Hello, I have a Gateway Solo 9300 with a Toshiba MK1011GAV 10 Gig HD that I am trying to reformat and install Win2K on (this is a government computer). The bios was password protected which I got around however, when it boots up, it asks for a Hard Drive password. In the BIOS, there is an option to enable a hard drive password (which is enabled on this drive). This is a PII 400 computer system and we are redistributing these systems to other units that have older systems, the person who last had this computer is no longer available. Does anyone know of a program that would bypass the password protection and reformat the drive? Based on my experience with this system, I am starting to believe that when the password was activated, the firmware on the drive was changed or the boot sector of the drive itself was changed since this drive is protected regardless of what Gateway Solo 9300 computer it is put into. Attempts to use tools such as partition magic bomb (program fails) and FDISK won't read the disk. I'm beginning to believe that this drive is now a boat anchor (a very light one, but one nonetheless) if I can't remove the password information. Thanks for any help you can provide. Regards, Fox

I think the easiest way is to get a zero fill utility. This should wipe out any password protection that resides on the hard drive. Then you'll need to run fdisk and then reformat. Toshiba's site should have what you need. You'll need to boot from a floppy and then run the utility.

Interesting situation. I did a brief hunt via google.com to see what's out there re hard-drive passwords. Using 'forgtten hard drive password' brings up a load of stuff; most not much help... There are companies out there who will claim they can release the drive (for a $/£ or more...). Possibly similar searches re hard drive passwords may produce useful ideas? The Dell solution (from a google search result) to this is to contact Dell. Have you contacted Gateway to see if/what they can offer? Pure longshot, as this one is way outside my experience... would a debug routine help here?

Can you change the drive type in the BIOS from auto to LBA, normal, or another type? You can change the type, then run FDISK and delete the non-DOS partition, then reboot and change the drive type back to auto and rerun FDISK.

there are programs like kill bios and others out there that fit on a floppy and take the bios back to the default settings. you may have to do a search as i dont have the site any longer. cnet.com or zdnet may have them.

guru: I don't think Fox's problemm is bios related. He says the HD itself was password protected; and there are utils out there can allow/do this. Like DAVEINCAPS I wondered if mid-level format would fix it (writing zero's) - but my brief digging around tended to discourage me in that direction; but I could be wrong. Stirling: Would one be able to access a password-locked HD from a boot-disk (fdisk)? Again the impresion I got from diging around is that passwording the drive prevents this too? In effect it sems that short of a determined hack... there may be no way, unless the drive goes to one of the specialist outfits? And if there several/many HD's then it could mount up $$$/£££-wise. If there 'is' way to defeat/disable the password I'd be very interested in knowing how.

The best way to remove the password from the drive is to low-level format the drive using a program like DiskManager, or hdtest.exe. These programs will low-level format many hard drives and completely wipe them clean, including hard drive password protection programs loaded onto hard drives. Email me if you have any problems or further questions. Thanx.