Is there any way to bypass a Silverlining password protected drive ?

[ClassicMac]

trying to get this old external working 

 

[Franklinstein]

If SilverLining won't touch it without the password you may be able to force a reformat on it with a different Mac utility (such as FWB Hard Disk Toolkit, APS PowerTools, CharisMac Anubis), or you may possibly have to use a PC to reformat it first. If you want to recover data on it I have no idea. 

 

[Paralel]

Give Linux a shot, it might not respect the behavior of the SL sofware password limitations. 

 

[trag]

The first thing I would try is something like Norton Disk Doctor to see if it can "recover" the files without mounting the drive.  

Probably the last thing I would try is an "Install New Driver" or "Update Driver" from one of the other disk driver packages mentioned previously.   If you can take over management of the disk from Silverlining, and assuming that Silverlining just locked access/mounting, but did not encrypt the contents, then it might be possible to do a friendly takeover.

I'd be careful of "format" as anything that does a real format will erase the contents.  But "format" is often used when what they really mean is that we're going to replace the driver resident on the disk and maybe erase the file directory.

In the latter case, you'll still need to use a file recovery tool.

 

[Cory5412]

worth asking: Do you care about the contents? Is this a random old drive you picked up that you want to use, or is it your own drive to which you forgot the password?

Zeroing the disk with another formatting utility and/or with another type of computer entirely will probably work to get the silverlining password off.

 

[Bolle]

I read somewhere about getting around those old security measures by manually editing the driver and/or partition sectors.

One of the third party disk tools would let you view the raw data and edit it in a hex editor.

You could then just replace the parts that were responsible for the volume lock with data you copied from another drive that wasn’t locked.

Not sure if this works for the way Silverlining implemented their lock or not but it might be worth to look into it depending on how much you want to peek inside the drives contents.

 

[beachycove]

What happens if you boot with Extensions off, or boot from a floppy? 

 

[Bolle]

Nah, too easy. The password protection is built into the driver or partition map section of the disk. It always pops up once a the drive gets mounted.

 

[ClassicMac]

Its an old quantum drive that I had but forgot the password. I guess I can format it but I would like the old software on it. 

 

[beachycove]

Ahhh. Password fatigue.

No help in the software manual?

 

[Paralel]

I would suggest imaging the disk, so you can always try and crack the password on it later, if you want to use the drive now. No reason you can't have your cake and eat it too.

 

[CC_333]

Except, doesn't it need to be mountable first?

Unless one can connect it via SCSI card to a PC running Linux, so that one can use dd.

c

 

[Paralel]

...Unless one can connect it via SCSI card to a PC running Linux, so that one can use dd...

Exactly

 

[ClassicMac]

Exactly

Can this be accomplished on a Mac? 

I guess a PPC bistro would be good enough ? 

 

[Bolle]

OSX should be able to do this as well. A PPC distro also will do just fine.

 

[ClassicMac]

Are SCSI to IDE adapters a thing that work for Macs ?

 

[paws]

I have an Acard thing that I've used both for spinning drives and CF cards in adaptors.