Samsung 840 EVO SSD - how to set encryption password

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drb01

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Hi - am using the above SSD on a Gigabyte H77m-drh mobo, with the latest BIOS (F14), and Win7 Home Premium 64bit newly installed.

Does anyone know how to enable the hardware full disk encryption? This SSD, AFAIK, supports encryption, but in the BIOS all I can see are Admin and User passwords. I don't think these are the same as getting this drive to encrypt itself with my password. I understand the SSD encrypts everything, but until I specify the key the door is wide open (as I understand).

On other laptops/drives with FDE there is a disk specific password, which I can;t find here.

Any ideas?
 
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drb01

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Thanks, but I think bitlocker is software based encryption, that is unfortunately not available in Win7 Home Premium. I am looking for hardware encryption supported by the SSD itself ..
 
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MrYlmir

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Use Samsung Magician
177pte.jpg
 
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drb01

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Tried that, and if I click "How to enable" it says "Class 0 can be detected by setting a security password in BIOS. It may not be supported depending on the system or BIOS". I guess I have a rubbish BIOS. Sees a bit odd that this currently available mobo (and a Gigabyte one, who I thought were meant to be "good") can't do it whereas my 7 year old laptop can!
 
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Palorim12

Palorim12

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Not all BIOS have the ability to set a ATA HDD password.
 
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drb01

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I click on "How to enable" below "Class 0" and is says "Class 0 can be detected by setting a security password in BIOS. It may not be supported depending on the system or BIOS"
I guess the BIOS doesn't support it which is very disappointing!
 
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MrYlmir

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why not use 1 of the other options?
 
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drb01

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Using the Encrypted Drive option in Samsung Magician seems to require an OS with encryption support which Win 7 Home Premium doesn't seem to have, not to mention a clean install.

Not sure about the "professional encryption programs". Presumably you mean something like TrueCrypt? To be honest I was rather hoping for a simpler and faster solution built into the hardware, like I have with my laptop where the drive has FDE. But I am slowly giving up hope with this drive / mobo combo!
 
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ScottAlbrecht

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That is correct. Bitlocker is software based encryption that is a feature of Windows 7 Ulitmate. The EVO 840 has built-in hardware encryption. From the Samsung website it appears to be automatically enabled when one sets a hard drive password. This is done in the BIOS. If you don't have this BIOS setting perhaps its not supported by your BIOS.

[UPDATE: sorry looks like you figured this out. For some reason I wasn't getting the rest of the thread until after I submitted a response. Good luck!]

[UPDATE 2]: Found an article saying that if you did [realize you don't] have BitLocker, it can leverage the hardware encryption features of the drive without having to use the BIOS.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/samsung-840-evo_2.html
 
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Al Winston

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I've actually posted stuff on this topic elsewhere in Tom's in more detail, and I can't speak toward the Gigabyte mobo, but I can say that from what I've found, HP laptops and Lenovo laptops have the ATA password implemented in their BIOS to enable the hardware encryption features in the Samsung 840/850 EVO and Intel SSDs. Motherboard makers do not seem inclined to implement this option for desktops. One notable exception: ASRock, which offers a 1.07B version of their BIOS that has ATA Password options built in. However, they don't post it on their site, you have to contact their overseas tech team. I'm sorry that it doesn't help the Gigabyte mobo owners, but maybe if you contact Gigabyte, they might have something similar. I don't know if ASUS has something similar either, though I doubt it. One post said ASUS specifically will not offer it because it's too secure a feature and if the password is lost, there's no way to get the data off the SSD.
 
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