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> Does this apply only to original drives, or also to installed Toshiba, > etc. drives? How does IBM do it? A quick glance at the technical specs for the IBM drives (see www.storage.ibm.com/techsup.htm) suggests that this functionality is implemented at the IDE command level. Among commands like "Read Buffer", "Seek" and "Writer Buffer" are "Set Password", "Disable Password" and "Unlock". This suggests that a brute-force password guesser would have to be working at the device driver level (or maybe even lower, right at the IDE controller level). I have no idea whether or not these password commands are an industry standard; I would guess so, but that's just that: a guess. The effectiveness of a brute force attack could be blunted a little if the device inserts an artificial delay when responding to failed unlock requests. I have no idea if this technique is implemented in the IBM drives, though. -- Tim Tyhurst tim@excelsior.com