Gbs transformed into a paperweight.