Hi, I have a WD Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB Hard Drive which comes with WD Smartware software. I had put a password in it without a hint and now I have lost the password. This hard drive use 256 bit hardware encryption. All my personnel and important data is in it and I am unable to remember the password. I just remember that the password starts with a S/s and is 8 or 9 digits long.
How can I unlock the drive without formatting it, is there any way to crack or hack the smartware and unlock it. I am willing to pay a hacker to hack smartware software and the password for me. What should I do?
Your best bet is to contact Western Digital and see if they can help you. As it was they that wrote the software is is they that that will have the best idea of how to decrypt the data. They may have a back door password that might work.
Cracking 256 bit encryption is no trivial task. It is usually only the CIA and similar organisations that have the resources to do such a thing.
However, you will almost certainly be asked by WD to prove that you actually own the disk and the data therein is yours. They are not going to decrypt a hard disk just because someone asks them to and it will cost you. They are not going to do this for free.