BIOS/SSD/HDD passwords - how reliable?

Recently had a laptop stolen (not my M6700).

Just wondered - I've got a password on my M6700 (not a dictionary word) on the BIOS, and on the SSD and HDD set in the BIOS.

If someone were to steal this computer, would it be impossible for them to access the info?

Thanks

 

Did you enable Secure Erase when you set the passwords? If not, the data can easily be accessed using the recovery password (which can be provided by Dell with proof of ownership, but it's not very complex, so I'm sure there are other ways to get it).

It's an ATA password, so I wouldn't rely on it to protect sensitive data (BitLocker or other FDE would be necessary). For the average criminal, it would be sufficient to prevent them from doing anything useful.

Encryption is usually not SSD friendly, so if you have somewhat sensitive data, I would recommend putting it on the HDD, either in a vault or encrypt the entire drive using BitLocker.

 

BIOS and HDD are good but not good if you forget the password. I almost tore out my hair when I bought a used laptop and to my surpise it had BIOS password I asked the seller and they gave me the Windows password and I said no the BIOS password because if I had to fix or update I would be up the creek. I Did alot of search for such a long time that I finally found a solution and got rid of the password. So unless you have it written somewhere that won't get lost then by all means put password on it but IMO Bios and HDD password are the worse thing one can do for their laptop as some are memory password and you will never get rid of and desktop are lost easier to reset the password but with UEFI some are hard encoded thus if you forget the password of which most people will eventually forget you will be locked out and only have yourself to blame for doing so and then paying someone high price to fix it or send to company to fix it.