hdparm to unlock/wipe hdd device settings

[vialentvia]

I have three Seagate HD Pipeline 2TB drives and one Hitachi 2TB that I wish to use for a RAID level storage. They were obtained from DVR boxes.

I do not care about any data on them.

Initially they would not spin up unless hot swapped from a DVR. I fixed this with the hdparm -s command.

It looks to me that the drive is locked/frozen with a password.

I do not care a bit about any data or parameters on these HDDs. I simply want them to be restored to the way they would come if shipped to a consumer.

Is there anything else I should try to force this security to reset? If it is data destructive, that is perfectly fine.

Thank you in advance!

 

[Pinhedd]

We cannot help you bypass passwords, including passwords on hard drives.

Furthermore, most new hard drives cannot be issued ATA commands without the password being supplied first.

 

[vialentvia]

So this site is unwilling to help me although I personally own the drives and have no interest in their contents? OK. I'll go elsewhere. I could understand your stance if someone was trying to break into and compromise a secure drive. I just want to be able to use it. That's it.

I wonder if flashing firmware would help? I have no idea if they set a custom firmware over what Seagate and Hitachi shipped them with.

 

[Pinhedd]

So this site is unwilling to help me although I personally own the drives and have no interest in their contents? OK. I'll go elsewhere. I could understand your stance if someone was trying to break into and compromise a secure drive. I just want to be able to use it. That's it.

I wonder if flashing firmware would help? I have no idea if they set a custom firmware over what Seagate and Hitachi shipped them with.

It's site policy to not help bypass security measures because we have no way at all to verify ownership. It's unfortunate that we have to have such a policy, but we get a lot of people who concoct elaborate stories to try and guilt us into helping them break into stolen laptops.

Flashing the firmware won't help as that would first require unlocking the hard drive controller, which requires entering the password.

 

[vialentvia]

That's fine. I understand. Thank you for your replies.

 

[Pinhedd]

That's fine. I understand. Thank you for your replies.

I can suggest that you contact the manufacturers though. The hard disks found in PVRs/DVRs are often OEM models which may contain service backdoors. They may be able to help you out.