Olaf the IT Guy here to help, but I need help please!

[ClanFever]

Hey guys, my names Olaf, I'm 23, I come from Wellington which is in New Zealand! More specifically, I live on the Kapiti Coast which is basically always sunny (except when it's not). I work full time at the BP service station, I also run my own little IT technician business called Local IT which I am currently trying to grow so it can be my only full time job! I have always loved computers, and fixing them has always been with me (as trying to make sure my father didn't see that I had caught it a virus or something). I also enjoy working on and driving cars!

Now for my current issue. I have always been able to fix customers computers, but this one is a big stretch for me.

Customer has an HP Pavilion laptop running Windows 10, they're on the older side of life and have forgotten their log in password for their local account. So at first I was going to just backup their data and reset it. But then I thought, heck I'll try some of the hacks that are around to avoid that. However, now that I have moved it back to mine, the screen has stopped working!

Basically, I think it's the graphics driver or a bios issue. From the HP website:
"IIf an image displays on the external monitor, there might be a graphics driver conflict with the notebook LCD display. With the external monitor connected, go to HP Customer Support to download and install the latest graphics and chipset drivers for your specific computer. If there is an updated BIOS version available, use the steps in Updating the BIOS to install it."

Problem is, I can't log in. The other problem is, I can't see bios on the external screen as the laptop only has hdmi output and I don't think it activates until the drivers from windows activates. So not only can I not hack into the computer, I can't reset it, I can't do anything! BTW I was going to do this hack as it seemed the best way Hack Windows 10 Login Password In 2 Minutes [Works For All Windows Versions] | Hack Cave

So if you guys have any ideas of what I can do, please throw them at me. I feel if I pull the hard drive out, back it up and format it I won't be able to see any of the bios steps to start the reset process.

 

[luke127]

You won't lose access to the BIOS if you backup the HDD, format it, and reinstall Windows 10. Then you can put the customer's files back onto their computer. But seriously, it's not hard to bypass a user password. I'm not sure which "hacks" you're referring to, but for a thing like this, something like Hiren's Boot CD would have a password reset program built into it.

Also @Mods, could one of you please move this to Microsoft Windows and Software. Cheers

 

[ClanFever]

I'm aware I won't lose access to the BIOS, but the fact is I technically don't have access to it as I can't see what I'm doing. That is part of the problem. I've yet to bypass a user password and I found that "hack" to be simple enough, so worth a try.

 

[MidnightShadow]

The HDMI should still work outside of Windows, most of the time, in my experience doing this. What do you mean by the screen isn't working? If you look at the screen at the right angle with good light in the room, can you faintly see something on the screen? It could be that the back light has gone out on the screen.

Otherwise, I would discourage resetting the entire PC and losing all of the data that the client has on the machine. There are other ways to reset a password without resetting the entire machine. Take a look at this article, for instance. It has always worked quite well for me:

Reset Forgotten Windows 10 Password without Reset Disk

 

[ClanFever]

Tried the above with a usb start disk, didn't even want to boot to it. Got my hands on a cd-rom instead, and it worked perfectly. Just removed their password after making another administrator account. Thanks for the help

As for the screen thing, it does it if you don't hold down the power button long enough. Almost like the screen back light doesn't get power properly. The owners are possibly quite rough and push down on it hard so obviously it never happens to them!

 

[MidnightShadow]

Glad you got it sorted! Sometimes with a USB drive, you have to change some of the BIOS/UEFI options to get it to boot from the flash drive. You also have to make sure the drive is properly created as a bootable drive.

 

[ClanFever]

Glad you got it sorted! Sometimes with a USB drive, you have to change some of the BIOS/UEFI options to get it to boot from the flash drive. You also have to make sure the drive is properly created as a bootable drive.

Yeah it was definitely a bootable drive as I've used the same usb stick 20+ times before hand, most BIOS options in the past could actually see it as a TF10 bootable drive, this time all I got was USB options and even if they were on top it'd boot the hard drive OS. Did try all the usb slots too. All fixed now

As for the screen, it's not to do with the power button length held down, but if the screen is about 20-50 degrees open it powers on, if it's open past 90 degrees to it's normal position and powered on, blank screen.