My friend have acquired a cheap Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600. But the hard drive is locked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA#HDD_passwords_and_security Well, I was not aware of internal password in hard drive firmware before that.
Anyway, the ACPI BIOS in that, is not collaborating. If you don't know the hard disk password, it won't boot... and close computer after 3 failed tries.
I have tried to connect the hard drive, while OS was in grub, but then, neither DOS or Linux seems to see the hard disk... (no /dev/sda ... program to remove the password in DOS does not able to see the Hard disk). Quite like when you disable the hard drive in BIOS (which I never understood how it works.
So I thought about flashing the laptop with Coreboot/Seabios... which I never did (was not seeing much benefit for the risk). But this time, the possibility to boot the OS then used hdparm or MHDD to secure erase (low-level format) [I believe the password is not necessary for that] seems to make it worth to try.
The hardware seems to be Intel Pentium 3, ICH2, i830 chipset.
Do you think Seabios would allowed to boot OS with locked drive if I don't know the password? Does this looks like the hardware would be supported by the Seabios (I can give more info on the hardware... because Laptop works well without the hard disk).
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Paul Dufresne