Thinkpad not booting due to hard drive password

[Nipmuc]

I had a problem yesterday on my Thinkpad laptop. I want to recover my data on my hard drive where I had the good idea to activate password protection password in the bios of the machine. I bought an external box and obviously Linux or Windows cannot access the hard-protect password. I am looking for some solution to reset the password of the hard drive. Is there a way for that.

[Crespin]

Dell and HP offers a similar physical protection of the hard disk (CMOS) accessible through the bios of the machine. I know the password, but my machine is not working well it gets hangs on the flash. So as I insert any disc for booting it up it ask for the password. I think flashing of BIOS can give out some help for the same. I had not tried the same yet.

[Cruzz]

The password that you enter lies the bios and it concerns only with the start of computer. It does not protect your data over the password is easily resettable just cut all power to the computer and removed the battery from the motherboard. It is the BIOS battery which you want to remove. But somehow the data in your computer can be still accessible. Better try to remove the battery first.

[Florence_USA]

Now if a recent Dell laptops you have, they propose a similar password protection. Today there are encrypted hard drives which work a bit on the same principle as PGPDisk. It encrypts your hard disk and to read and for that you need a software installed which can flash out your system. It is really not easy to do that. Better contact the service center for the same.

[Odalis]

A password for the HDD has been put in the bios of yoru system. It is very strong encryption and you cannot easily remove that out. This password has been lost and it is therefore impossible to have access to the bone or formatting. I tried to put the motherboard bios to zero, thinking that the HDD password which is stored might go. But this password is stored on the hard disk MBR.

[nickomono]

Hi, The BIOS password protection on the IBM is not the standard type. IBM sez that its the safest password protection on the market! Difficult to bypass and reset without the old password. There is a way to do this but I do not recommend it unless you have a high level of computer hardware knowledge and ability. The instructions are at; otherwise take it to an IBM repair facility and have them do it for you.

[Simond]

This password is not on the MBR. This password is on the first cylinder which is the system area of physical hard disk, inaccessible by the user when the machine booted. On this cylinder there is a data disk system that allows the BIOS to find the drive, to know his spec and display them. Here the password is kept which prevents startup.I think that flashing the firmware of the disk can work but that can make your machine unbootable.

[Bon-Z]

Have you tried to disassemble and remove the battery for some hours and then put that back. The battery is used to keep passwords in the bios. However there is one m ore battery for your hard drive which is unknown on the motherboard. This stores the password. It is a very big protection. The password is registered in an area where the disc is keeps all the information like type, capacity, etc. and this is the controller card of the hard drive.