Can't remove HDD password

[danielthaler]

I recently set an HDD password on my W510. Now I would like to disable it again.

Unfortunatly the option to set the password is now inactive in the BIOS: It says "Hard Disk1 Password   [User]", but I cannot select the option in order to change it.

This appears to be a bug. I once had a T61, where changing the password was no problem.

I would really like to get rid of the password again.

[andyP Community SuperMod]

danielthaler, welcome to the forum,

did you by any chance also set a supervisor password?  If you did, press F1 immediately you see the message "to interrupt ....." and enter the supervisor password at the prompt. If the HD password is different to the supervisor password you will then be required to enter it.

You should then have the ability to disable the HD password.

Hope this helps

[danielthaler]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for your response.

I am convinced I am actually seeing a bug in the BIOS.

When I start the Notebook and press F1, I am asked to use the finger scanner or input the HDD password. After that the BIOS setup is displayed and shows the following on the Security > Password screen:

I have not set a supervisor password or a power on password - both entries show the value "[disabled]". The entry "Hard Disk1 Password" has the value "[User]" and is gray ie I cannot select or change it.

I don't think I am missing anything obvious here - Until a year ago I had a T61 where changing and removing the HDD password worked perfectly.

[andyP Community SuperMod]

What's with the Master HD password? Did you set it and also delete it?

[danielthaler]

No, i did not set a master password.

 Daniel

[shidevil]

I think you can reflash your bios see if it works?

[danielthaler]

The harddisk password is actually stored in the disk's firmware - reflashing the notebook's BIOS would not help.

I actually did flash the BIOS yesterday, because a new version was released (it enables booting from eSATA, which is cool) and my HDD is still password protected.

Reflashing the Harddisk firmware might help, but it seems excessive and I don't have a new firmware file to flash the disk with. Having a working BIOS that allows me to simply remove the password would be much better.

[andyP Community SuperMod]

I have never tried what I am about to suggest, but I certainly would try it if it was my system;

backup all important and unimportant files to another media, even better clone the drive to another one; this could go completely wrong and have exactly the opposite effect to that which is expected. - I simply don't know because as I stated; I've never tried it.

As you have updated the BIOS, how's about going in and trying to set the same HD password as you previously had? After ensuring that it's set correctly shut the system down. From a cold start re-enter BIOS and delete the password as per the instructions in the manual.

I stress again - I have never tried this, but I personally would certainly give it a go. I have spare drives and ThinkPads lying around should it all go queer, you may not.

[danielthaler]

I'm not sure I understand your suggestion.

As stated before the menu entry "Hard Disk 1 Password" is inactive. I cannot select it. Therefore I don't see how I am supposed to "set the same password I previously had".

Just to be clear everyone understands what this is about: I am talking about a harddisk "user password" as defined by the ATA T13 standard. The settings related to this function ("user password" / "user + master password" / "password disabled", etc) are all stored in the HDD. The BIOS merely displays options to modify those settings, it does not store them - they are all queried from the drive when the notebook boots.

In fact you can query those settings outside the BIOS if you're curious: "hdparm -I /dev/sdX" on any recent Linux distro will display the full list.

The point of this is: Nothing I could possibly do to the BIOS short of finding a way to enable the inactive option will help me.

The fact that the option is inactive is clearly a bug - according to the steps described in "Access Help" I should be able to select it in order to disable the password again.

Perhaps the best thing here would be to file a ticket somehow (does anyone here know how to do this?) and hope a future BIOS release will fix the problem.

[kenjibm]

I faced a similar situation.

I guess you configured the HDD password in the previous ThinkPad series, for instance:

I configured the HDD password in the ThinkPad X60, and moved HDD to ThinkPad X61.

Password authorization could be accepted, but the HDD password could not be changed, because the HDD password menu was disabled.( gray USER)

.

I cleared the HDD password in the previous ThinkPad (X60) and moved to new one (X61).

And reconfigure the HDD password, the problem was resolved.

.

Regards, Ken