I have a 1TB My Passport drive that was provided to me when my laptop crashed. It is locked and I have no idea what the password is but would like to erase it completely and reuse it for other data. Even though I tried the password 5 times, when I see the screen explaining what to do, I never get the prompt “select the I understand… check box to signify that you accept the risk and activate the Erase Drive button.”. I get nothing. How do I get to erase the disc so I can reuse it. Also don’t get a Format option for that disc. Thanks
To get your locked 1TB My Passport working again, use Diskpart to wipe it clean. Open Command Prompt as administrator, type “diskpart” and hit Enter. Type “list disk” to see your drives, then “select disk #” with your drive’s number - double check you got the right one. Type “clean” to wipe everything including the security stuff. After that, type “create partition primary”, then “format fs=ntfs quick”, and “assign” to give it a drive letter. Type “exit” and you’re done. This gets rid of the password lock that’s blocking the normal erase and format options. If you’d rather not mess with command line, you can try Disk Management but it might not work since the security is in the way.
