Secure and convenient access control for storage devices supporting passwords for individual partitions

1. An apparatus comprising:

a storage device having:

a plurality of access-restricted areas, wherein an access-restricted area comprises a portion of a hard disk drive having a user-specific execution environment accessible on condition that a password of a user assigned to the access-restricted area is properly authenticated;

and an access-unrestricted area, wherein the access-unrestricted area comprises another portion of the hard disk drive having an unrestricted execution environment and a password retrieval program therein, the access-unrestricted area being accessible by the one or more users regardless of whether a password of a user assigned to the access-restricted area is authenticated;

a password registration director which directs a registration server to register one or more passwords of users assigned to the plurality of access-restricted areas in the registration server;

a password prompter which prompts a user to enter a password in response to the user attempting to access an access-restricted area;

a password retrieval program activator which reads from the access-unrestricted area a password retrieval program which retrieves a password from the registration server and activates the password retrieval program, on condition that an entered password is not properly authenticated;

a password retriever which retrieves a password from the registration server by running the password retrieval program; and

an access controller which places an access-restricted area in an accessible state by causing the storage device to authenticate the retrieved password.

2. A product comprising:

a computer readable storage device having computer readable program code stored therein for operating an information processing apparatus having a storage device having a plurality of access-restricted areas, an access-restricted area comprising a portion of a hard disk drive having a user-specific execution environment accessible on condition that a password is properly authenticated and an access-unrestricted area, the access-unrestricted area comprising another portion of the hard disk having an unrestricted execution environment and a password retrieval program stored therein, the access-unrestricted area being accessible regardless of whether the password is authenticated, the computer readable program code in said product being effective to:

direct a registration server to register a password in the registration server;

prompt a user to enter the password in response to attempting to access an access-restricted area;

read from the access-unrestricted area a password retrieval program which retrieves the password from the registration server and activate the password retrieval program on condition that the password is not properly authenticated;

retrieve the password from the registration server by running the password retrieval program; and

place an access-restricted area in an accessible state by causing the storage device to authenticate the retrieved password.

3. A method comprising:

directing a registration server to register a password in the registration server, the password being useable in an information processing apparatus having a storage device having a plurality of access-restricted areas, an access-restricted area comprising a portion of a hard disk drive having a user-specific execution environment which is accessible on condition that the password is properly authenticated and an access-unrestricted area comprising another portion of the hard disk drive having an unrestricted execution environment and a password retrieval program therein and which is accessible regardless of whether the password is authenticated;

prompting a user to enter a password in response to the user attempting to access an access-restricted area;

reading from the access-unrestricted area the password retrieval program which retrieves the password from the registration server and activating the password retrieval program, on condition that the password is not properly authenticated;

retrieving the password from the registration server by running the password retrieval program; and

placing an access-restricted area in an accessible state by causing the storage device to authenticate the retrieved password.

4. The method according to claim 3 , wherein the hard disk drive comprises an array of hard disk drives.