Toshiba ATA lock code breaking

[123jack]

Does anyone know where I can get something to unlock the ATA lock code on
my external USB drive.
Of the software I found online it is either simple virus or just doesnt do what it claims.
Any genuine links or advice welcome. (This is a 2TB drive that simply locked itself)
The data on it is confidential so I can't just send the drive off.

TIA

 

[andre_luis]

Had you tried to apply some ones of these bellow ?

https://ipv5.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/list-of-hard-disk-ata-master-passwords/


+++

 

[123jack]

Thanks for the link andre - yahoo didnt pull that one up when I looked (in fact it didnt bring up many relevant links at all)
Sadly the only info for toshiba was the usual 32 spaces suggestion which hasn't ever worked for anyone on any site
I did find. (It doesnt for me either)
There is also a lot of confusion on the sites - many seem to think the ata password is the same as the bios password.
The link to mhdd will come in handy though.

So far toshiba are ignoring my email but It looks like there is no real way to unlock the ata passwords
unless anyone knows differently.

This is seriously disturbing.

 

[spannerz]

Had you tried to apply some ones of these bellow ?

https://ipv5.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/list-of-hard-disk-ata-master-passwords/

Worth a try, but unlikely to work.

Also worth a try is program called zu.

**broken link removed**

 

[123jack]

Windows 98 to the rescue once again.

I've now unlocked the drive. I suspect the reason it refused to unlock
was the bios in the modern motherboard I was using. Unlocking it on
my win-98 machine worked first time (saving me the price of a 2TB drive).

The fact that these things can lock up on their own is seriously worrying.
I wonder how many drives have been thrown out because of this.

Once again the pretense of security causing problems without solving
any security issues at all.