Sorry, I wasn’t sure what you meant by “scan”. If you were able to perform a surface scan via a software application, then obviously the drive isn’t password protected. However, if you used Data LifeGuard to perform an internal self test, then AFAICS this test would proceed whether or not the drive were password protected.
At this point I would use a disc editor to examine sectors 0 (MBR) and 63 (boot sector). If you can see these, then this would suggest that your drive may have a logical problem. Otherwise, if you can’t access these sectors, then I’d suspect a hardware fault.
