DN2820 experience and possible bugs related to hard drive password protection.

I consulted the forum about SED support some time ago. At last I decided to only take advantage of NUC password protection for HDD security, as SED are too expensive.

Here are my hardware configuration. All were bought from NCIX, and totally costed CAD 407 after tax.

• Intel NUC BOXDN2820FYKH0 ( Manufactured in Apr 2014 )
• Crucial CT8G3S160BM  8G
• WD WD10JFCX Red 1TB ( The NUC will be used as storage mainly )
• nGear HDMI-DVI/D-25-M/M HDMI to DVI-D Cable ( for my DVI monitor ).

I installed Debian Testing ( Jessie ) and everything was going smoothly. Two notes are:

1. Before I updated BIOS to 0034, my monitor was flashing, but after the update, it worked very well.
2. After Debian installation,  package firmware-iwlwifi has to be installed for WiFi.

Then, I transferred my system to btrfs from ext4. This took me some time, but I was very happy with this NUC.  So, I set HDD password protection and was going to move personal data to this storage server.

The HDD password had been set two times, because I noticed it still showed as “not installed” after my first setting. After both HD master and user password in BIOS showed as “ installed". I turned off the NUC, and booted it again. The DN2820 cannot be unlocked with either HDD master or user password.

I was very sure I used the correct passwords. It’s most likely something wrong with NUC visual BIOS, either a bug or compatibility issue. It took me hours to prove it and save my HD.

I found HDAT2 by Googling, a great HDD tool. Using HDAT2 and my HD user password, I first unlocked the hard drive, entered to the Debian system, then I totally removed the password protection.

There are two issues with DN2820 visual BIOS related to HDD protection.

1. In BIOS settings, I can try my HDD password a lot of times, as many as I can. In fact, once it reaches the limit defined in HDD firmware, all further attempts make no sense before applying a hard reset to HDD, except telling a possibly correct password as incorrect one.
2. The DN2820 can lock my WD red for sure, but it cannot unlock it and remove password protection with correct passwords. If this is not a bug, it should be a compatibility issue. If it can be fixed, Intel will have more happier customers. For people who use 2820 as home NAS, WD red could be a good choice for hard drive.

Thank you!