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I want to use the hardware encryption of my Samsung Evo 850 SSD. I understood that I will have to set an ATA password in the BIOS.

What happens if I forget the password (apart from the data loss) ? Is the drive permanently bricked or can I still issue an erase command that will restore it to factory state ?

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  • Resetting the ata password is the same as issuing a secure erase. Reformat drive and use again – Mattias Åslund Apr 06 '16 at 17:27
  • But I have an old ATA password-locked HDD, and the BIOS won't let me boot without the password when it's plugged in. I can't even go into the UEFI setup, so I can't issue a secure erase command. Also, secure erase and formatting are completely different things (ATA security is managed by the drive's firmware). – Hey Apr 06 '16 at 17:29

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In this question, I succeeded in resetting an HDD, but only with the drive's user password. Assuming ATA security works the same on SSDs, the answer to this question seems to be no : the firmware will not work without the password.

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