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  1. Member
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    My mate came to me with a 2nd hand laptop he bought asking how to get past a password.

    Assuming it was an old windows log in password from the previous owner I thought I could find a way to reset it.

    But to my suprise it was a password ive never seen before.

    When you boot, some memory counts happen and then I see a celeron 2ghz and then straight away a blue screen comes up asking for the HDD passwork. The screen looks kind of old and a bit like the bios screen.

    When you dont know the password it asks what you want to boot from, with the options being the DVD drive or the floppy drive.

    So it locks out the HDD which has windows on it.

    The PC sounds like crap (noisy) and has seen better days (the HDD is has no cover piece on it, the side of the laptop is open and if I wanted I could yank it out.)

    Is there a way to bypass this password, ive never seen it before.

    Also is this a protection people put on computers to stop the HDD being used if stolen? In which case do you think he has bought a stolen PC?
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  2. Banned
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    Originally Posted by Rudyard
    My mate came to me with a 2nd hand laptop he bought asking how to get past a password.

    Assuming it was an old windows log in password from the previous owner I thought I could find a way to reset it.

    But to my suprise it was a password ive never seen before.

    When you boot, some memory counts happen and then I see a celeron 2ghz and then straight away a blue screen comes up asking for the HDD passwork. The screen looks kind of old and a bit like the bios screen.

    When you dont know the password it asks what you want to boot from, with the options being the DVD drive or the floppy drive.

    So it locks out the HDD which has windows on it.

    The PC sounds like crap (noisy) and has seen better days (the HDD is has no cover piece on it, the side of the laptop is open and if I wanted I could yank it out.)

    Is there a way to bypass this password, ive never seen it before.

    Also is this a protection people put on computers to stop the HDD being used if stolen? In which case do you think he has bought a stolen PC?
    sounds like it may be a BIOS password, so you need to reset the bios. basically you need to pull the cmos battery for about 3 seconds and you should be good to go.
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  3. Member
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    Thanks for the speedy reply. Could you tell me or direct me to a place to read how to do this, its something ive never done before.
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  4. Banned
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    Originally Posted by Rudyard
    Thanks for the speedy reply. Could you tell me or direct me to a place to read how to do this, its something ive never done before.
    the CMOS battery is a small silver dime sized and shaped battery that resides on the motherboard. you need to open up the laptop, locate the battery on the motherboard and then follow my previous instructions.
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  5. Not all CMOS' can be reset by removing the battery -I just went through something like this on a friend's PC. Also, not all laptops have a CMOS battery -been there too.

    Here is a link that may have usefull info for you regarding bios password reseting:
    http://www.dewassoc.com/support/bios/bios_password.htm

    Good luck and have fun.

    --dES
    "You can observe a lot by watching." - Yogi Bera
    http://www.areturningadultstudent.com
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  6. Usually there is a panel on the bottom of the laptop that will allow access to the CMOS battery without having to take the whole case apart, however the CMOS battery is sometimes hidden behind memory cards or the hard drive or some other easily removable component. Make sure the unit is unplugged and that the battery is removed and that you are static free (grounded) before removing memory.
    "Shut up Wesley!" -- Captain Jean-Luc Picard
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  7. Aging Slowly Bodyslide's Avatar
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    The PC might also have some form of Hard Drive Encryption, that requires a token and/or a password. Our work Laptops are like that....
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  8. Member
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    hehe sounds like this could be fun and dangerous for the PC when I get my hands on it!

    Thanks for the replies, I will give it a try and could someone think of a good excuse for me should I fry this PC in an attempt to fix it!
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  9. Originally Posted by Rudyard
    Thanks for the replies, I will give it a try and could someone think of a good excuse for me should I fry this PC in an attempt to fix it!
    Here ya' go:
    "Damn Cat! Everything went really well till the cat walked across the keyboard."

    I always blame the cat, but we have 5 so no one can ever prove which one it was :P

    --dES
    "You can observe a lot by watching." - Yogi Bera
    http://www.areturningadultstudent.com
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  10. Member
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    Cat trouble, huh? You need this:

    http://www.bitboost.com/pawsense/
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  11. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    He should ask the previous owner for help.
    Want my help? Ask here! (not via PM!)
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  12. Member
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    Older laptops dont generally suffer this problem ... but for the new forms :

    LAPTOP AND NOTEBOOK RECOVERY

    Most laptop manufacturers have provided additional safeguards for their computers. We are not aware of any simple BIOS recovery program that works on laptops, nor are we aware of any simple backdoor passwords for these machines. BIOS passwords in most laptops are stored in a special chip on the motherboard and the only way to bypass this password is to replace this laptop security chip. Laptop BIOS passwords cannot be bypassed or reset by removing or shorting the CMOS battery. Further, doing this may cause other system errors and complicate the recovery or your system.

    One exception to the above chip information is the Toshiba Security Access Key. The Toshiba Key allows for the immediate bypass of the BIOS password from most Toshiba models without soldering. More information on the Toshiba Key is available on our Toshiba security chips page.

    HARD DISK LOCKS

    Some laptops provide a utility to lock a hard disk with a password. These passwords are not the same as BIOS passwords. Moving a locked hard disk to another machine will not unlock it, since the hard disk password is stored in the hard disk firmware and moves with the hard disk. Also, adding a new (unlocked) hard disk to a locked machine may cause the new hard disk to become locked. Also, note that hard disk lock passwords cannot be removed by reformatting the disk, fdisk or any other software procedure (since the disk will not allow and reads or writes to the disk, it cannot be reformatted.) Usually, the BIOS password and hard disk lock passwords are set the same by a user and we can recover the BIOS password directly from the laptop security chip (after it is removed from the system board.) However, it is possible that the BIOS password and hard disk lock passwords may be set different. In this case the BIOS password will not unlock the hard disk. You can test to determine if your hard disk is locked by attempting to access it in another laptop.
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    In any case , you would need to contact previous owner ... might be even possible to boot from optical drive using a live distro of linux .

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    From other source's , it appear's that you might beable to hookup this drive as a slave in other pc running xp , and use the xbox unlocker , to ...

    1: recover the password , back it up , then ...
    2: remove it , and leave the drive in unlocked state ... suitable for data backup .

    If this dosent help , reverse the proceedure to restore the drive back to it's previous state .
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