I am a newbie and I am sorry in advance if I am making a mistake posting this question here.
I have an Arduino Uno and I want to use it in my external disk's password recovery project.
Let me tell you shortly my story first: I have forgotten some parts of my Western Digital external hard disk's password. I have valuable photos in it so I cannot just format it. I want to write a program which will try the passwords for me automatically. As I remember most part of it, it shouldn't take too long. However WD software doesn't let passwords to be tried more than 5 times unless the drive is completely disconnected from USB port. So I need to turn USB off/on to let my program keep trying. I cannot do this on software level in Windows. So I thought of doing it with Arduino.
I did some research on this. Somebody suggested me to buy a Logic Level Mosfet to do this. Another guy told me to buy something like this and use it. But I am not sure what to do.
If you could guide me on what should I buy, what should I learn, I will really appreciate. I need to go to the right direction.
Please consider that I am -almost- completely newbie in electronics.
dx486:
Let me tell you shortly my story first: I have forgotten some parts of my Western Digital external hard disk's password. I have valuable photos in it so I cannot just format it. I want to write a program which will try the passwords for me automatically.
dx486:
However WD software doesn't let passwords to be tried more than 5 times unless the drive is completely disconnected from USB port. So I need to turn USB off/on to let my program keep trying.
Are you 100% sure that the protection software will allow you to forever, with no limit, re-try the password by the simple mechanism of powering the hard disk on\off.
Are you really sure ?
It might surprise you but the writers of the disk protection software are not stupid, repeated attempts to hack into the disk can result in it being lost forever, which is as it should be.
As I remember most part of it, it shouldn't take too long.
Please consider that I am -almost- completely newbie in electronics.
So as a complete newbie why are you assuming it 'shouldn't take too long' ?
srnet:
Are you 100% sure that the protection software will allow you to forever, with no limit, re-try the password by the simple mechanism of powering the hard disk on\off.
Are you really sure ?
It might surprise you but the writers of the disk protection software are not stupid, repeated attempts to hack into the disk can result in it being lost forever, which is as it should be.
So as a complete newbie why are you assuming it 'shouldn't take too long' ?
In fact this is not relevant to my question nor my "newbie" status in electronics. I assume that it shouldn't take too long because I think I remember most part of my password. It is just an assumption. I might be wrong.
spycatcher2k:
A P-Channel MOSFET on the positive power rail will do, I use this for resetting a picologger in one of my clients as it tends to hang if software crashes while it is being accessed.
Thanks a lot for this helpful idea. I will research about it.
