HDD Unlock 4.2

Overview

HDD Unlock is an application that can remove a hard disk drive password for IDE and SATA drives where the user has forgotten their security password. Whether either a user password or a master password has been set for the hard drive, both can be removed safely from the affected drive.

The HDD Unlock wizard takes the user through their self-explanatory software wizard process in order to safely unlock a hard drive. The drive will need to be erased when unlocked and then re-certified to be used again in the future.

The package not only works with Windows desktop 3.5 inch drives, but it can also access 2.5 inch laptop drives, and X-Box drives. The following hard drive manufacturers are known to be supported with this application: Seagate, Toshiba, Western Digital, Fujitsu, Maxtor and Samsung.

It is also possible to diagnose a hard drive to determine whether it can have its user and master password removed. This diagnosis can be performed before any decision to go ahead with unlocking and resetting for future use as a fresh drive for a computer system or gaming console.

The process of unlocking a hard drive is not as fast as one might think. To provide some sense of the time-frame required, an 80 GB 3.5 inch desktop hard drive will take approximately 25 minutes to complete the task. A 2.5 inch laptop hard drive will take a little longer than its 3.5 inch brother. Therefore, modern laptops sporting 500 GB or 1 TB of hard drive space could take several hours to be unlocked, reset and become usable again.

This software includes proprietary coding allowing it to unlock drives that have been locked via a HDD password, ATA password or BIOS POST test via the boot-up sequence. In each case, if the correct password is not known or forgotten then a tool like HDD Unlock is the only way to get further use from the hard drive.

Installation

The installation process is smooth and completed without issue. There is no malicious software added during installation.

The software requires Windows 2000, XP, Vista or 7.

Interface

The interface is clean and well laid out. The instructions given to the user are easy to understand.

An initial scan of a drive can be conducted, which only takes a few seconds, in order to diagnose its current situation (locked, unlocked, inaccessible, etc.)

Pros

• Unlock IDE and SATA hard drives so they are usable again
• Good, clear interface to use
• Initial scan before selecting a drive to unlock

Cons

• RAID disk arrays, Firewire drives and USB drives are not supported
• Once unlocked, the drive still loses its data
• Time taken to unlock is similar to a complete reformatting of the hard drive

Conclusion

HDD Unlock is a useful last chance software package to unlock and re-register a hard drive which is inaccessible due to a user or master password lock. The data contained on the drive is likely to be inaccessible thereafter, but at least the drive can be reused.