Passworded HDD

GasBandit · Oct 21, 2013

I'm trying to brainstorm ideas for this mess dumped in my lap. Dell inspiron 1120 netbook, owner's kid set bios and HDD passwords and then forgot them. I've already bypassed the bios password using a phoenix bios master password (getting to the CMOS battery would have been a chore and a half), but the HDD password is still in effect, and am having a bastard of a time getting around it.

Computer's not disassemble-friendly, so I'd prefer a solution that doesn't involve removing the hard drive from the case, but it's looking more like that may be necessary - I made a bootable USB version of Hiren's bootCD which has hard drive utilities on it that you can use to unlock WDC hard drives (WDC's master password is WDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCW , fun huh.. but you pretty much have to use that in victoria HDD test because the bootup password field is only 10 characters long), but the damn thing just doesn't want to boot from the USB drive. I've confirmed the media IS bootable by sticking it in another box's USB and rebooting, but on this little netbook even disabling the HDD as a bootable device in bios the thing STILL asks for the HDD password at boot time - I'm wondering if it's because Hiren's scans for all hard drives initially on bootup - and if you don't get the password right, it locks the system until power cycle.

I'm starting to grimly come to the conclusion my only option is to crack the case and extract the hard drive and connect it to another PC to put in the HDD master pass, but if anybody has any other suggestions I'm all ears because this little shit was NOT made to come apart easily, and on top of that I'm thinking some of the screws are damaged as they don't want to come out. The hard drive is accessed beneath the keyboard, which requires removal of said suspect screws and the use of a scribe to pry the keyboard loose from the palmrest assembly. So I'm really hoping for a solution that doesn't involve me and a 50/50 chance of shattering a keyboard assembly/gouging a motherboard trace with a scribe/stabbing myself and the wound turning septic.

Anyone with any thoughts?

PatrThom · Oct 21, 2013

If this is the built-in hardware encryption we're talking about, you're going to have a bad time.
Though I'm wondering if the reason you can't boot to the USB stick is because the partition table is still MBR instead of GUID, or formatted FAT32 instead of NTFS, or some dumb thing like that.

Sorry, man. I'm seeing some Band-Aids in your future.

--Patrick

strawman · Oct 21, 2013

Nail gun. Through the laptop. Through the hard drive. Through the screen.

PatrThom · Oct 21, 2013

Everyone will think it was an accident.

--Patrick

GasBandit · Oct 21, 2013

PatrThom said:
If this is the built-in hardware encryption we're talking about, you're going to have a bad time.
Though I'm wondering if the reason you can't boot to the USB stick is because the partition table is still MBR instead of GUID, or formatted FAT32 instead of NTFS, or some dumb thing like that.

Sorry, man. I'm seeing some Band-Aids in your future.

--Patrick

I thought GPT was only necessary if the drive being booted was over 2TB? (this is just an 8 gig flash drive). But it's definitely MBR/Fat32, and it does boot up but the other machine I tested it in is a few year old XP machine... Hrrmm.

PatrThom · Oct 21, 2013

GasBandit said:
Hrrmm.

Just tryin' to brainstorm, man. Right now I'm wishing there was some sort of Target Disk equivalent on Inspirions.

--Patrick

GasBandit · Oct 21, 2013

PatrThom said:
Just tryin' to brainstorm, man. Right now I'm wishing there was some sort of Target Disk equivalent on Inspirions.

--Patrick

It does, more or less - I can disable booting from the built in hard drive in the bios. However, I'm thinking that because my boot disk is querying all present hard drives immediately after post, before switching out of ascii mode, that it's triggering the HDD encryption's password prompt, which might not happen if it would hold off until after actually booting MiniXP. So maybe I should try a different bootdisk package that doesn't do a HD query right off the bat...

PatrThom · Oct 21, 2013

Either that or the HDD firmware is refusing to talk to the computer until it receives its passkey, and this is why I suggested to prepare for the unfun.

--Patrick

GasBandit · Oct 22, 2013

So, to bring closure to the story, it turns out the kid thinks he used some combination of his initials and birthday, and maybe he wrote it down somewhere. I gave it back to them, telling them to try. Try every combination they can guess, look everywhere they can for that written down password. Because it's 50/50 on me doing more damage trying to pry that stupid keyboard off with a scribe (the tech manual says "plastic scribe," who the hell has a plastic scribe?! I had to dig to the bottom of my tool chest just to find my STEEL scribe which I never use for anything anyway). If they can't get through in a few weeks, I told them I'll try again with that caveat.

PatrThom · Oct 22, 2013

GasBandit said:
(the tech manual says "plastic scribe," who the hell has a plastic scribe?!)

Try looking for "spudger" or "probe tool."

--Patrick

GasBandit · Oct 22, 2013

PatrThom said:
Try looking for "spudger" or "probe tool."

--Patrick

Frankly I have my doubts that any kind of pointed plastic tool will be able to stand up to the prying force needed in this situation. I'm betting it's in the manual just because the techs would rather have you break 30 plastic tools than slice through a trace with a metal one.

Bowielee · Oct 23, 2013

Wow, that sounds like a pretty poorly set up case to deal with. One of the things I like about my laptop is that it has an easy access panel on the bottom that you just have to unscrew to reach the HDD and RAM making something like this really easy to deal with.

GasBandit · Oct 23, 2013

Bowielee said:
Wow, that sounds like a pretty poorly set up case to deal with. One of the things I like about my laptop is that it has an easy access panel on the bottom that you just have to unscrew to reach the HDD and RAM making something like this really easy to deal with.

Yeah, I agree. I've had laptops I've had to remove the keyboard to get to the guts before, but never one that required basically a case cracker. To be fair it did have a special panel you could remove to get to the RAM, just not the HDD or any other guts. It's also just a tiny 11.6" netbook, not a full blown laptop.

strawman · Oct 23, 2013

You guys haven't tried to work on a MacBook, then. You do have to remove the case, and often many layers of other components to get to the one you want.

Pretty machines. Pretty hard to work on, that is...

GasBandit · Oct 23, 2013

stienman said:
You guys haven't tried to work on a MacBook, then. You do have to remove the case, and often many layers of other components to get to the one you want.

Pretty machines. Pretty hard to work on, that is...

Yeah, see, I only work on computers.

PatrThom · Oct 23, 2013

stienman said:
You guys haven't tried to work on a MacBook, then. You do have to remove the case, and often many layers of other components to get to the one you want. Pretty machines. Pretty hard to work on, that is...

GasBandit said:
Yeah, see, I only work on computers.

I don't know. I haven't had too much trouble with them. Biggest problem I ever had was replacing a keyboard on a 15in Inspirion. Getting the cowling off was a trip.

--Patrick

sixpackshaker · Oct 23, 2013

stienman said:
You guys haven't tried to work on a MacBook, then. You do have to remove the case, and often many layers of other components to get to the one you want.

Pretty machines. Pretty hard to work on, that is...

Best Buy sold a laptop designed by Ferdinand Porsche. I was going to change the HDD in it... But you had to remove EVERY screw and completely disassemble the machine to get to the HDD. Another tech took over for me when I started cursing at the ribbon cable for the monitor when I was putting it back together.