unlock utility for linux

[Alan Cox]

> Worse, there's a new "standard" being proposed for such drive
> locking--which doesn't specify overrides or resets.  I'm going to hate
> this cr*p when clients come up and ask how to recover their data,
> because they forgot their hard disk password...

You can issue a security freeze to a drive to prevent it accepting any
further password/security commands until power cycled. Really this needs
to be a BIOS option but very few systems have BIOS support for it
although there are some add on products.

See hdparm --security-freeze ...

Some day someone will write a fast spreading virus that locks a lot of
hard disks and the vendors will think harder about the problem although
I'm still hoping that they'll think about it *before* something bad
happens as some of the BIOS and firmware people have.

Alan