BIOS Startup Password has been changed, unknown now! Very urgent.

[d2h]

Dear all, seem to be having a rather annoying problem with my laptop.

Some pre-information - a HDD password in the BIOS protects my laptop from booting.

Last night I was all set for bed, turned off my laptop and started to doze. About five minutes in I realised that the next day I needed to take the laptop hard drive to a friends so I would need to remove the hard drive encryption password from the disk so that the disk could be accessed. Anyway, I removed the password and restarted. I was presented with a password prompt (my laptop has the option to set a HDD protection password and also a system boot protection password) for the system boot and entered what I always used to use, "Wrong Password" and after three attempts "System Disabled". If I try to enter the BIOS, the password is wrong still and I just go in circles. I don't understand how disabling the HDD password has enabled the System password

I'm currently at college and coursework is due in the end of April, I need my laptop for my studies but I can't use it if it's locked. Would really appreciate any of your ideas.

Regards,
D2H

 

[darroll]

Who owns the computer?
d

 

[d2h]

Er me?

 

[darroll]

Unplug the battery.
Unplug the ac.
Take out the battery and leave out for about 30 minutes.
This will reset your CMOS.
You will have to re-do your cmos settings..
d

 

[Celegorm]

Unplug the battery.
Unplug the ac.
Take out the battery and leave out for about 30 minutes.
This will reset your CMOS.
You will have to re-do your cmos settings..
d

No it won't. You need to take out the CMOS battery, not the standard laptop battery. I have yet to see a dell that has an easy to get at CMOS battery. You might need to call dell.

 

[d2h]

Thanks for your responses. I had to dismantle the whole laptop to get to the underneath of the motherboard, I disconnected the battery for about five minutes but it did nothing. I read elsewhere on the internet that power can be stored in capacitors for quite a long time so I've kept it disconnected and will boot it up tomorrow afternoon.

To be sure it has no other power, I've unplugged the main battery too. Hopefully it'll work because I've voided my warranty by opening it. Ah well, only worth around £250 I suppose but that isn't really the point.

Thanks again.

 

[ssc456]

jus out of curiosity its not a toshiba is it?

im gonna be honest i got hold of a stolen toshiba tecra m3 like 2 and a half years ago with a C2D processor and 4Gb RAM in it i was drooling but it has a power on password and from what ive read the toshiba tecra m3 comes with a security chip soldered onto the board and can only be replaced by toshiba. or buy a whole new motherboard for a few hundred £££ and hope the CPU is not soldered on lol.

n e ways i decided jus to sell the RAM upgrade my hardrive and keep the shell as a memory lol

 

[d2h]

Nope it's an Acer TravelMate 7520. I'm hoping that it'll work (again, busy student life with lots of coursework and online revision etc...).

I found another post that mentions a man sending his laptop to Italy and the BIOS got flashed for around €15 or something mad.

One good point is that we've sold one of our properties and the parents agreed to buy a new laptop for me at the end of the month. Still a fair wait though, exams next week :S

Thanks again.

 

[mkm2175]

mm possible to flash the bios?? would that reset the password?

 

[d2h]

Hmm I'm not sure really. The CMOS area is soldered on to the motherboard - different to that of my desktop which has a removable module that plugs into a socket.