So there was a BIOS password for the original machine, and the HDD was removed from it? Then how exactly are you accessing the HDD? "So won’t you give this man his wings What a shame To have to beg you to see We’re not all the same What a shame" - Shinedown

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i guess i didn't express myself clearly. my boy vik had this hd as part of a system. that system crashed and got thrown out a year ago. he had an option of setting a HD PASS from the pc's bios. not a system pass for the bios or system. a hd pass. now he wants to use the hd, and the info on it. so we're faced with flashing the hd firmware. it's what i'm inquiring about. that online scan&clean didn't do the job, it did not see the hd as being connected. windows sees it in device manager, but not in windows explorer. I always say it's best to doublecheck.

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I guessyou didn't make yourself clear. Sounds like all you need to do is take ownership of the files/folders. Go to the link below to learn how. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

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my man i sense u kinda coming at me on this thing. i don't know, to an outsider it may sound like i'm actually some 15yr old who stole a hard drive and is dying to get some 'thing' off of it. what's up with that? -to be honest, the mike newcomb guy sounded the same way and then I think you just fell on that same line and went with it? i didn't even mind that dude, it's the first time I peersonally see him posting, but he was definitely aiming some ugly looking stuff at me. now that i said that, i might as well tell you that I ASSUMED my friend Vik cares about the info on that drive, only to find out that he wants to recover it as a usable device. homie i'm just under 34yrs old have 2 kids wife bussiness selling toys.. I do not care what's on anyone's hard disks, nor do I EVER make any material profit from IT-natured.. anything. Yes, I'm a comp eng. graduate, but that was back in 97, and honestly I'm dumb as hell when it comes to analyzing some of the newer tech out there in the IT fields. This is a hobby, one I even spent a few euros on in this past month, literally a few, like under 100, and all of the systems you guys have heard of me making, were given away at no cost. I've got enough integrity to feel a bit offended by the above, not because I should care what anyone here thinks, but because I actually do, being forced by the simple fact that you men actually played a big part and I respect that. Don't go there, that's some weak thinking... and if I somehow managed to be enough of an ass to misinterpret, and none of it was illmeant, then I apologize for my assumptions and blame the whack world we live in for biasing me. I always say it's best to doublecheck.

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You have it all wrong robpetrache. You indicated there was a password on the drive. Now is appears all that is needed is to take ownership of the files. This is necessary because that is how Microsoft designed WinXP. It is to protect files. The user account that created the files is the account that normally has access to those files. However, some mechanism has to be available to recover files in situations like you now face. Has you told us at the beginning that you could see the file names then we could have told you about taking ownership. You are correct in your assessment that we are skeptical when folks have stories about why they need to hack a system. I don't believe anyone in this thread indicated to you that they felt this was the case here. Now back to the password issue. Your statement in #8 that you can see the drive in Disk Management isn't precise enough. Post what you do see when in Disk Management.

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And, you never answered my question. homie. "So won’t you give this man his wings What a shame To have to beg you to see We’re not all the same What a shame" - Shinedown

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jenny :) no, there was no password on the pc bios. not that it would have anything to do with the problem at hand, would it ? lemme exemplify.. you know those usb memsticks that come with a crypt partition from the vendor ? those have nothing to do with the system bios, do they ? in this case, my boy says he has set that password on the hard disk via the pc bios. which honest to god i don't understand, but maybe that laptop's bios was special like that. in 3 days he's coming back to town and i'll have that damn laptop here too, i'll just connect this tiny hd to it and see what the deal is. my pcs don't see this hd in windows explorer, only in device manager. i tried mapping, etc. he says it's because the hd has that password set in its firmware. i say there's a chance this hd is corrupted in an electronic way. because unless someone here confirms the posibility of adding a password onto a device from the system bios, i don't really believe it. what i believe is that my boy's head is not right and he forgot what he did. maybe he encrypted the hd into a whole crypt partition. i don't have any of those crypt software packs installed. i forget.. but there's a whole lot of them around. and maybe that's why my pcs can't see that device as a hard disk or partition. respect I always say it's best to doublecheck.

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Did you attempt to take ownership of the files/folders as per the link I posted above in #9?

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To take ownership of a file, follow these steps: Right-click the file that you want to take ownership of, and then click Properties. I don't see the partition nor any folders in it, so how would I try that? I always say it's best to doublecheck.

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I don't know? You stated above you could see the drive in Disk Management. That is a generic statement so I don't know what you can see. Add that to your statement that your friend may not be sure what he did a year ago. If you don't see anything then the only other suggestion I can supply would be to try a live version of Linux, like Knoppix to see if Knoppix can access the drive. Knoppix installs to, and runs from, one CDR. You can get Knoppix from the link below. Try the first 696MB file from the bottom of the list. http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/knop...

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this sounds like the best idea so far. ok, doing. thanks I always say it's best to doublecheck.

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