Hello jay3kgt-ga!
First of all, I searched for your Seagate drive model and found out
that its not listed in the site
(http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/specs/model_st3_4digits.html) so
probably it is not an original U.S. product. It is probably made
somewhere in Asia. I also have an unlisted ST39111A 9.1 gig and it’s
made in Singapore. Anyway, this is not an issue and has nothing to do
regarding your problem but just for you to know. Let’s go solve your
problem.
“Further reseach leads me to believe that it is locked via the ATA
Master/User password.”
Remember, this is your assumption. However, this only applies when the
drive is fixed in a certain unit and locked by the BIOS of that
computer. Once you remove it and set it to slave, it is very much open
to reconfiguration.
You actually have many options of wiping the data. I’m going to tell
you all that I know regarding this so that you will have several
choices to choose from. I will be describing the methods one by one
but not necessarily in chronological order. You may need to work on
this on another computer using a Win 98SE just to be sure. By the way,
in all the methods described here, don’t use EZ-BIOS if ever you
encounter this option. I’m sure your drive will work without it. And
another thing, you need to set the drive you want to format to
“slave”. You can do this by removing the jumpers from the pin at the
rear end of the drive, attach it to your computer and let BIOS
autodetect it. If it’s not detected, simply enter the info needed by
the BIOS regarding your drive. You can find the necessary details
written on the top of your drive.
1) For Seagate drives, you can go to Seagate’s support webpage
http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/drivers/index.html and download
the DiscWizard Program Suite. It is a utility that runs on Windows and
it also will help you create a formatting tool or setup disk for your
Seagate drive. You need to install this program on Win98 OS first
(although it can now also run in 2000 and XP) in order to use the
program. Follow the setup instructions, restart when prompted, and
there you go. Your drive is ready and can be formatted again using
fdisk and format.com
2) You can also use a wipe utility for this matter. One program I know
that has the wipe command is Norton Utilities. You have to options to
choose from – normal/standard wipe or government wipe. In this case,
choose the standard mode. You simply follow the instructions, let it
wipe the drive, and once more, your drive is ready and can be
formatted again using fdisk and format command. Wiping is very similar
to low-level format in that it writes 0’s all over the drive. The main
difference in this case is that Norton Wipe info is much faster than
low-level formatting.
3) Low level format (LLF) – this is done us a last resort for
problematic drives or drives that are deemed inaccessible by any dos
programs and other formatting utility for as long as the drive can
still be detected by the BIOS. Some new motherboards today have the
LLF option built into the BIOS. If you have one in your BIOS, use it.
If you don’t, you can simply download any utility that has LLF
feature. Usually you need to do LLF through a boot disk created by the
utility or there some programs that operate in a Windows environment
where you can do this. You have the option of using any other type of
LLF utility even though it’s not specifically made for Seagate drive.
Our objective here is to forever wipe the data in the drive so that
you can format it again using fdisk and format command. The Seagate
DiscWizard Program Suite can help you create a formatting tool or
setup disk with the LLF option for your Seagate drive.
As I said you only do LLF as a last resort. Why? Because this is a
time consuming process especially for a 40 gig drive. It might take
you more than 3 hours if you do this.
These are the only 3 methods I can give you for the meantime. I did
not suggest using fdisk first but just in case:
Restart with a startup disk (not necessarily a Win98 startup disk),
use fdisk, choose “delete/remove partition”, restart, use fdisk again,
choose “make partition”, restart and format the drive. However, be
very careful when doing this and make sure that you are working on the
“locked” Seagate drive.
Additional Links:
You can download these Seagate utilities if you want to. These could
be helpful.
SeaTools Disc Diagnostic
A diagnostic utility software that will helps you determine whether
system problems if these are drive-based or due to some other hardware
or software problem. It is designed to reduce drive returns, decrease
drive repair costs, and protect data.”
Seagate Ultra ATA 100 Configuration Utility to help you properly
configure and optimize the use of your ATA drive.
ftp://ftp.seagate.com/techsuppt/seagate_utils/uata100d.exe
You can also contact Seagate for additional problems that you may
encounter
http://www.seagate.com/contact/support/
Search Strategy:
“ST340825A” in Google and In the Seagate website.
I believe, these will do and I sure hope I “unlocked” the solution to
your problem. Thanks for asking.
Sincerely,
Feilong-ga |
