What exactly is a hard drive password?

Lenovo BIOS description isn't very helpful. It just says that it prevents unauthorized users from accessing your hard drive. Does it set a password on your hard drive so that if your laptop ever gets stolen, the thief can't steal your data by removing the hard drive?

 

Exactly.

 

A laptop password is something that kicks in during the BIOS run of the laptop. I think there is a way to interrupt the bootup and set that BIOS hard disk password. Try hitting F8? during bootup to get into the BIOS configuration screen. You can then set the hard disk password there.

It's just an additional level of protection so that you get a password check during bootup as well as during Windows login.

 

Lets say you removed the ThinkPad hard drive and attached it to a USB hard drive adapter and then plugged it into another computer's USB port. Will it prompt for a password, or will it just not allow access to the hard drive unless the password is disabled?

 

per this page:

http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/security/userauth.html

Hard drive
The hard drive is controlled by the Hard Drive Password. After the Power On Password is entered, the person at the keyboard must be able to enter the Hard Drive Password, otherwise the disk drive will not spin up for use. Like the Power On Password, the Hard Drive Password is set in the BIOS configuration screen

 

Alright, but does it prevent someone from removing the hard drive and then using a hard drive to desktop adapter and get the data that way?

 

Why are you asking?

 

I suspect the hard drive password is stored at the BIOS level. Meaning you hit it first before engaging the hard drive. So even if you remove the hard drive and hook up a USB drive, it will still ask for a password. But you can try it out.

 

I'm paranoid tonight.

 

The password gets hard-coded into the HDD. At least, with my HDD.
I tried connecting it via USB, and windows just didn't recognise it, and became slow and buggy, as if it was trying to access the locked HDD, but wasn't able to bypass the security of the HDD.

Normally, manufacturers and service personnel have the proper tools to unlock a HDD. Well, it is no tool, just a FDD with the HDD password reset thing on it.

 

Harddisk password is also known as ATA-lock password. It is part of the ATA protocol and prevents your drive from working beyond the password prompt, if the incorrect password is entered.

Older (and not so good) implementations of ATA-lock passwords could be bypassed by custom software that manipulated the drive firmware. Some data recovery service providers are able to unlock certain ATA-locked hard drives.

As Andy stated, the drive manufacturer is able to unlock ATA-locked drives. Also, some data recovery service companies can remove the platters from the drive and manually read the contents on them.

 

I don't know anything about the harddrive password. But there is a way to protect your data from the situation were someone takes your harddrive out and uses another computer to access it, and that would be the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip on the motherboard of every thinkpad.

Basically the TPM chip stores the encryption keys used to encrypt the harddrive. No one can access your data without using your specific thinkpad and knowing your password.

for more info on TPM chieck out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module

https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/faq/

 

in BIOS it lets you choose user or administrator passwords for the HD. Does it make a diff which one you choose? Will someone who pulls out your HD be able to see the contents if you choose "user"?

 

Good luck in your quest for security. This is a problem that I currently dont have, for I am sure nobody is interested in hacking my secret recipe of adding one can of "Hormel Roast Beef" to "Campbell's Chunky Sirloin Soup" for that "Melt in your mouth, like mama used to make, down home goodness" that can only be accomplished by warming up those canned goods with the heat from your NVS140m.

 

Truecrypt is free, open source and works with other Windows OS:es than Vista and Bitlocker and you get the same protection i.e. someone takes out your hard drive and uses another computer to access it, he will not be able to do so without breaking the encryption.

 

new question but on the same page:
so if my laptop gets stolen, the thief removes the orginial hd, puts in a new hd;i want to make it so the laptop won't use the new hd w/o a password.
bios pw?