Student has installed password on HDD/SSD

[LAEStratford]

Despite having a bios password, a student has managed to go into bios and add a password to the HDD/SSD, completely locking me out.

 

1. Why does bios password not protect this ?

2. How can I unlock the drive

 

Make is Toshiba, Model NB510-11G

[Tesla]

ANy idea of the bios make?

[CyberDrac]

The HDD is gone ... don't waste any more time on it. Toshiba has a special version of the BIOS they supplied to us to get around this after we lost dozens of HDDs as a result of this brainless implementation of a BIOS.

 

edit : torturing the student may reveal the password

Edited April 23, 2014 by CyberDrac

[LAEStratford]

Bios make is InsydeH20, the Sata drive installed on is Hitachi 0J20723, 320GB

[slugshead]

replace the HDD and invoice the kid.

[plexer]

Agreed replace the drive and invoice the parents if you know who did it.

 

Ben

[CyberDrac]

v1.30.CG94 ... the associated files were dated 18-05-2012 ... they've known about it for a while.

Who was your supplier?

[JSchlackman]

I was first stung by this about 7 years ago. A lot of BIOS builds have an additional setting you need to change to prevent it. On Dell machines it's labelled "Allow Non-admin Password Changes", and as you've found, in its default state it allows someone to set the HD password even if a BIOS setup password is set.

[woody]

Its funny isn't it. I have just got the exact same problem and searched on Edugeek. Hey presto. Shame there is no easy answer.

 

The question is, if I put that HD which has a password set into another Toshiba laptop, the password remains. I have completely wiped the disk and all partitions by connecting it to a Linux machine but the Tosh still picks up the password protect. So where does it store the password on the HD? Presumably there must be some untouchable part of the disk - it is a Toshiba drive.

[fairm010]

Its funny isn't it. I have just got the exact same problem and searched on Edugeek. Hey presto. Shame there is no easy answer.

 

The question is, if I put that HD which has a password set into another Toshiba laptop, the password remains. I have completely wiped the disk and all partitions by connecting it to a Linux machine but the Tosh still picks up the password protect. So where does it store the password on the HD? Presumably there must be some untouchable part of the disk - it is a Toshiba drive.

 

I'd assume that it's stored in the drives Firmware and not on the storage disk itself.