SSD drive password

[PureQuaternion]

Hi all-

A friend of mine recently gave me an old SATA-2 SSD that I'm going to put into an old laptop. However, he forgot to remove his drive password. My motherboard has no option to set (and hence to remove) a drive password. Is there any utility I can use to remove it? I know the password, so that's not the issue.

It's an Intel SSD.

If not, no biggie: I can just send it back to him to unlock.

Thanks!

 

[mwroobel]

Do you need the data on it? You can always just use the intel ssd toolbox app to do a secure erase

 

[PureQuaternion]

That was actually the first thing I tried, but I kept getting an error about not being able to write to the last block of the device. (Same error, by the way, if I tried formatting it in OS X instead).

I suppose it's possible the drive is dead, but BIOS/Disk Utility correctly recognizes the drive info (maker, etc.) but none of the data on it (because of the password, I presume).

 

[Ivan_Only]

I bet it is encrypted and there is no way around it except getting his password.

 

[Liger88]

I bet it is encrypted and there is no way around it except getting his password.

and this is why I'll never do FDE lol. In most cases I think you can still reformat it, just impossible to recover the data. Just doing some googlefu it appears you're completely SOL and that the drive is a paperweight at this point as not even Intel can do anything for you. Appears that feature is specifically meant for certain fields, not really consumer oriented and in that case it's a great feature.

 

[PureQuaternion]

and this is why I'll never do FDE lol. In most cases I think you can still reformat it, just impossible to recover the data. Just doing some googlefu it appears you're completely SOL and that the drive is a paperweight at this point as not even Intel can do anything for you. Appears that feature is specifically meant for certain fields, not really consumer oriented and in that case it's a great feature.

Yea, this is what I suspected through my Googling also. I do actually have the password, but no way to input it. The only solution thus far that works is to just send him the drive back, have him un-password it, and send it back. $10 in postage won't kill me but it is a minor inconvenience!

Thanks for all the comments.