Hot plug'n'play password protected drive?

[db2boy]

Hi,
Is it possible to swap in a password protected drive into the ultrabay without having to reboot and go through the BIOS/HD password screens to be able to access the drive?

Thanks

Ant

[andyP]

Welcome to the forum.

Sorry but the answer is a big NO WAY - that's one of the reasons the password is there.

[EOMtp]

... the answer is a big NO WAY ...

This is not correct. The IDE interface provides for commands which can be sent to a disk drive to perform certain functions, and there are commands for dealing with the password. All one needs is a program which is able to send the desired command to the proper hard drive. Go to the following link and scroll down to "ATA Security Feature Set": http://linux.die.net/man/8/hdparm

Here is MHDD, a program which runs Windows, which can be used to send commands:
http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/
See "Security Commands" in the MHDD Documentation:
http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/ ... al.en.html

[andyP]

@EOMtp
You maybe correct, but I definitely did not like what I read on the sites; your first link in "ATA Security Feature Set":

--security-unlock PWD
Unlock the drive, using password PWD. Password is given as an ASCII string and is padded with NULs to reach 32 bytes. The applicable drive password is selected with the --user-master switch. THIS FEATURE IS EXPERIMENTAL AND NOT WELL TESTED. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

In the FAQs to MHDD:

Q: What about MHDD under Windows?
A: I know that it is possible to run MHDD under any Windows with some limitations. For Win2k/XP you will need the USERPORT driver (google it). I do not recommend it though.

With the greatest of respect, if the person who wrote the software isn't 100% sure that it works, I am not going to be using or recommending it. - What if when it doesn't work?

[db2boy]

Thanks for the posts and information - very interesting! I was hoping we (as in IBM Im an IBMer) might have some tooling to do this but Im guessing not. Seems like such an obvious and useful tool to me, well it does when you get fed up of swapping drives in and not being able to use them!

Even though backup up, I dont feel too comfortable using something that could mess the drive up..........

Rgds and thanks

Ant