computer is asking for HDD master code it is some kind of hard drive password that i have never seen before please help

thats on a notebook ,you'll have to call gateway for assistance. those are usually used as an anti theft deterrent. =========================================== http://support.gateway.com/support/... Service and Support Gateway Retail: U.S. (English and Spanish) Service and support for Gateway products purchased in the United States from a vendor other than Gateway. (Please dial "1" followed by the area code "408" when calling retail support.) 408-273-0808 Gateway Retail: Canada (English and French) Service and support for Gateway products purchased in Canada from a vendor other than Gateway. (Please dial "1" followed by the area code "604" when calling retail support.) 604-639-0979 Gateway Direct (English and Spanish) Home & Home Office Technical Support and Customer Service 800-846-2301 Business Technical Support and Customer Service 877-485-1464 International Technical Support 605-232-2191 Para más Información sobre nuestros Servicios 877-438-4474 Automated Order Status Hotline 800-846-8529 Fee-Based Support Billed to Credit Card 800-229-1103

This locked drive problem is happening to more than just notebook drives .I have had 5 or 6 hard drives locked by ATA passwords.Two Western Digital,one Hitachi,one Maxtor and a silver external Iomega 250 gig of which I had only used 20 gigs before it became locked.I called each of the companies and they all had the same answer in the end.Sorry we can't help because they are out of warranty.I called Microsoft because I feel they may be responsible for locking these drives because the problem started happening soon after I was forced to call them to verify my xp installation.This was because over a course of 2 or 3 yrs due to computer slowing down I would reinstall.They asked a lot of questions and seemed to think that maybe I was giving xp to others.Later I thought about it and I think they did not know I have 2 different installations of xp in my house.One came with the computer and one purchased as an upgrade.Possibly Microsoft felt somehow that I was pirating their software and started disabling and locking things.Most problems or locking would happen when I would try to erase the hard drive after xp would refuse drivers for vid cards etc that I had previously had running with no problem on a past installation so I knew there was nothing wrong. Anyway the locked drives always started with xp or win98 acting strangely ,then I would try to fix it and the more I would attempt to fix it the more it appeared the operating system would try to destrot,the final stage would be locking the hard drive with an ATA password so I couldn't erase it and start over anymore.Anyway Microsoft claims they have nothing to do with it and they say they can help me install xp,but when we got to the locked drive part they said I need to take the hard drive to a technician. The problem may be a hardware issue now ,but it was created by a software issue.Thinking this could be a virus I went off the internet 2 months ago,wiped Cmos and the hard drives,installed win98 and checked everything for viruses.Still the problem persisted.Microsoft supposed techs told me that when you wipe the hard drives there is no info left on it.Apparently Microsoft techs cando nothing more than help install from a disk .They never even heard of the security part of the hard drives or at least that is what they claimed.Maxtor also claimed they don't have security features on the hard drive I had ,but every diagnostic software I used said the Maxtor also supports security features and Smart features.I have a couple pieces of software that reads the smart attributes on the hard drives.Some of the counters are marked prefail and some SP which I think means self prservation as if the hard drives are protecting themselves from being erased. Are these counters set to automatically lock the hard drives when a certain attributes count reaches a preset number or is microsoft doing it or what.It seemed strange that Microsoft did not pick this up as a major security risk.Someone other than the owner is able and has set and implemented an ATA password on all my hard drives.I am writing this from the library.