Notan wrote:
> Wolf Halton wrote:
>
>><snip>
>>
>>That sounds like good trouble-stooting. Seems like to me the password
>>on the bios has not been cleared yet. Have you considered taking it to
>>a certified repair center to have the password cleared? That would be
>>cheating, but it is probably not a lot more than a new hard-drive that
>>might not work. I have never heard of a hard-drive-attached rom
>>passwording feature. This is very interesting.
>
>
> Here's a pretty good explanation, from Barry Watzman, in comp.sys.laptops.
>
> The OP was questioning how to reset a hard drive password...
>
> "This mechanism is entirely in the hard drive itself, and the design
> philosophy that the hardware should become useless before the data
> should become available without the proper password.
>
> Basically, at power-on, you have to supply the password before the drive
> will even respond to any IDE data transfer commands -- including the
> commands that let the BIOS recognize that the hard drive exists. Until
> the proper password is entered, the command to enter the password is the
> only command that the drive will respond to. Therefore, until it's
> entered, you can't use FDISK or anything else, because the drive
> effectively doesn't yet exist.
>
> It's not physically impossible to reset the password, but the knowledge
> of how to do it is generally unknown, and the equipment to do it is
> generally not available. There are a few places (very few) that offer
> the service, but the cost is higher than the cost of a new hard drive,
> so it only makes sense if it's the data, rather than the drive, that's
> important. [and, hopefully, the places that can reset it ask lots and
> lots of questions first]"
>
> Notan

At last we're getting somewhere! Let me see if I can sum up the
situation correctly. If a HD password has been set the Bios cannot
process any commands in the presence of a set HD, OR the absence of any
HD at all. BUT the presence of an HD without a set password will allow
the Bios to process commands normally without seeking a password. Is
this a fair statement of the facts?