Encryption

[graemek]

Hi

Hope someone can help, I am currently helping a frield who has an encrypter hard drive using bestcrypt software and them can't remember the password, daft i know, anyway I am not particularly worried about saving the data on the hard drive, and cannot access the HDD, Does anyone know if I can just format the HDD and re install windows, is there an easier way to access the HDD as cannot access using ERD Commander, any help would be much appreciated



Many thanks

Graeme

[Paul Komski]

You don't say which OS was running but you should be able to delelete any existing partitions (unless the encrytion is hard-encoded as drive overlay that denies access to the host protected area). Then repartition/reformat or simply boot up to and install from a Win2K/XP installation CD. If nothing else works (eg WinXP disk manager or DOS fdisk) then the HDD makers utilities should be able to zero the drive and render it "as new".

Encryption is a double-edged sword; no password - forget about getting in again.