phone memory card – reset password

it so happened that the micro sd card of my friend got locked with a password yesterday, allegedly by a device malfunction.

anyway, we set out to unlock it. tried the usual passwords and stuff and the default ones. Next, attempted to format it, it still asked for the pass. Next, got an micro sd adapter for mini sd and attached it to the computer. It didn’e even mount. A normal password-less card automatically mounts and is seen like another drive. but not password protected ones. next what ? couldn’t format it either.

Google! it didn’t take much time to see that many had faced similar problems (usual, ain’t it ) and had discussed them. fine. few solutions were given. most required a file system browser to read the card contents from the phone (wasn’t explained how it gets permit, linked usually was a symbian software (not supported on my phone) or keeping the card in a freezer overnight(which again, was not available here;). in the middle of this, i tried to boot to windows hoping that it’ll somehow work in windows, only to find that windows wasn’t booting at all.

The issue was this – to make the password protection possible, the password has to be within the memory card. else it will not be protected in another reader. Secondly, the reading device had to cross check the password entered with the original password stored in the card. for this, it has to given read access to the password location.

It so happens the password is stored in plain text in a file in the root of the mmc. given sufficiently low level access, i can read it. Now, with this being a mobile phone, the communication is of a different type. it is not seen as a familiar /dev/sdx nor do i know if the usual mount does the job.

issue still remains unsolved. solutions welcome. btw, a fixboot and fixgrub from the rescue terminal got windows booting again.

i hope to document here, in due time, an easy way to understand clearly how it works, what can be done in case passwords are forgotten and how they can possibly be better implemented