There are a lot of 400GB SATA hard drives in the freeshop which seem to have been removed from some sort of disk shelf.

Some of them are locked and need to be unlocked before they can be used. See below!

3ware 9500 HDD ATA-Unlock process and password

Question:

How can I Unlock a drive that was used On a 9500s? Answer:

I was Using my drives On a 9500S controller. Then I Put the drives On an 8506 controller. The... If you attached disk drives To a 3ware 9500S controller, the drives will be locked unless:

1. You have a file System On the array And you had a clean shut down.

2. You highlight the array from within the 9500S BIOS And press r (For remove).

3. You Delete the array (note: deleting the array will Erase Any Data On the array).

When a drive Is locked, you won't be able to use it on another controller (e.g. 8506), or a motherboard ATA controller. You can use these drives with 3ware 9550SX(U), 9590SE, 9650SE and 9690SA controllers. 3ware 9550SX(U), 9590SE, 9650SE and 9690SA controllers can be used to unlock these drives. Connect any locked drive to a 3ware 9550SX(U), 9590SE, 9650SE or 9690SA controller and power the system on. The drive(s) will become unlocked.

You can also used the attached Windows Or Linux utility To Unlock drives that were locked With the 9500S If you attach the drives To an 8500 Or 8506 controller.

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1.) Boot a floppy Or CD containing HDAT2 (http://www.hdat2.com/). HDAT2 Is also included in the UBCD (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/)

2.) Connect locked drive To Motherboard SATA connector (connecting before boot may work Or Not - some BIOS versions Do Not work well With locked drives)

3.) Launch HDAT2

4.) Select the drive in "Device List" Screen

5.) Select "Security Menu"

6.) Select "Unlock device" (This combines Unlock And DISABLE PASSWORD)

7.) Type 'I' to select "Identifier:"Master

8.) Type 'F' once to select "Fill char: "0x00. Do NOT enter a Password.

9.) Type 'S' to unlock device.

The recent version of my Windows port of hdparm (http://hdparm-win32.dyndns.org/hdparm/) can also be used If device driver supports ATA_PASS_THROUGH:

1.) Boot Windows

2.) Connect locked drive To Motherboard SATA connector

3.) In Device Manager Select "Find new hardware".

4.) Run hdparm With empty ("") Master PW To Unlock drive:

 hdparm --security-disable "" /dev/hdX\

Both HDAT2 (DOS, UBCD) Or hdparm (On Linux And Windows) also work To Unlock a drive With the 3wareUserPassword.

Important note: It Is required To fill the 3wareUserPassword With blanks To max length (32). If it Is filled With null bytes (default For HDAT2 And hdparm), unlocking the drive does Not work.

Therefore, you have To Do the following To Unlock (Remaining steps As above):

HDAT2:

7.) Do Not Type 'I' and leave "Identifier: "User

8.) Type 'F' twice to select "Fill char: ' '". Enter the Password.

hdparm:

4.) Run hdparm With blank filled user PW To Unlock drive:

hdparm --security-disable "3wareUserPassword               " --user-master u /dev/hdx\