My brother died and left an HDD locked Acer Aspire One D250

I'm hoping someone can help - my brother passed away suddenly and unexpectedly 2 weeks ago and in the process of sorting through his effects I have come across his Acer Aspire One D250 netbook. I have determined that he kept meticulous records on this machine for tax purposes and carried it with him always. He was obviously guarding it closely because he enabled both the BIOS password and the HDD password. I have been able to clear the BIOS but am now stopped at the HDD password. I came across the description below on this forum and have attempted the first section involving HDD_PW.EXE but to no avail. I have not been able to attempt the second section UNLOCKHD.EXE because I cannot find the UNLOCKHD.EXE program. As you know there is no CD/DVD drive on an Aspire One D250 but I have been able to create a DOS bootable flash drive.

When the machine is turned on and begins POST it goes straight to HARDDISKSECURITY PRIMARY MASTER WDC WD 1600BEVT-(the rest of the hard drive model number)LOCK.

I press Enter and it says:

PLEASE INPUT PASSWORD FOR WDC WD1600BEVT-(the rest of the hard drive model number).

of course I don't have the password so I go through this two more times and then it goes to a choice of

ENTER UNLOCK PASSWORD
CONTINUE SYSTEM RESUME

If I choose ENTER UNLOCK PASSWORD it goes to:

ENTER UNLOCK PASSWORD (KEY:63041378)

which of course I don't have so it goes through this 2 more times and then it says something like:

PASSWORD FAILED

If I choose CONTINUE SYSTEM RESUME I can then boot to the bootable flash drive.

I am able to get into BIOS and there I can confirm it says HDD PASSWORD - SET

Does anyone know where I can get UNLOCKHD.EXE or have some other suggestion other than 'forget it - you will never recover the data on the hard drive even if yo send it into a technician."

Since it provides an UNLOCK KEY there must be an algorithm that can translate that into a password.


Aspire one Service Guide he say this:
Remove HDD/BIOS Utility
This section provide you with removing HDD/BIOS method:
Remove HDD Password:
• If you key in wrong HDD password three times, Hdd password error code displays. See the image below.
To reset the HDD password, run HDD_PW.EXE as follows:
1. Key in hdd_pw 15494 0
2. Press 2.
3. Select one upper-case string from the list.
4. Reboot system and key in the selected string (0KJFN42 or UVEIQ96) on the HDD User
Password screen.

(Image extraction and uploading to here too much of a pain in the neck, sorry.)

Another version of the Service Guide he say this:
Remove HDD/BIOS Password Utility
This section provide you with removing HDD/BIOS method:
Remove HDD Password:
• If you key in wrong HDD password three times, Hdd password error code displays. See the image below.
To reset the HDD password, perform the following steps:
1. Run UNLOCKHD.EXE from a DOS prompt
2. Enter the code supplied by the system (76776356 in the example).
3. Press <Enter>.
4. The unlock program displays an unlock code (69654998 in the example).
5. Reboot system and key in the displayed string to unlock the HDD.

 

Re: My brother died and left an HDD locked Acer Aspire One D

http://www.box.net/shared/ueik1azdxt

 

Re: My brother died and left an HDD locked Acer Aspire One D

to Orbting234 - Thank you so much for your response - it worked perfectly and I was able to clear the password on the hard drive and gain access. You have done a good deed and allowed me and my family to gain some comfort knowing that we will be able to settle my brother's affairs using his own records.

Thanks again so much!

 

Re: My brother died and left an HDD locked Acer Aspire One D

We've had endless requests for bypassing system security measures that are in place to prevent people using stolen computers. Believe me, we've seen ALL the excuses there are. You're not the first person who's "brother died".

If you want the hard drive unlocked, give it back to the person you stole it from, they'll unlock it as they see fit.

Also READ THE FORUM RULES, DO NOT DOUBLE POST.

Topic Locked.