# RESOLVED - How do I remove a hard drive password on a Toshiba laptop



## gamer11200

bump


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## Jim McNasty

Simple answer....you cant, at least not easily.
You can try and contact Toshiba and ask them for assistance but unless its under warranty i highly doubt they'll help.
There are specialized company's online that apparently remove the password but i have no idea if their legit.
One thing you could try and i cant stress enough that you do it at your own risk, try and find an identical hard drive.
It needs to be the same model number and same firmware, then just simply swap the controller boards and that should give you access to the data.
Also have a scout about online, i know there are some master-passwords for certain drives out there but i've had this same issue and in the end i had to buy a new drive.
If the data isn't important, i'd just cut your losses and buy a new drive.
Hope that helps.


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## gamer11200

I have no issue with the data. I can access it fine within the Toshiba Laptop since I know the password. Since I don't use the laptop much anymore, I wanted to shove the SSD into one of my desktops for a good speed boost









I don't want to buy a new one...guess I'll give Toshiba a shout and see if they can help me


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## Kramy

Maybe something like this will help?

https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase#Step_2a_-_Set_a_User_Password:

HDParm surely has an option to clear a drive password.

http://linux.die.net/man/8/hdparm

Just have to find the right command, then run it from SystemRescueCD.


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## Jim McNasty

Oooh i see, sorry i misunderstood!
There should be an option from within the bios to disable the hard drive password.
I'm not that familiar with Toshibas but i would imagine there will be an option in the security features of the bios that should allow you to remove and disable the password.


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## gamer11200

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Jim McNasty;14391112*
> Oooh i see, sorry i misunderstood!
> There should be an option from within the bios to disable the hard drive password.
> I'm not that familiar with Toshibas but i would imagine there will be an option in the security features of the bios that should allow you to remove and disable the password.


It's all good. There isn't an actual disable/enable option for the BIOS which caused me all this trouble. If there was, I would have easily disabled it. Bad on Toshiba's part for not adding a disable option when they have an enable option.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kramy;14389738*
> Maybe something like this will help?.


Well, it helped to an extent. When going through the steps, I was not able to attach a password due to an I/O error. This gave me a lightbulb moment. What if I go into the TOSHIBA bios with the SSD in and change the password to be NULL. I did that, and as I soon as I did it, I restarted, and it did not ask me for a password. Shove it into my rig and booted up Ubuntu. Decided to do a read benchmark from the Disk Utility (was reporting an I/O error prior) and it read









Although the suggestion didn't directly lead to me to solution, since they assisted in getting to the solution, just want to say thanks everyone!


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## Jim McNasty

No worries dude, glad you got it sorted out in the end


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## Kramy

Very nice detective work. Glad you got it working!


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## gamer11200

I'm glad too. Saved me about a hundred bucks from buying a new one


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## sethadjeiwiafe

Hey dude, can u help me with how u unlocked it?(details)


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