Any way to install Ubuntu on a 2nd hand locked out laptop?

[scalywag66]

Actually 3rd hand.

 

My friend gave me an IBM laptop not to long ago that came from his job at Motorola when they were giving some workstation laptops away to employees to take home when they were upgrading their workstations throughout the Motorola campus.

 

He said he barely used it a few times and had somehow lost the login and password, which I guess made it easier for him to hand it down. So I figured since I like to think I know how to move around computers, I'd take it off his hands.

 

I was wrong, as I never bypassed the login despite using various methods and cracks etc I had used before that did work on other machines I'd been ask to bypass login due to dumb admin mistakes. what I think my friend did was make a dumb password he couldn't remember for Administrator login and more or less locked himself out. Some cracks I have on disk that need to run on cd boot-up in order to fix, always get hung up on the boot-up and I just power the thing off. I would like to get that laptop going with Ubuntu and give it to my girlfriend who wants one DESPERATLEY, just to go on MySpace & PerezHilton.com http://www.systemwars.com/forums/images/smilies/sad.gif

 

So I'm wondering if I can install Ubuntu through DOS on an .iso image cd with the installation on it using the cd boot-up method, as you would with trying to reinstall Windows Professional by cd(which I do nt have) in order to start fresh and not be on a server domain.

 

 

 

Possible?

 

Sorry if posted in wrong forum section

[petroz]

Check out Ubuntu Releases

One of the "alternate" versions that supports "text mode" installation might solve your problem.

[box_l]

install a new/other hard disk?

[Domino]

Do you mean a BIOS password, rather than an OS one?

[Dos_Box]

If it's a Thinkpad and BIOS password then you will have to invest in some serious kit to extract the password as they encode them on a separate chip. I have a second user Thinkpad with some BIOS options unavailable (virtualisation for one) and have looked into this quite a bit. Here is a link to the kind of thing you need to be looking into.

 

Hacking IBM Thinkpad Bios Password : SoDoItYourself.com

 

Not for the faint of heart.

[jcollings]

If it's just an OS password why not whip the disk out, connect it to your PC via a USB caddy and format it?

[plexer]

You need to give some more specifics on what sort of password is set on this thing.

 

If it's a hard drive password then forget it and put a new drive in.

 

That thinkpad link looks good.

 

Anyone got a locked thinkpad that they are too scared to try that solution on and want to let me have a go?

 

Ben