I have gotten an HP laptop, but the HDD is locked and when it first boots up, it asks for a password. I don't know the password, so it then locks the HDD and then says operating system not found. It won't boot from a CD either.

It's an HP pavilion ze4400 to be exact. It has also on it, Altec Lansing if that give any bit of important information.

How do I reset this? Doesn't matter if the data on the laptop is loss or anything. I've tried various things I found on google with like pressing F10 and what not. When I do that, it automatically asks for the pass.

same came up in this Thread!

http://mingle2.com/topic/show/339244

Thanks, but the problem isn't specifically in the hard drive persay. It's in the bios I do believe, the password is needed before windows starts up. It then locks the hard drive because of the failed attempts and is then why the computer says no OS found I believe.

nope,in those cases it is in the HD,to prevent the Theft of Data in case the Laptop is stolen!
BIOS-Passwords are easily defeated!
This Feature resides in the HDD,most likely in the Firmware of the Drive,and not accessible unless you have the proper Pass!

Any way to just totally reset everything in it? Including what's one the HD?

I know EXACTLY what you are up against. I have been at the same thing for two days and finally came to the realization of two things... One is that the hard Drive without that password is nothing more than a paperweight and two, do not waste any more time with this problem.

I will bet money you have a Seagate Momentus SATA hard drive in your laptop. It stores a Password IN THE HARD DRIVE and in its own "memory" so that you MUST use a password to actually gain any access to the hard drive. Likewise someone who had the computer before you tried to wipe the hard drive and only got the Boot Sector.

Again I have been through the exact same thing. Pull out the hard drive and replace it! You can get a replacement for under $60 and more capacity than the old one. It is far cheaper and less frustrating than trying to recover the old hard drive at this point.

Please trust my judgement on this since another member on this site claims to be an IT pro and he himself cannot answer my problem. I have been online for two days trying everything and every software out there including installing the hard drive on another computer in an attempt to access the hard drive. EVEN EXPERTS ONLINE SAY TO REPLACE THE HARD DRIVE!

That is as good as it is going to get for you. And for an OS you can go OpenSUSE, FreeBSD, Ubuntu, and others that are free and very competitive. I have Ubuntu on my old Dell Laptop. It works fine for me and was a free OS. Now we are not talking a six or more year old computer here are we?

Unplug your computer. Open the Access panels on the back and locate the BIOS battery. It looks just like a watch battery. Usually they are CR 2025 or CR 2032. They are about the size of a quarter. Remove it for a moment. Since you are dealing with a laptop remove the main battery!!! You must have ALL power sources removed. This will wipe the BIOS completely resetting it to its original state and resetting all passwords to 'empty.' But where the hard drive is concerned, If it is a MOMENTUS HARD DRIVE BY SEAGATE YOU ARE JERKING YOURSELF AND I TIRED TO WARN YOU! IGNORE ME AT THE PERIL OF A LOT OF FRUSTRATION!

Seagate changed the way they handle password security and put the computer's administrator password on the hard drive itself. As far as I know right now they are the ONLY company to do this with hard drives! Better men and hackers than me have not been able to crack these hard drives! THE HARD DRIVE IS NOW A PAPERWEIGHT!


Once more, Ignore me at your own peril...

Unfortunately I can not find the BIOS battery. On the back, there is the cover to the ram, and some other cover. I have removed both covers and have not found the BIOS battery :s. I'll keep looking around for in hopes to find it lol, any further hints would be a big help, maybe laptops generally have them in a specific spot?

You may want to look up "replacing a bios battery............" and use the model # of your particular lap top. The right search question can yield the answer. Usually it is tucked out of the way of other components. On some Dells and a few gateways it is actually under the Keyboard besides the hard drive.

Now hopefully you don't have one of the motherboards that has the BIOS BATTERY IN THE BIOS CHIP! I have not seen one of those or a desktop like that in a long time. The last one I seen actually required you replace the Bios Chip every once in a while. it was removable but expensive. HO is pretty good about not doing that to customers though.

right, sounds like the system password you will have to uncheck it in your bios settings before you boot - there is the option to set a system password there - just undo it that would be F2 - keep tapping it until you get into bios

Tried, hoped it was that easy lol. But unfortunately it asks for the password to change that setting lol.

The hard drive is a paperweight! Toss hard drive and get a new one. You can find 120 GB hard drives for $40.00. I would go with WD. A SATA hard drive is a SATA hard drive.

So again, current hard drive, hammer to death or use as a shooting target.

I know you have a momentus hard drive to be having this problem.

And as far as an OS goes, Unbuntu is free if you take the time to download it. Use IMG Burn which is free ware to burn the ISO disk and you are ready to install Ubuntu.

https://www.google.com/#hl=en&tbo=d&sclient=psy-ab&q=hard+drive+password+removal&oq=Hard+drive+pass&gs_l=hp.3.1.0l4.2148.8335.0.10550.15.11.0.4.4.0.267.1955.0j10j1.11.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.LYFgHp9e1HU&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=62f3ee3bf851a184&bpcl=39580677&biw=1024&bih=602

Google is your friend..

For all you folks who have written me about removing or cracking Harddrive Passwords on the Admin Password thread, and I have told to forget about it, that there was no economical way to recover a harddrive that had a password, the sun broke through the gloom today!! I have a Toshiba 40gb 5400rpm that I cracked by using this online service at $49.50 a single drive.

http://hdd-tools.com/products/rrs/

You download their software, set up an account with a screen name and password, then pay by credit card or other means. They send you a confirmation letter by Email(but not to a free mail account) with a very long Service Code and instructions. It takes awhile to get setup, but the actual crack took only seconds, and after reboot, the drive showed up normally in BIOS and Windows with full access.
For multiple drives, the price per drive drops.
There is a negative side; not all drives are supported; the most obvious lack is in the Hitachi brand and no older IBMs at all. When you access their site however, they will tell you up front which ones are supported.
The problem drive must be connected as a Secondary IDE Channel Master on a machine running either W2000 or W-XP, and nothing else slaved to it. I used the 2nd Harddrive Module on a Inspiron 8200. but unplugging your CD Drives and connecting just the notebook harddrive using a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE Adapter would probably work as well.
If you use a Dell Notebook as I did, expect to get a Password screen asking for that drive's password. Ignore it and just start rapidly pressing the enter key; that will get you past the Password screen and allow the computer to boot from the C: Drive as normal. The protected HDD will not show in My Computer, and BIOS will show it as a 0mb HDD if you look there. After the crack and reboot, the drive showed in My Computer and at full capacity in BIOS.
It would be hard to justify the cost for an older, smaller HDD unless it has critical data you need, but any drive of 40gb or more would certainly be worth the cost.

I just stumbled on this an hour ago. I already have the new hard drive but to add insult to injury I had to take the laptop apart to reset the BIOS. The battery is not under a removable case section like many other lap tops. OH NO! They make you EARN IT so when you finally get the base of the computer apart lo and behold for all its glory there it hides in a secluded corner of empty case space. Damn if security is not getting insane.

There is a guy who will crack the password by generating a code based on your machine's "Hash code" that will open it up too for $10 paypal. I wish I would have found this two weeks ago. $50 is a little steep but hey, it depends on your desperation levels!

I just stumbled on this an hour ago. I already have the new hard drive but to add insult to injury I had to take the laptop apart to reset the BIOS. The battery is not under a removable case section like many other lap tops. OH NO! They make you EARN IT so when you finally get the base of the computer apart lo and behold for all its glory there it hides in a secluded corner of empty case space. Damn if security is not getting insane.

There is a guy who will crack the password by generating a code based on your machine's "Hash code" that will open it up too for $10 paypal. I wish I would have found this two weeks ago. $50 is a little steep but hey, it depends on your desperation levels!

I ran across something similar on a HP desktop. As andy suggests I got around it by removing the battary for a couple hours. It still asks for a pwd but I just hit enter and it bypassed the screen.

Next option is to remove and delete/reformat all the partitions on the drive. Better to do it on another machine if you can or use a Linux OS based live DVD.

That should remove the area where the password is hidden. There is a chance it could be stored on a hidden partition (Ive never seen this though) and in that case replacing the drive would be the best bet. You can always use the old drive as a USB connected external drive so its not like you throwing it out.

You can always pay someone to crack it for you.. but whats the value. At least if you buy a new/used drive you have more storage and hardware to use later on if needed.

Either way its up to you but I would invest in another peice of hardware and the knowledge/ability to solve the problem myself than 'pay' someone else to do it for me.

The battery should not make a difference becuase the the pw is written in permenant storage and does not require power.

Ok here goes...

There are different pw's .. so lets not assume that it is an encryption key of the HDD for just a moment... kinda screwed if that's the case... but Ill tell you the best way around it.

First off you should be able to enter CMOS set up even without your HDD functioning... that data is stored in firmware on you main board. If it absolutly insists that you enter a pw ( that you are sure is an encryption key for your HDD ) simply remove your HDD from the slot. If you don t know... it is a case on the side of a laptop almost always accessible by pressing a button and ejecting it.

As soon as you press the button that powers on your machine ... look at the top of the screen (usually to the right) and it will say press F-10 through f-12 to enter configuaration or something like that (that is CMOS) or press yada yada for the boot menu. Press the f-whatever button to enter CMOS.. should not require a pw if it does remove your hdd. (ANd will most likely have to replace it if you dont have the encryption key for it and it insists on having one)... Most PC's or laptops have two pw's one is an adminstrator and the other is something I forget. Both can be changed or set from this menu... If you remove your HDD and it still asks for the pw to do anything then this is an admn pw or the other. Both can be changed by pressing a dip switch and resetting it on your main mother board. You'll need to contact the manufacturer of the motherboard for specifics of this switch. But it restores CMOS to its defaults.

wrong read what i said using the amiga with the amiga os.. guess as the other guy says nobody listens anymore