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Is there a way to clear the lock from Windows on SSD hard drive?

L

lovecd

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 14, 2022
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Got an old windows laptop from auction side with a small amount of money, basically want to use its parts on my MacBook Pro laptop. However, the SSD comes with this laptop has "wave security protection" and won't allow me to format or partition it, put it into an external case closure and try to do the above operations on my other laptops, no luck and it simply failed (the SSD hard drive itself is in good working condition). Any thoughts how to remove that "lock" or clear it?

Thanks,
 
In all honesty, that sounds like an enterprise-level security feature. Since you bought it from an auction, it's likely it was originally a company-owned device that was never properly wiped. That SSD might be permanently unusable unless the original owner removes it from their systems.
 
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dmccloud said:
In all honesty, that sounds like an enterprise-level security feature. Since you bought it from an auction, it's likely it was originally a company-owned device that was never properly wiped. That SSD might be permanently unusable unless the original owner removes it from their systems.
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Good to know, thanks!
 
Where are you seeing this "wave security protection"? Can you give a screenshot or something? I can only find two references to its existence: this thread, and the one you made on iFixit.
 
Nermal said:
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Where are you seeing this "wave security protection"? Can you give a screenshot or something? I can only find two references to its existence: this thread, and the one you made on iFixit.
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Nermal said:
Where are you seeing this "wave security protection"? Can you give a screenshot or something? I can only find two references to its existence: this thread, and the one you made on iFixit.
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Attached some pictures there, the one in "blue color" is displayed after turning on, the 2nd and 3rd one is booted into hard drive format page through windows 10 usb bootable media.
 
That is a hardware level feature from what I've been reading. What model and brand of SSD?
 
You might have some luck with Samsung's software and firmware here. There are guides like this that cover the process for some drives. Your mileage may significantly vary though
 
LinMac said:
You might have some luck with Samsung's software and firmware here. There are guides like this that cover the process for some drives. Your mileage may significantly vary though
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Thanks, will try it tonight and give update here.
 
You can always try mounting the disk to a machine, externally, then boot the machine using a Linux recovery disto. Then you can do a complete null wipe and go from there. Hope this helps
 
GuyDouche said:
You can always try mounting the disk to a machine, externally, then boot the machine using a Linux recovery disto. Then you can do a complete null wipe and go from there. Hope this helps
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Does it require Linux system to be installed on my laptop first?
 
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Check this? Looks like encryption...which may mean you are done.

This should have been removed by the previous institution. Possibly it was not decommissioned correctly, or it was stolen.

- Wave Trusted Drive is a type of hard drive security feature that provides full disk encryption (FDE).
- It was originally coined by Seagate but is now an industry term for all hard drives that can be fully encrypted.
- FDE hard drive security features are always on and act as a normal hard drive until the security policies are implemented.
- Wave Trusted Drive Manager is the encryption software used for Wave Trusted Drives.
- It requires an FDE drive to secure the entire disk.
- Software encryption mechanisms like Windows BitLocker can be used to encrypt volumes on non-FDE drives, but not the operating system bootstrap (boot sector) of the hard drive.
- To gain access to the contents of a fully encrypted hard drive by Wave Trusted Drive Manager, preboot authentication is used.
- Preboot authentication setup is handled by the Wave software within DDPA\DCPSM on client computers using DDPA.
- Wave Trusted Drive Manager encryption software cannot be used on a non-FDE hard drive to secure the entire disk.
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I'd be a little surprised if the drive couldn't be wiped and reused, even if it's using disk encryption. The Samsung Magician utility has a way of doing a secure erase using the serial number written on the device itself. You'll never be able to get the data off the drive, but it sounds like you don't want that anyway. The rest of the machine should be usable after swapping the drive out, though.

I'd question if it's worth trying to salvage a fairly old 256G SATA SSD, though. You can get a new one for under $20.
 
bearda said:
I'd be a little surprised if the drive couldn't be wiped and reused, even if it's using disk encryption. The Samsung Magician utility has a way of doing a secure erase using the serial number written on the device itself. You'll never be able to get the data off the drive, but it sounds like you don't want that anyway. The rest of the machine should be usable after swapping the drive out, though.

I'd question if it's worth trying to salvage a fairly old 256G SATA SSD, though. You can get a new one for under $20.
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Yeah, that's true. It's not a big deal to me.
 
I am surprised to see such a seemingly firmware-level lock of the drive, cause encrypting data alone should not cause the drive to not be recognised or formatted after the effect. Linux might have some luck as mentioned above, or some other third party disk format software like DiskGenius (paid) and EaseUS Partition Master (paid) that can manipulate the drive more freely than built in utilities in Windows and macOS.
 
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lovecd said:
Does it require Linux system to be installed on my laptop first?
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You can. There are Linux disto’s that you can install onto a flash drive, then boot the computer to run off said flash drive. A utility such as RuFus can do that, distorts such as HirensPE or UBCD, or any other security or recovery distro will work
 
Shirasaki said:
I am surprised to see such a seemingly firmware-level lock of the drive, cause encrypting data alone should not cause the drive to not be recognised or formatted after the effect. Linux might have some luck as mentioned above, or some other third party disk format software like DiskGenius (paid) and EaseUS Partition Master (paid) that can manipulate the drive more freely than built in utilities in Windows and macOS.
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A firmware lock on the drive is more complete than simply encrypting the data on the disk alone. The firmware on a drive that has preboot authentication enabled is looking for a particular TPM chip on the laptop that it was installed on. If it doesn’t see that particular TPM chip, it will not even turn on beyond looking for the TPM chip.
Preboot authentication is often used for computers that host HIPAA-controlled data, like insurance agents or medical records.
This is the same system that TiVo uses on their hard drives, because they don’t want you exporting their movies.
 
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