Here is a local ( California Company ) who is willing to unlock drives for less than the $50 that A-FF repair station charges.
h t t p : / / w w w. h d d u n l o c k . c o m/

they also post the compatable drive listing here:
h t t p : / / w w w . h d d u n l o c k . c o m / d r i v e s /

I have not yet verified the service good r bad so those of you out there that need drive unlocking let me know how it goes.

Good luck!

ADMIN EDIT:
I put spaced in the links above to break the links on purpose.... just in case someone tried to use them for their Z1 drive. Look below at my post about the above service.

You don't want to use the above service for your Z1 drives, this is right from their home page:

"While unlocking, HDD Unlock Wizard will erase and re-certify the drive. If you need unlocking which is safe to your data, please use A-FF Repair Station"

Geko483, thanks for keeping an eye out, but this kind of information (not hidden but on the front page) should have been enough NOT to even tell people about them (or at the very least warn people it would wipe out their hard drive if they used it). What would have happened if someone tried them and didn't notice that warning?

Everyone, BE CAREFUL who you use to unlock your Z1's drive. We know that the A-FF Repair station is safe, use any other tool at your own risk.

My apologies yes this service will ERASE all data on the drive.
I use this service for unlocking drives that I dont care what the data on the drive is. this was in responce to the guy who asked about unlocking other drives besides the Z1. I paid the 50$ for the Z1 drive but for my others I use this one.

I still have not yet found a service that will unlock drives and retain the info better and safer than A-FF Repair Station. I am still looking, I also knew there was a way to unlock a drive, and recertify it by removing the data and the lock at the same time (Security Erase Function). The company who has the website i mentioned is A-FF DATA RECOVERY and i would suppose idifferant than A-FF Repair station. but i know it does work for drives you dont want the info off of as i have used them many times to unlock old drives. just be CAREFULL to not use them for drives you wish to save the data on.

Jason has already made it a sticky. We now have a members discount for getting the Hdd unlocked. :lol:

License for 1 recovery
Special discounted license for AVIC411 community $42.37

http://www.hdd-tools.com/products/rrs/licenses/rs-avic411.html

License for 1 recovery

Passat, I saw that. Thanks for getting us a discount. After the price of everything in the system, shipping and tax, most of us are over $2K. Not that $7ish is going to make or brake me after that, but it might as well be my $7 than theirs :) It's too bad it's not unlocking for 1/2 off or something, but I'll take whatever I can get. Thanks for the effort!

ducatiboy said:

It's too bad it's not unlocking for 1/2 off or something, but I'll take whatever I can get. Thanks for the effort!

I had hoped for more off as well and had pointed out how little we can do once unlocked. Still, I appreciate that Daniel responded with a postive reply. Too bad he didn't at least break that $40 barrier. :)