Re: How to perform SECURITY ERASE on a SEC4 (security enabled/locked) PATA drive ?

[Mark Lord <kernel@teksavvy.com>]

On 11-04-27 04:15 PM, Maciej Grela wrote:
> Hi ata gurus,
> 
> I have a 2.5'' PATA drive with security enabled and unknown password.
> I'd like to erase that disk and use it. I've been trying to apply the
> instructions at the libata wiki:
> https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase but they cover
> only the scenario in which the drive doesn't have security enabled
> before we start the procedure. In my case this approach doesn't work
> because I cannot set the password (step 3a):

First, update your hdparm to hdparm-9.37 from sourceforge.
Distros seem to continue to ship old versions for some weird reason,
and there have been lots of improvements since the 2008 copy they use.

Then, try this:


hdparm --security-set-pass NULL /dev/sdx
hdparm --security-erase NULL /dev/sdx


Cheers
-ml