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October 21st, 2024 00:19

G5 5090 added a password to a disk that didn't finished the data wipe process

Dell G5 5090

Dell G5 5090

Before someone starts with the "you have put a password" finger pointing on the disk as I saw on other topics from the same matter no, I didn't. Dell BIOS did.

I've received this PC as a donation, and since the previous owner had a Windows install, I had to do the decent thing which is, make a Data Wipe from Dell BIOS before installing Linux on it.

However, due to a power outage, the data wipe didn't concluded and now a Password is being asked for that disk: "Hard-drive SN-BF97, the system internal HDD-0, is protected by a password authentication system..."

Now the HDD is not operational at all, and If I boot a Linux liveusb to try to format I get constant I/O Errors using `fdisk`.

What is up with this feature of adding automatically passwords to disks that pass through a data wipe? How to remove it since the warranty of this computer is long gone(3y) ?

10 Elder

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45.2K Posts

October 21st, 2024 17:34

You can try using DBAN (free) to wipe the drive.  Good instructions to create a bootable USB stick with DBAN are here.

Plug the DBAN USB into this PC with power off. Then power on and tap F12 when you see the Dell screen. Select the option to boot from USB, and run DBAN. 

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