[LinuxBIOS] Hard drive passwords

[Peter Stuge]

On Tue, Aug 14, 2007 at 02:12:28PM +0200, Uwe Hermann wrote:
> > Note that some laptop hard drives have password protection. LB does
> > not currently offer any way to enter the password for such drives,
> > but it will be simple enough to add that once there is support for
> > the laptop itself.
> 
> I think he was talking about the "BIOS password" option, not a hard
> drive password. However, that's an interesting question, too. Is
> there public documentation about this type of hard drive password
> mechanism?

Yes, it's part of ATA-6 or so.


> Can we easily implement such a feature?

It's pretty easy to implement. Commands should be sent blind to the
hard drive, to unlock it, only then will it actually start responding
on the bus. Usually you get three tries, before the drive starts
ignoring you completely until power down.


//Peter