Move, on another computer, an hard drive protected using HP's DriveLock

Question

On my HP ProBook laptop, by going in the BIOS options, I protected the Hard Drive by using HP's DriveLock technology. Every time that I turn on my laptop, a password is requested. If I move this hard drive (protected by DriveLock) to another computer of another brand (Asus), there is no prompt to enter a password and so I cannot access the content of the hard drive.

Is this due to the fact that the hard drive protected by DriveLock is unlockable only on my laptop? What if I will insert this hard drive on another HP laptop which supports DriveLock technology? Will it recognize the fact that there is this protection enabled on the HDD and will it ask for the password to unlock it?

To summarize: Is an HDD protected by HP's DriveLock only unlockable on HP computers which support this technology or only on the computer where DriveLock has been enabled?

Answer 1

You need to have a computer with HP DriveLock in order to unlock the password, but it does not need to be the original computer.

According to the HP website:

DriveLock is an industry standard security feature that helps prevent unauthorized access to the data on specific hard drives. DriveLock has been implemented as an extension to Computer Setup. It is only available on certain systems and only when DriveLock capable hard drives are detected.

According to an HP whitepaper:

A hard drive protected with a DriveLock password stays protected, even if the drive is removed from one system and inserted into another. At power-on, the system prompts the user for the DriveLock password. If an incorrect password is entered, the information on the hard drive is inaccessible.

The DriveLock password is stored inside the hard drive itself and cannot be read; it can only be authenticated against. Therefore, an unauthorized user cannot obtain the DriveLock password from the hard drive itself.