sscsr1 Posted April 12, 2017 Share Posted April 12, 2017 I am pulling my hair out on this one. My niece acquired, after much drama, her recently deceased mother-in-laws computer. It's an old dell xp system but she wanted it because there are pics of her estranged daughter ( told you drama) when she was little and growing up. The system starts up but no video. Has a card but still no video from card or on board vga. So I took it apart to make sure the graphic card was seated good and there was something bouncing around on the inside. Turns out it was a capacitor. After further inspection I found that all ram banks were empty.I am beginning to think sabotage. ( More drama) So I pull the HDD ( WD Caviar Green 500 gig sata) and put it in my computer so I can pull the pics off and low and behold the drive has been passworded. No matter what I do it will boot to the password prompt. I have tried to boot from every boot disk I have ( Hirens, UBD, Active Boot Disk, Windows Password Recovery). I have adjusted the boot order and even disabled hdd booting in bios ( which I cannot get into unless I disconnect the HDD). I have ordered a dock so I can go that route but I was wondering if anyone could offer any other suggestions while I am waiting. My computer in a i7, windows 10 pro, 16 gigs ram if that helps. Thank you for your time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy2004 Posted April 12, 2017 Share Posted April 12, 2017 You may have more "trouble" than you think... i did a quick google search for passworded window hdd and found a post by someone else having a issue with a passworded laptop hdd simliar issue to yours. trying to access a passworded hdd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
debebee Posted April 12, 2017 Share Posted April 12, 2017 WHEn you have HDDs with BIOS encrypted passwords, you can't decrypt it with another PC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sscsr1 Posted April 12, 2017 Author Share Posted April 12, 2017 57 minutes ago, andy2004 said: You may have more "trouble" than you think... i did a quick google search for passworded window hdd and found a post by someone else having a issue with a passworded laptop hdd simliar issue to yours. trying to access a passworded hdd Sounds like that guy ran into the same stuff I have been seeing. The system the hdd came from is toast so that is not an option for me. 14 minutes ago, teodz1984 said: WHEn you have HDDs with BIOS encrypted passwords, you can't decrypt it with another PC Not good news. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodel Posted April 12, 2017 Share Posted April 12, 2017 4 hours ago, sscsr1 said: I am pulling my hair out on this one. My niece acquired, after much drama, her recently deceased mother-in-laws computer. It's an old dell xp system but she wanted it because there are pics of her estranged daughter ( told you drama) when she was little and growing up. The system starts up but no video. Has a card but still no video from card or on board vga. So I took it apart to make sure the graphic card was seated good and there was something bouncing around on the inside. Turns out it was a capacitor. After further inspection I found that all ram banks were empty.I am beginning to think sabotage. ( More drama) So I pull the HDD ( WD Caviar Green 500 gig sata) and put it in my computer so I can pull the pics off and low and behold the drive has been passworded. No matter what I do it will boot to the password prompt. I have tried to boot from every boot disk I have ( Hirens, UBD, Active Boot Disk, Windows Password Recovery). I have adjusted the boot order and even disabled hdd booting in bios ( which I cannot get into unless I disconnect the HDD). I have ordered a dock so I can go that route but I was wondering if anyone could offer any other suggestions while I am waiting. My computer in a i7, windows 10 pro, 16 gigs ram if that helps. Thank you for your time. I think it's bitlocker your talking about, and if so, it's a nopes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
debebee Posted April 12, 2017 Share Posted April 12, 2017 Uhm. Bitlocker only came on With Windows 7 up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
straycat19 Posted April 12, 2017 Share Posted April 12, 2017 5 hours ago, sscsr1 said: I am pulling my hair out on this one. My niece acquired, after much drama, her recently deceased mother-in-laws computer. It's an old dell xp system but she wanted it because there are pics of her estranged daughter ( told you drama) when she was little and growing up. The system starts up but no video. Has a card but still no video from card or on board vga. So I took it apart to make sure the graphic card was seated good and there was something bouncing around on the inside. Turns out it was a capacitor. After further inspection I found that all ram banks were empty.I am beginning to think sabotage. ( More drama) So I pull the HDD ( WD Caviar Green 500 gig sata) and put it in my computer so I can pull the pics off and low and behold the drive has been passworded. No matter what I do it will boot to the password prompt. I have tried to boot from every boot disk I have ( Hirens, UBD, Active Boot Disk, Windows Password Recovery). I have adjusted the boot order and even disabled hdd booting in bios ( which I cannot get into unless I disconnect the HDD). I have ordered a dock so I can go that route but I was wondering if anyone could offer any other suggestions while I am waiting. My computer in a i7, windows 10 pro, 16 gigs ram if that helps. Thank you for your time. Ah well. Now we get into my area of expertise. I have literally done hundreds of them. Unfortunately, in your case, you will probably not be able to decrypt it unless you know a certified computer forensics investigator. For that person getting the data off the drive is a walk in the park. If you really believe it is XP then there are several aftermarket programs that would encrypt the drive as well as some free programs (TrueCrypt) which for an individual makes it almost impossible to figure out. Any chance she could have upgraded it to Windows 7 and used BitLocker? If so I can provide you with something that may crack it for you. Otherwise you are going to need a professional who has access to the software and resources needed to decrypt the drive. From what you have said it sounds like you have only tried to boot from the drive or from a CD when the drive is in the computer. Have you tried to add it as a secondary drive to your system and boot your normal windows 10 drive? Then check disk management and see what information it can give you about the drive. Any other information you can provide will be beneficial in attempting to decrypt the drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coromonadalix Posted April 13, 2017 Share Posted April 13, 2017 has straycat19 said, it depends if a software was used to encrypt or it is done at the hardware level ?? https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8374&start=840 https://mayurmgaikwad.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/unlock-western-digital-hdd-using-master-password/ https://community.wd.com/t/my-hdd-is-locked-and-wont-unlock/1310 http://www.hddunlock.com/drives/wd/ It depends if the pc or portable has hdd protection in the bios, who will set it in the hdd, if so the protection is set on the drive, normally the drive has the protection set on the platters at a given zone ... some of them are in the hdd bios, there was some stories of recovery with swapping the hdd pcb for the same model and fw revision. I've tried those things, it did not work, the only option would have been to reset entirely the drive while reformatting it and loose the entire content, i have 2 drives sitting duck, never been able to recover them. There is some $$$ paid solutions and recovery specialists ... and finally this 2013 site : http://lagunabeachcomputer.com/how-to-unlock-a-password-protected-western-digital-wd-sata-hard-drive-without-knowing-the-master-or-user-password/ never tried ?? good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sscsr1 Posted April 13, 2017 Author Share Posted April 13, 2017 I would like to thank everyone for all the helpful info. When I agreed to get the pictures off that system I thought it was just going to be a windows password which I have done several times. Clearly after reading all the replies and following the links and trying all I could I am clearly over my head with this. I am going to get with her and talk about paying someone to unlock the drive. I have tried everything that I could from the help here and from my own searches and I am no further along now than when I started and since I have to use my main system to try all this stuff that leaves me with out my computer and turns out I don't like that very much. Boy you don't miss it till you loose it huh. Anyway I am not going to go any further with this. Hopefully this thread will help others because there is a lot of good info in it. Thanks again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
debebee Posted April 13, 2017 Share Posted April 13, 2017 One word pretty sums it all BACKUP Do it or lose it (Murphy's Law) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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