reuse encrypted hard drive?

If a hard drive, say from a laptop, has a hard drive password, is there a
way to wipe the drive of the password, the data, and everything so the drive
could be reimaged?

We are testing some laptops from Dell, Toshiba, HP, Lenovo and Micron, and
instead of erasing the drives I figured we could just put passwords on the
hard drives within the BIOS and the manufacturers can wipe the drives. My
one person told me even if you plan on wiping the data off the drive you
gotta have the hard drive password.

Can anyone confirm this?

just bob kilbyfan@aoldotcom wrote:

If a hard drive, say from a laptop, has a hard drive password, is there a way to wipe the drive of the password, the
data, and everything

Yes, the ATA protection does that if you supply the master password.

so the drive could be reimaged?

Not sure about this bit, here is no point in reimaging it with everything wiped off it.

We are testing some laptops from Dell, Toshiba, HP, Lenovo and Micron, and instead of erasing the drives I figured we
could just put passwords on the hard drives within the BIOS and the manufacturers can wipe the drives.

Its the drive that does that. Not necessarily desirable to lose the recovery partition tho.

My one person told me even if you plan on wiping the data off the drive you gotta have the hard drive password.

Can anyone confirm this?

Its true for writes to the drive, but not to get the drive to wipe itself.

Thanks for the quick response, Rod.

We are not worried about the system partitions because I expect the
manufacturer can run a rebuild disk or similar which will create the
original partitions. I just do not want them to easily read the drives when
I send them back and I don't want them complaining that I've damaged the
system by setting a password.. I want them to have to format them to make
them usable again. I was hoping to do this instead of using a drive wipe
program. It's low security stuff so maybe a simple drive wipe is the answer.

Thanks again,
-Bob


"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
just bob kilbyfan@aoldotcom wrote:

If a hard drive, say from a laptop, has a hard drive password, is there a
way to wipe the drive of the password, the data, and everything

Yes, the ATA protection does that if you supply the master password.

so the drive could be reimaged?

Not sure about this bit, here is no point in reimaging it with everything
wiped off it.

We are testing some laptops from Dell, Toshiba, HP, Lenovo and Micron,
and instead of erasing the drives I figured we could just put passwords
on the hard drives within the BIOS and the manufacturers can wipe the
drives.

Its the drive that does that. Not necessarily desirable to lose the
recovery partition tho.

My one person told me even if you plan on wiping the data off the drive
you gotta have the hard drive password.

Can anyone confirm this?

Its true for writes to the drive, but not to get the drive to wipe itself.

Previously just bob kilbyfan@aoldotcom wrote:
If a hard drive, say from a laptop, has a hard drive password, is there a
way to wipe the drive of the password, the data, and everything so the drive
could be reimaged?

We are testing some laptops from Dell, Toshiba, HP, Lenovo and Micron, and
instead of erasing the drives I figured we could just put passwords on the
hard drives within the BIOS and the manufacturers can wipe the drives. My
one person told me even if you plan on wiping the data off the drive you
gotta have the hard drive password.

Can anyone confirm this?

Via the official ATA command set wiping requires the password.
Unofficielly, several companies offer software and services to do so
without password. Google(remove hdd password) will show you some.
Some also claim they can do this without data loss, and there is
good indication they really can do this.

If you want to secure what is on the disks, you need disk
encryption. Incidentially disk encryption allows you to
wipe the drives without any password.

Arno