Bios Password

[jamieallonby]

I`ve got a pico laptop at work that one of the little monkeys has taken the hard drive from the boot order and changed the bios password so i cant get it back, does anyone know of any utilities to recover the password from a systemsoft bios.

I`ve thought about removing the cmos battery but I`m sure I would end up with more screws than i started with?

[StewartKnight]

The is usually a jumper on the mobo to reset the BIOS in emergencies

[alan-d]

Some laptops have a removeable plate over the battery

Make sure you password the BIOS on your other machines.

[Geoff]

Will it boot from CD/Floppy?

[jamieallonby]

Will it boot from CD/Floppy?

yeah, it just wont boot from the hd.

[Face-Man]

A few years back this happened to me when some kids got hold of a dos bios password flusher and managed to completely screw a couple of machines. check out http://www.tech-faq.com/reset-bios-password.shtml for some ideas

[Geoff]

Will it boot from CD/Floppy?

yeah, it just wont boot from the hd.

Alright, thats easy. I've attached a zip file with a utility for wiping the BIOS password to this post. Just decompress it onto a bootable floppy (its fairly small) and boot up the machine. Once you run it, it'll ask a couple of things then kill the bios password.

There's a windows version included too if anyone is interested. You need local admin on the machine for that to work though.

[ZeroHour]

Ahh but will it work on laptops. Tosh laptops can not have there password reset by anyone except a certified Tosh Tech. He uses a special dongle to reset it. This feature was implemented so that if you laptop was stolen noone could do much without the bios pass or dongle. Removing the battery on a tosh does not work as well I believe.
Good luck anyway

[ChrisH]

We used to have one of those things at my old job it was just a parallel socket wired in a certain way

[Geoff]

Ahh but will it work on laptops. Tosh laptops can not have there password reset by anyone except a certified Tosh Tech. He uses a special dongle to reset it. This feature was implemented so that if you laptop was stolen noone could do much without the bios pass or dongle. Removing the battery on a tosh does not work as well I believe.
Good luck anyway

Yes, it'll work with most laptops. I've personally used it on a Toshiba Satalite Pro.

[pete]

We used to have one of those things at my old job it was just a parallel socket wired in a certain way

The pinout is googleable, or I can post it tomorrow if anyone wants

[E1uSiV3]

Is it a good idea to host that file for public access Geoff? It kinda renders BIOS password useless if you can just wipe them and if a kid gets ahold of the tool all hell could break loose.

[Geoff]

1. It's already freely available. Try Googling it.
2. Security through obscurity doesn't work.
3. Tighten up your physical security if your worried.

[jamieallonby]

thats done it, thanks