Thinkpads Forum

Recently I upgraded from my original HDD to an SSD. Works fine. I had a Password Protected (via Thinkpad BIOS) and Bitlocker Encrypted HDD (using TPM + Pin). All I did was remove the PIN option for Bitlocker and then pull the HDD.

The SSD has hardware encryption but to enable it I must set a PW. Easy enough I know how to do that.

My question relates to do I need to put the old HDD back in an remove the HDD PW? Am confused as to the ramification of ever being able to use the old HDD again (in the same notebook) and whether I need to do so to ensure the new HDD is properly protected.

FYI, my BIOS shows
Supervisor PW Enabled
Using Passphrase Enabled
BIOS Unattended Boot Enabled
Power On PW Enabled
HDD Password (NOT ENABLED)


Thanks!!!!!
Seasons Greetings!!!!!!!

I'm a little bit confused as to the exact nature of your problem / request, so I'll answer it thusly:

If the original drive does NOT have a password stored on it, then it can be read in any computer (thinkpad or not).

My understanding is that if you leave a hard drive password protected, you'll need to install it in the original (or similar) Thinkpad when reading it. This has to do with the fact that the BIOS has the routines to deal with verifying that the password you enter matches the one stored in the drive. So, given that you intend to connect the original drive to the same laptop it came out of, then yes, you can still use it, regardless on whether or not your BIOS shows HD password enabled. When booted, the system will see that the HD is password protected and will prompt you for the password. If you try attaching the password-protected drive to a different computer (especially if it's not a Thinkpad), then you probably will not be able to access it.

thanks braddah. couple of points of clarification.


1) IF I put the HDD in another X201 then I can unlock it? If I put it in a T510 or a Dell then it wont?
2) IF I set a PW for my new SSD drive on my x201 this wont prevent my old HDD from being inserted one day and unlocked if necessary.
Also, I'm ensured that setting a PW for my SSD will work despite the fact I haven't used the BIOS to unlock the old drive. This is despite the BIOS says there is currently no PW for the SSD.

Thanks!

1) Yes, assuming the drive came out of another X201. As to the T510, I would expect it to be able to unlock as I believe it has the same BIOS options related to passwords (i.e., passphrase) as the X201. For the Dell, I doubt that you would be be to access/unlock a Thinkpad password-enabled drive. Note that I've never tried doing something like that (as I don't own a Dell) so I could be wrong.

2) Correct. Even if you password protect your SSD with a different password than the HDD, once you re-install the HDD, it will prompt you for the password before you can do anything with it.

BIOS does not "remember" the hard drive password; it only checks to see if one has been invoked on the drive at boot and provides an interface to supply the correct password. Every drive you protect can have a different password and as long as you're using a similar type of laptop to unlock the drive as what was used to lock it originally, then you should be fine. If you do use a different password on each drive, then it's up to you to remember what they are .

Thanks braddah, this enables me to proceed with confidence that I am not messing something up.