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"Security Freeze Locked" on Seagate ST380815AS

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goombawaho

goombawaho

MIS
Oct 7, 2007
6,597
US
So, all I wanted to do was take this drive out of an old computer and wipe it using Darik's Boot & Nuke. I put it into my utility computer (HP a1310n) on which I do this kind of thing. Boot & Nuke kept erroring out when I tried to wipe the drive. SEATools tells me that the drive is Security Freeze Locked. Running all these tools from the UBCD 5.1.1

I read this article and specifically this line: "The drive can be frozen by the BIOS, the OS, or possibly a software application. However, once it is frozen, it remains locked until a power cycle or hardware reset."

I tried turning off the PC and restating - same situation. One time, I let the PC start up and got to the Boot Options Menu, unplugged the power from the Seagate drive, plugged it back in and chose to boot from the UBCD in the optical drive. Ran SEATools and it's NOT locked this time. Rebooted again and still can't wipe it with Boot & Nuke from UBCD.

I don't know if I have two different things going on here (Boot & Nuke failure) AND the freeze locking or both the same. Is it the act of changing the computer the drive was in causing the locking? I'm pretty confused. There was NEVER a password needed for booting when the hard drive was in the old PC.

I'm going to put the drive back in the old computer and see what the status is. Before you ask me, "Why didn't you wipe it in the old computer, idiot?", it's because the optical drive had been harvested from the old clunker.

Two posts in two days - must be losing my mojo.
 
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I have a debug script that "rewrites" the software on the drive back to the day it came from the factory. The script runs off of a floppy, just like B&N. It is only 13 lines, so it's easy to use. Let me know if you want to try it, and I'll try to figure out how to attach it! Or is there some way to email it to you? Do you have a "throw away" email address?
 
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micker377 - thanks but that's not the point of the post. Getting it wiped is really almost academic - I want to understand what's going on with the situation.
 
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I wish you hadn't answered, now I'm not getting any other replies. Sad banana.
 
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Goom,

have you read the second link in the answer (on the link you provided) ( )...
He was able to boot into the frozen drive, once he had another version of XP booted (with the drive attached), and it seemed to unfreeze the drive... Plus it explains the why's and how's, from the Windows side...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"
 
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I read both links again and I can't understand what they're saying to prevent it. Based on what I have done, I don't think it should be locked.
0. There was no password required to boot to XP on the old computer/HDD in question
1. Booted the old computer/HDD to XP for the last time, then shut it down properly.
2. Put HDD in the utility computer and it's locked per SEATools
3. Put HDD back in the old computer without booting the OS - NOT locked per SEATools

So how does that have anything to do with the OS locking/unlocking it if I didn't boot to OS in between 2 & 3 and it's magically unlocked. Maybe I'm being stupid or not absorbing something in those links. Please spoon feed me.
 
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That's what I was thinking also, so what is locking it on the other computer? bios? shouldn't be.
 
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I don't see any options in the 2nd computer in the BIOS to do anything in terms of security on the HDD. Thanks to everyone for taking a poke at this one. Again, it's more of a learning opportunity than a crisis that I wipe the drive immediately.
 
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Ok, well I figured it out, or at least made it work. All done with the drive attached to the new computer: Turns out if I booted from the UBCD v. 5.1.1 with SEATools 1.10PH, it would say the drive was freeze locked every time. I booted to the older version (UBCD v. 4.1.1) with SEATools 1.09PH and it never said the drive was locked AND it allowed me to wipe with Darik's boot and nuke.

Now why this is, I haven't a clue. The bottom line is that it was nothing I did, nothing XP did when it last booted nor did changing computers it was in that caused this.
 
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Yeah, it's not logical otherwise. I think I'll try the standalone (boot from floppy) version of SEATools 1.10PH to see if the problem is reproduced outside of the UBCD, but I don't want to bore everyone with that.
 
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Well, I can't find the SEATools 1.10PH for DOS on the internet so I can't run it from a floppy to test. Confirmed that booting to UBCD 5.1.1 shows drive as LOCKED, then booted to UBCD 4.1.1 and NOT LOCKED. Booted to 5.1.1 again and it was locked, so something on that Linux version is causing the freeze lock.

As a boring, geeky aside, that hard drive (ST380815AS) was shown as an IDE drive in Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics even though it is a SATA drive. So the whole thing might be just a peculiar interaction with this particular drive and the UBCD kernel because I'm pretty sure I've wiped other Seagate SATA drives with the same UBCD version.

This thread would cause 98% of the population to glaze over.
 
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"This thread would cause 98% of the population to glaze over."
The heck with them... what about the 2% who would go crazy trying to satisfy a customer???
 
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Okay, if you can give me SEATools 1.10PH for DOS, I'll boot it up and check it out. Floppy version is okay. That will be the best test - removing the UBCD from the mix. I've spent way too much time on this but I've solved the wiping problem but not discovered the actual cause.
 
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I'll get on it when I'm over this cold...... Thanks for dropping it.
 
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Ok, I'm sure everyone has been waiting with baited breath for this update.

I booted into SeaTools for DOS 1.10PH from a floppy disk this time (thanks BadBigBen) and the drive was again Security Freeze Locked. So, it was nothing to do with the Ultimate Boot CD and that particular build of Linux. It must be an interaction between that particular version of SeaTools and that particular hard drive. Fun, fun, fun.

That hard drive is one of the earlier SATA drives so it must be a problem with the interaction of the drives SATA locking function and how SeaTools "reads" its status.

I hope this helps someone because I spent a lot of time on it and not just for my own edification.


 
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