unlock utility for linux

[Matthew Flaschen]

Antonio Olivares wrote:
> Dear fellow Fedora users,
> 
> Does there exist a utility within linux, be it fedora or other that
> can unlock a locked hard drive.  A friend of mine gave me a disk and
> he told me that it was mine to keep, the problem was that the hard
> drive was locked 

What does this actually mean?

and if I could unlock it I can keep it.  I tried the
> Gparted Live CD, Slax Live CD and the device exists, but it gives
> errors like
> 
> /dev/sda input output error

What makes you think this is some kind of security, as opposed to simply
a bad driver or busted hardware?

> or something like that.  I read something about dd doing powerful
> things like cleaning up disks or wiping them clean,

You should be able to do what you need in gparted, assuming there is no
issue with the drive itself.

Matt Flaschen