Using the chown command from the terminal you can change ownership to your user and group. You can use gparted to create a second logical partition which will also be owned by the root. Not a problem if you are creating a snapshot with TimeShift. gparted is given root permissions when launched and partitions formatted with it will be owned by the root. If you are using the drive exclusively for Linux then ext4 will work fine. Which better supports the Linux file system and prevents Windows from accessing it. If you aren't in law enforcement, and you're trying to access someone else's data, then the encryption is doing exactly what it's supposed to do by keeping you out of a place you don't belong.If you use an external USB drive like the WD PassPort, you can format it using gparted to ext4. If you're a member of law enforcement, it should be easy enough to figure out what the 'usual password' is by serving up warrants to other accounts they have online, or by analyzing passwords saved in their computer browser, etc. I'm guessing that whoever put in the hint of 'the usual password' knows what the password is. However that doesn't mean someone couldn't buy one online and have it shipped into the country. For the few where this type of encryption is illegal, WD sells models where the encryption has been disabled. In most civilized countries this is perfectly legal today. I am going to start a criminal procedure against them. In my opinion, under Spanish Criminal Code, WD business is ilegal. The software would not recognize at all any password.

It's a shot in the dark but has anyone worked with the newer USB3 connected drives and would you know if bypassing the WD Unlock is possible with this setup. It's now my understanding that MHDD is unable to assist unless we're dealing with an ATA drive and I've a hunch that a USB3 to SATA convertor cable won't help our situation either. The test drive that worked had a SATA interface but the customer drive has a USB3 connector soldered onto the PCB.

In prep for trying to bypass the security we've set a password on a different drive (one of our techs), used MHDD and successfully recovered the password from the. The situation is all legit as he has provided us with a drive receipt and he's essentially wanting the pictures of his former dog recovered. I am an IT tech and I have a customer's WD My Passport 1TB drive which he's locked with the drive lock software & forgotten the password. An express 'thank you' to anyone who can confirm whether or not this might be possible.

Wd my passport linux unlock