Suddenly my laptop Hard Drive has a password?

[lister]

I have 2 laptops - the hard drive for one of them is now suddenly asking me for a password.

I never set any password on it -

The only explanation I have is this:

1. I set the BIOS password on one laptop (which has a dual boot)
2. I made a backup image of the Windows OS on an external drive using that dual-booted machine
3. I then installed that backed-up image on the other harddrive using the same machine - and that caused the password....

Bottom line, I don't get much information online due to people being cautious to help remove passwords due to theft but - if there is an obvious thing please let me know b/c this Hard drive has now become a paperweight....

Thanks!!

 

[alphanumeric]

If you don't care about the DATA on the drive try this. Delete all partitions, create new ones, and format the drive. Then see if its usable again. Some laptop BIOS will let you set a password to the hard drive, that you have to enter before the OS will load. I thought that was stored in the BIOS but maybe in this case it actually does something to the hard drive. If it just modifies the boot sector wiping the partition should clear it, hopefully anyway.

EDIT: Another option would be to go to the drive manufacturers web site and look for a utility to restore the drive to factory condition. Sometimes referred to as low level formating or zeroing the drive.

 

[Wrench97]

What Brand and Model Laptop?
Toshiba had an issue with Bios set passwords being mysteriously set and a Bios update to prevent it.