Please help

[veedubfreak]

With it being a dell, there should be a jumper on the motherboard. Unplug the computer, change the jumper to whatever its secondary position is, plug it in, hit the power button once to turn it on, then again to turn it off. Unplug it and put the jumper back in the original position. this should reset the bios and clear any password. If this does not work, remove the jumper completely, and repeat. Dell's have really wonky bioses.

 

[Lexluethar]

Man, I'm still baffled by the fact it contines to boot you into the BIOS no matter what you do (nevermind about the BIOS password). Reset the BIOS, or just put the old CMOS battery back in since it is still requiring you to always boot into the BIOS.

Honestly IMO the board is faulty or has corrupted in such a way that you have to boot into the BIOS. That IMO is one of the only ways of explaining this weird issue.

 

[Hefemeister]

My guess is this person has a friend who is playing a joke on them. Setting a bios pass is always fun to do. If you cannot figure out the jumpers just pull the battery for 10 to 20 minutes and that will reset the bios as well. Figure out who accessed your computer so you can return the favor. I always like print screen on a desktop the set that as the wallpaper and hide the desktop icons. See how long they keep clicking an icon until they figure it out. Or you could give them a BSOD screensaver.

 

[Therookie]

With it being a dell, there should be a jumper on the motherboard. Unplug the computer, change the jumper to whatever its secondary position is, plug it in, hit the power button once to turn it on, then again to turn it off. Unplug it and put the jumper back in the original position. this should reset the bios and clear any password. If this does not work, remove the jumper completely, and repeat. Dell's have really wonky bioses.

I actually removed the jumper and put plugged into a secondary position and again it came up to enter current password.

When I turn on the pc, the dell splash screen comes up and then the next screen says:

Dell Dimension 4500
Intel pentium 4 processor 1.80 ghz
250mb system ram
Legacy keyboard - detected
Legacy mouse - detected
USB legacy - enabled
primary master hard disk error
Press <DEL> to run setup.

And when I hit <DEL> it brings me to a screen that's blank, but in the middle of the screen it says "enter current password". When I try to "guess" the password, it puts a big X and then on the next line it say "enter current password". Again I try to guess the password and it puts a big X and then on the next line "enter current password" and try to "guess" the password and it puts an X. It gives me only 3 tries and at the bottom of the screen it says "fatal error", press <DEL> to run setup. When I press <DEL> nothing happens.


Ok - when I had my OLD CMOS battery, when I turn on the pc, the dell splash screen comes up and then the next screen says:

Dell Dimension 4500
Intel pentium 4 processor 1.80 ghz
250mb system ram
Legacy keyboard - detected
Legacy mouse - detected
USB legacy - enabled
primary master hard disk error
Press <DEL> to run setup.

And when I pressed <DEL> to run setup, it actually took me into the bios screen. And when I clicked save and exit, the pc would reboot and it would go into the dell splash screen and the next screen would say

Dell Dimension 4500
Intel pentium 4 processor 1.80 ghz
250mb system ram
Legacy keyboard - detected
Legacy mouse - detected
USB legacy - enabled
primary master hard disk error
Press <DEL> to run setup.

I hope this is more clearer on what is happening. Man, this took a long time to explain it.

 

[Lexluethar]

Replace the hard disk. Man that was so much easier - you made it sound as if you had no choice but to boot into the BIOS (as if it wasn't even asking you to boot into bios).

Looks like your hard drive has crashed or the cable has died.

 

[Therookie]

Replace the hard disk. Man that was so much easier - you made it sound as if you had no choice but to boot into the BIOS (as if it wasn't even asking you to boot into bios).

Looks like your hard drive has crashed or the cable has died.

Man, I was hoping you wouldn't say to replace my hard drive. I have documents that I needed to save. Yea, I know, I should have save it for something like this, however, I just saved it like 2 weeks ago and then this happens.

 

[Kharn]

See if you can get a linux live CD to boot that way you might be able to salvage some data of the drive if that is a worry, or once you have replaced it I would send it to a dedicated data recovery center and see if they can help but it will be costly if you take that rout.

 

[veedubfreak]

Do this first. If you get a return code 7, it means your hard drive has issues.
Dell - Technical Support

ctrl + alt + d when the computer starts up.

 

[Therookie]

Do this first. If you get a return code 7, it means your hard drive has issues.
Dell - Technical Support

ctrl + alt + d when the computer starts up.

Ok, I did the ctrl + alt + del and the same thing happens

It took me to that screen that has:

Dell Dimension 4500
Intel pentium 4 processor 1.80 ghz
250mb system ram
Legacy keyboard - detected
Legacy mouse - detected
USB legacy - enabled
primary master hard disk error
Press <DEL> to run setup
And when I hit <DEL> it brings me to a screen that's blank, but in the middle of the screen it says "enter current password".


It just goes thru that loop and I can't get past it

 

[EricB]

you guys are funny. take dell password jumper off. turn the machine on with it off. that clears the password. now you turn it off put the jumper back on if you want to be able to enter passwords

as for the bios screen keep coming up, did you try a different keyboard