Accessing a hard drive locked with a password

soopsoo

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I'm trying to access an older hard drive that I forgot the password to so that I can use it for another computer. I don't need what's in the hard drive. Are there any ways I can remove the password?
 
Right click This PC, click manage, go to disk management and format there.

thats what the website link is for :)

He already knew how to get to it, just was not sure on formatting, the website covers both with images to help follow and descriptions to help understand.
 
Is the HDD locked via a BIOS like password? I know some fancier laptops support locking hard drives via the BIOS, which renders the drive 100% useless in other machines without unlocking first.

My Vostro 1500 is one of those laptops, will lock the HDD, and have to enter a password just to enable the disk on the laptop, and it can't be swapped either.

If this is the case, unless you have the computer you locked the drive in, AND remember the password, there is zero chance to ever use that drive again.

EDIT: Not sure if the drive shows up in disk management. I want to say that it does, but Windows wont touch it if I remember right.
 
Last edited:
I appreciate all the responses.
I still have the driver locked and I still can't format. When I put the hard drive into my Thinkpad x220 it requires me to put a password before the computer boots so I connected the hard drive via a sata drive dock to connect the hard drive via USB to another computer. When I look into disk management, the driver is there but I can't perform any actions to it, I'm assuming its because its locked. I did some googling and I found this "ThinkPad Drive Erase Utility for Resetting the Cryptographic Key and Erasing the Solid State Drive" and I read it and apparently it should delete the password that locks the hard drive but I have a hard time following the steps.
Any help, suggestions, or thoughts is very much appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds019026

Steps provided:
DOS
1. Prepare the DOS bootable USB memory.
2. Unzip .ZIP file and extract DrvErase.exe file.
3. Copy the DrvErase.exe to the USB memory.
4. Attach the USB memory to the ThinkPad computer.
5. Confirm the USB memory being a bootable device in BIOS Setup/Boot menu.
6. Turn off the computer then turn it on.
7. Refer to the "DrvErase.exe - command line option list" section below to run
DrvErase.exe. Then go to step 8 below.
DrvErase.exe - command line option list
Example: DrvErase /D:1 /M:2 /S

/D:n Specify the target drive
1: Internal harad drive bay, 2: Ultrabay, 3: MSATA connection
Example /D:1

/M:n Specify the erase mode
1 - Normal erase (for SSD only)
2 - Resetting Cryptographic Key
Example /M:2

/S Suppress confirmation

/E Exit without restart

/? Show help messages
 
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