Reset BIOS Password - Acer TravelMate C312XMi

[Zoom7000]

We have 80 of these laptops and this one looks as though it got missed out when securing them with BIOS passwords. Anyway, this PC was issued to the Head of ICT when he started a few years ago. He brought it round to us this week with the laptop asking for a password on boot up. He claims to have no knowledge of how it got their. Regardless, Acer are asking for £70 to remove it.

 

I decided to have some fun and went on a Google search for the service manual, after about 2 hours of forum jumping, I found one, it's for the C300 but the C310 is almost identical. I took the laptop apart and put it back together, took the best part of the whole day, and I never found the CMOS battery or BIOS chip. Anyway, I put it back together and lo and behold, the boot password has disappeared. Result, dunno how though!

 

Anyway, there is still the issue of a BIOS password. I have tried loads of backdoor passwords and cmospwd /k to no avail. Infact, cmospwd /k hung the laptop and it wouldn't boot for about 5 mins, but it came back up and still had the password.

 

Is there anyway I can clear the password? I can't boot into any other devices because I need to enable the option in the BIOS! Anyway I may be able to change the boot priority in Windows? I've flashed the BIOS, but it hasn't removed the password.

[plexer]

Most laptops have their password stored in a seperate eeprom so flashing the bios etc.. won't do anything to it.

 

There were some instructions earlier about doing this to IBM laptops I think.

 

Unless you are really handy at electronic I wouldn't recommend it.

 

I'm going to see if I have a old cronky laptop that has an eeprom like this so I can have a go at it.

 

Rather than reprogramming the eeprom it might be possible to ground it so the bios can't read it thus allowing you into the bios and then ungrounding it while in the bios so a new password can be written to it.

 

Ben

[SYNACK]

You may be able to boot to another device if you boot it without the hard drive installed, there is a good chance that it will go searching for another bootable device which may let you use other tools to have a crack at the BIOS. I'm assuming that there is no online configuration utility for the BIOS like an HP one as that can also provide a way in.

[Zoom7000]

Thanks for that Synack, didn't think of that, I'll give it a try tomorrow!

[riedquat]

A shot in the dark but it may be possible for you to be able to reset the password from within windows by using the 'esettings' section of the acer emanager program if you have it installed.

I believe that this section has replaced the bios options in the 'notebook manager' software that was bundled with older generations of acer. I can't say for sure as we remove the acer utils on our acers so people don't get the urge to fiddle :-)

[Zoom7000]

Right, I managed to boot in to Hiren's Boot CD (by removing the HDD) but no luck with any of the tools.

 

I also checked the Acer eRecovery stuff, it won't let me change or remove the passwords unless I know the old one.

 

Looks like it'll have to be sent to Acer.

[g105]

...Looks like it'll have to be sent to Acer.

 

Probably too late. But, After several hours of searching forums etc. have just come across a solution to this issue.

 

 

The c300 I was given had a password on the bios at boot and to get into the bios.

 

1. Under the keyboard on the c300 you'll find the cmos battery encased in blue plastic. To remove the start up password. I switched off the laptop removed the main power supply and battery and removed the battery lead for the battery for about 10secs. Then reversed process.

 

This allowed me to boot from a liveCD as the hard drive I had installed was unpartitioned.

 

I installed a version of kubuntu on the hdd and then realised I actually needed a different version. Restarted to boot from CD - but boot order was wrong(hdd first) and bios was password protected.

 

So after another night of searching and looking through service manual(http://www.7hertz.com/download/acer%20c300%20tmc300sg.pdf) I discovered the solution.(pg 90)

 

2.Under the keyboard (on the motherboard) are two small dip switches. You can see them through the metal cover over the motherboard. The first(closer to screen hinge) of these is labelled "chkpw"(in the service manual - but not on the motherboard).

 

So taking a guess that chkpw stood for check bios password. I switched this to the opposite side, restarted and just like that could access the bios and change the boot order, bios password etc etc.

 

You could probably just do this last step over pulling the cmos battery - but I haven't tested this.

 

Hope this helps!

Edited November 30, 2008 by g105

[Hightower]

Don't you have an SLA with your LEA? Surely they will cover this sort of thing?

[mcloum]

I know Toshiba laptops you can use a parallel loopback adapter to reset the BIOS

[DomJuan]

G105 is THE MAN!

I tried what he said and it frickan worked! Genius! Acer corporation are a bunch of a$$holes and G105 sowed them shut this great day!

HOOO RAH!