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I'm trying to fix a problem for a friend who's hard disk mysteriously became password protected after a Windows crash. Worse than that, it's somehow set to the maximum security mode i.e you can't reset the password with a master password you need the user password (which obviously no one knows, since none was set). The good thing is the data isn't particularly important. In theory, the master password is unchanged (word 92 is 0xFFFE) so I should be able to use SECURITY ERASE PREPARE and SECURITY ERASE UNIT to erase and recover the disk without having to go through the rigamole of trying to convince Seagate that I/my friend didn't set a user password and it happened unexpectedly. But before I do that, I'm just wondering if anyone has any ideas I've missed. I've already tried mhdd to try various default passwords like "Seagate" +25 spaces but not surprisingly these don't work. I'm planning to try hddparm since I don't like the feedback I'm getting from mhdd, I'm not sure if it's working and I can't seem to work out how to do a full ID (I can with hddparm Windows but I'm having problems with that and there's no way I'm using it to erase so I'm getting a Linux recover CD). But that seems to be my last option. From what I can tell, it's difficult to recover via software only when security level is maximum, for example some expensive commercial utility (A-TT repair station 4.3) is unable to. And I've read that even attaching another controller board is pointless since the password data is stored somewhere on the HDD cylinder i.e. you need a special controller board which will ignore the password setting. Obviously anything like professional recovery companies, special tools etc are not under consideration since as I said, the data isn't important. Also, has anyone come across something like this before? I found this [1] and my friend said he came across one or two other people describing similar problems but it definitely seems a weird thing to happen. BTW, in case your wondering, I'm sure my friend is telling the truth and this really is how things happened. There is a slight possibility it's a virus but I haven't found anything like that and this happened in late March. N.B. I'm referring to a HDD ATA password as described at AT Attachment not a bios password or anything else. Nil Einne (talk) 00:05, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
What is the difference between bypassing my cache brower and refreshing? What does it do differently? Basketball110 My story/Tell me yours 00:52, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi. I am formatting a mathematical postulation, in the field of geometry. To help in my work, I need a method of constructing geometrical shapes down to an infinite point, and perfect circles (no constructed edges). Would the expertise present know anything about software that might help me? 3D modelling seen top-down (Gmax, Sketchup, etc) will not function because their circles are constructed by use of edges. Something akin to the .svg format might help, but I don't think any photoshop/paintshop program has much in the ways of helping geometrical shape construction. Perhaps a special plugin. Thanks in advance. Scaller (talk) 09:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
The iMac G5 I use at work has a bad tendency to emit electric currents through its headphone/line-out jack. While the stock iPod earbuds I usually use with it seem to insulate from this well enough, I get shocked something fierce when I try plugging in a pair of Sennheiser canalphones. Do the white Intel iMacs suffer from the same issue? (This doesn't seem to happen with the new aluminium iMacs; I plugged the Sennheisers into one of those and didn't get shocked at all.) --Lumina83 (talk) 10:36, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
...that, um, doesn't sound either safe or like it is working correctly? That definitely sounds non-standard to me. You might want to have that looked at. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 12:40, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Is there some central repository/directory of open source libraries for Java akin to Perl's CPAN (or even PHP's PEAR?) Or just good starting points for finding what's out there? Donald Hosek (talk) 17:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I installed Ubuntu a while ago on my Vista machine, and it worked like a dream, except for one problem: my inbedded wifi didn't work, so to get Internet on Ubuntu I had to sit in a totally different room from where I usually use the laptop using the ethernet cable. So, I have decided to remove it from my hard drive, because it is taking up too much space on my hard drive and I no longer use it. I have the Ubuntu Live CD, but have no idea how to uninstall it and get my partitions back to normal so I can use the 10GB I gave to it for my Windows PC. Can anyone help?--ChokinBako (talk) 20:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC)