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I just bought an Lenovo X1 Carbon (1st gen) via ebay with an unknown hard disk passwort (HDP) SSD. I can only enter the Bios when the SSD is unplugged, otherwise this icon shows up after the Lenovo-screen:

enter image description here

I havent found much on the internet about a HDP (hard disk password), this is the only site I found the image at all: http://www.ja.axxs.net/read_this_first!.htm The only solution suggested there is to replace the entire SSD. As with the X1C1 it requires an adapter to plugin a new drive, which is shipped from Asia in 1-2 months. Also, such adapter only works for a new mSata/m.2 SSD to be plugged into the notebook, not to plugin the locked SSD into another board.

I already setup a Unetbootin USB drive and read about hdparm, however this requires a hot-pluggable SSD. It seems thet this notebook doesnt support this (no option for this, AHCI is enabled) as when plugging the SSD in a running Unetbnootin-USB-Ubuntu system, it isnt recognized (fdisk -l only shows the usb stick). Also changed the bootorder to boot from the USB first, but with the SSD in, the icon shows up again.

Is there a way to format the SSD?

Edit:

I found this blogpost where with an password you could unlock the ssd within another pc.

I also checked some default master-passwords for the ssd (sandisk sd5sg2-256g-1052e) 'sandisk123', 'ssd123' and 'test' without any luck.

nonsensation
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    Did you contact the seller and ask for the password? – Attie Mar 15 '18 at 10:19
  • Did you remove the disk (as recommended by the linked page) to see if any other passwords are required? – Attie Mar 15 '18 at 10:21
  • But you wrote that you can enter the BIOS? Why would you need a hot pluggable HDD to use hdparm? Did you try to access the disc on another system? – Seth Mar 15 '18 at 11:40
  • @Seth I can enter the Bios when the SSD is unplugged, but then I cant format the SSD because it isn't recognized in Ubuntu (atleast with `fdisk`, I guess hot-plugging isnt available). When its plugged in, it wont boot from the Unetbootin USB, i immediately get the icon. I already changed the boot-order to USB at first, but this denst have had anny effect. I also cannot plugin the SSD into another PC as the X1C1 SSD got a nonstandard connector. – nonsensation Mar 15 '18 at 11:51
  • So you did plug in the drive after booting Ubuntu? To make it show up, try opening a terminal, run `sudo -s` to become root, then `echo '- - -' > /sys/class/scsi_host/host0/scan` to force it to look for the new drive. – psusi Mar 15 '18 at 16:34
  • @psusi Nothing happens. Nothing print to the terminal, and no new drive or similarappeared in the filesystem/desktop – nonsensation Mar 15 '18 at 17:25
  • @nonsensation, it won't appear on the desktop, but should show up in `lsblk` or `dmesg` that the drive was found. You also might have multiple host controllers in which case you may need to use host1, host2, etc instead of host0. – psusi Mar 15 '18 at 17:27
  • @psusi Thanks. This shows only the loop0 and sda1 as my USB drive, the ssd isnt detected. The only option seems to hot-plug the ssd, as mentioned [here](http://jbeekman.nl/blog/2015/03/lenovo-thinkpad-hdd-password/#isso-10) the password is promted before starting up the bios at all. – nonsensation Mar 15 '18 at 17:37
  • Yes, but after plugging it in, it *should* show up.. especially after running that command. – psusi Mar 15 '18 at 17:49
  • @psusi well, the SSD itself is heated up.. Maybe it is the Lenovo itself doesnt support hot-plugging the SSD at all? – nonsensation Mar 15 '18 at 17:52
  • All SATA controllers support hot plugging, even if they don't provide the notification that makes them auto detect. Hence the command to force the scan. – psusi Mar 22 '18 at 00:21
  • Incase you hsvent noticed, it is hardware encrypted. It wont talk to u unless with a password – Kleysley May 18 '22 at 15:44

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This is Lenovos HDD encryption feature. It doesnt encryipt the contents of a disk, but it makes it so the drive controller will refuse to do anything unless you enter the password. That means, it wont show up in most recovery tools. The data is still in cleartext on the disk, but ut will refuse to talk to the computer before it gets its password.

Kleysley
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