Old X200s Hard Drive not working with USB enclosure.

Hi,

I just recently upgraded my X200s hard drive, and I'm trying to access the old drive with an USB enclosure. However, when I try to, the drive spins, and I can see the indicator light on the enclosure light up, but, I can't detect the drive in Windows Explorer or Computer Management.

When I put the old hard drive back in the X200s, it boots and works without issues.

I've also tried more than one drive enclosure with the old hard drive without success.

Then it occurred to me that I did have the Bios Hard Drive Password set on my old drive. Could this be preventing my Old drive from being detected in the enclosure by another computer?

Is there a simple way of disabling the Hard Drive Password? Perhaps an utility or something?

As a last resort, I could just install the old drive on my X200s, disable the Bios HD password, and see if that works. But as my new drive has a HD password enabled as well, I just wanted to avoid any potential problems with the new drive, especially if there was an easier way.

Any suggestions is appreciated.

Thanks!

 

you have to remove the hd password from the bios menu before you can get the hdd to work externally.

 

Thanks a bunch for getting back to me.

That's what I feared

I'll give it a try, and thanks again!

 

Yep, this is actually a feature! What good would a BIOS password protecting your data be if you could just pop the drive into an enclosure to get around it? A BIOS boot password for the disk won't stop anyone truly determined to get at your data, but it will stop a common laptop thief from getting to your files easily.

 

Yeah, it's pretty impressive how that works. It's a great feature indeed, and I'm glad I have it enabled. It's just a bit inconvenient for me right now

Thanks for getting back to me!

 

*** Status Update ***

I reinstalled the old drive and it went off without a hitch.

One very interesting note is the the HD password seems to be stored 100% on the hard drive itself. After I inserted the old drive, removed the HD Password, and reinstalled the new drive, the bios prompted me for the HD Password on the new drive... so I didn't have to re-enter it.

I was thinking that he Bios would remember that the HD Password was most recently cleared (for me old drive), but, I guess it extracts the HD Password info directly from the drive itself.

Very impressive indeed...

Thanks for everyone's help!