Tobias Kaiser
A Computer Engineer's Projects and Ideas

AHCI BIOS Security Extension

This software is useful if

  • you have a (probably self-encrypting) hard disk / solid state drive that supports the (S)ATA SECURITY command set
  • you want to boot from this drive.
  • your motherboard's BIOS does not support asking the user for a hard disk password at startup
  • you don't want to buy a new motherboard.
  • the hard disk controller of your motherboard supports AHCI.

This is a BIOS extension that runs before the operating system is started and allows you to enter passwords to unlock SATA drives.

New features in version 0.9:

  • Support for multiple AHCI controllers (e. g. additional PCIe SATA cards)
  • Press Shift+Enter for Unlock multiple: Enter password once and use it for multiple disks without having to type it again.

ZIPDownload AHCI BIOS Security Extension ahci_sbe 0.9

Screenshot

Screenshot

This screenshot is from an old version of ahci_sbe, but the latest version looks similar.

Build / Installation

The easiest way to use this software is to flash it to a PCI / PCIe network adapter's option ROM.

→ My blog post about how I recommend installing ahci_sbe.

More information on flashing PCI option ROMs:

Troubleshooting: Erorr message "Port not idle"

If this error appears, you can try to change line 225 in ahci.asm from the conditional jump jz check_port_cmd_ok to the unconditional jump jmp check_port_cmd_ok. This will work in some cases. Thanks to Chain for reporting the problem and fix. Instead of fixing it yourself in the source code, you can also download a fixed version of ahci_sbe 0.9 here.

This project inspired me to write ahci_sbe. It has more features, but only supports IDE, not AHCI controllers:

Copyright © 2014 – 2017 Tobias Kaiser mail@tb-kaiser.de

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