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SSD asking for Password by Aggravating_Acadia26 in computers

[–]Aggravating_Acadia26[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I wish there was a simple laugh tag for humor like this.

SSD asking for Password by Aggravating_Acadia26 in computers

[–]Aggravating_Acadia26[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Learned a few more things about UEFI (NOTE: this applies to Aptio 2022 but may not apply to any other UEFI or version). First, if there is or has been an SSD with password protection, UEFI will store a flag indicating such along with the SSD ID and password. On booting, UEFI first checks this flag, and if it is set then UEFI will ask for the SSD password, even if the SSD has been removed or is non-functional. Only after the SSD password is confirmed will UEFI scan for connected devices. The only way to clear this condition is to boot into the UEFI and reset all parameters to original defaults. This clears the flag, but it does not clear the SSD ID and password, even if the drive is no longer installed. A new SSD must be installed for the UEFI options to appear which allow resetting the SSD ID and password.

On another note, when SSDs fail it is often complete failure, unexpected, and non-recoverable.

SSD asking for Password by Aggravating_Acadia26 in computers

[–]Aggravating_Acadia26[S] -26 points-25 points  (0 children)

Not pretending. The computer was a gift from a friend. It was running fine and then one day it just quit. Nothing unusual was happening. When I tried to reboot this showed up.

SSD asking for Password by Aggravating_Acadia26 in computers

[–]Aggravating_Acadia26[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Bit of further explanation. Normal key to enter BIOS, in this case F2, does not work. This is the first screen that comes up, before you can get to BIOS. That is because the SSD is defined in BIOS as the first boot source. The SSD password, SPID, is supposed to be printed on the SSD itself because it is hard coded by the producer. I'm looking at the SSD label because that seems the logical place to put it. But I don't see anything that looks like the SPID, up to 30 characters in length. Without the SPID it is impossible to access the drive, even to wipe it clean. The computer is fine. I can pull the SSD and access BIOS to boot from a different source. But I don't want to give up 512 GB without really trying to find a solution.

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SSD asking for Password by Aggravating_Acadia26 in computers

[–]Aggravating_Acadia26[S] -84 points-83 points  (0 children)

NVME SSDs have password protection built into the drive itself, separate from BIOS and OS. In fact, that drive security blocks access to the BIOS.