Problem with HDD/bios password on a Dell C610 \ VOGONS

Problem with HDD/bios password on a Dell C610

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First post, by DenkoRetro

Posted on 2023-03-31, 23:12

DenkoRetro Offline

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Hi, I just bought an old Dell C610 for some retrogaming. But when booting it up I get this message:
https://ibb.co/GpmnSR3

I've tried to get the password using this site: https://bios-pw.org/

As you can see in my picture it says *****11VHED-595B - but on the HDD (I took it out from the laptop and had a look) it's says "UNUB11VHED", so 1 letter is missing?

Thanks in advance!

Reply 1 of 4, by weedeewee

Posted on 2023-04-01, 00:36

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From you posted image it's clear the hard disk has a password set, I'm fairly certain that that website is for the bios password only.
to re-use the hard drive you can boot from a linux live cd and do a secure disk erase.
This should remove the harddrive password and will remove all data present on the hard drive.

Another choice is to replace the harddrive with one that isn't password protected.

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Reply 2 of 4, by DenkoRetro

Posted on 2023-04-01, 12:04

DenkoRetro Offline

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weedeewee wrote on 2023-04-01, 00:36:
From you posted image it's clear the hard disk has a password set, I'm fairly certain that that website is for the bios password […]
Show full quote

From you posted image it's clear the hard disk has a password set, I'm fairly certain that that website is for the bios password only.
to re-use the hard drive you can boot from a linux live cd and do a secure disk erase.
This should remove the harddrive password and will remove all data present on the hard drive.

Another choice is to replace the harddrive with one that isn't password protected.

I've tried with that but no luck. Linux don't seem to see the drive at all.

Reply 3 of 4, by Ryccardo

Posted on 2023-04-01, 16:58

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weedeewee wrote on 2023-04-01, 00:36:

to re-use the hard drive you can boot from a linux live cd and do a secure disk erase.
This should remove the harddrive password and will remove all data present on the hard drive.

Unfortunately you need the password to do that with ATA security (a problem solved in the SD Card equivalent... which basically only Symbian fully supports), you'd need to hope the disk has a factory default master password and that it wasn't changed, or that there's a bypass known for that model (see http://www.os2museum.com/wp/seagate-serial-talk/ and HDDGuru) that doesn't require multi-thousand-dollar PC3000 software...

Reply 4 of 4, by Jose _1988

Posted on 2023-04-30, 14:27

Jose _1988 Offline

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I bought a Latitude C610 with password in BIOS and HDD.

I got the BIOS password on the same website, and the hard drive password, I deleted it (without losing data and in a second), connecting the hard drive to an old pc that doesn't allow a drive password (in my case an IBM P330-P90) with an MS-DOS floppy disk with the ZU (Zong Unlock) program.

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