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Silly BIOS!

post #1 of 18
9/19/05 at 1:24am
Thread Starter 
I recently aquired a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop, that has a BIOS password and a HD password. I am pretty sure I am going to have to buy a new HD, since I have yet to hear of a way to get around a HD pw.

However how can I go about resetting the BIOS. I believe that Dell has a security feature installed that makes it difficult, and I also believe that the BIOS battery is soldered to the motherboard... Any suggestions?
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post #2 of 18
9/19/05 at 2:19am
try looking for some of the default bios passwords out there for whatever kind of bios it has.
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post #3 of 18
9/19/05 at 2:26am
You didn't do any test before aquiring the laptop? Hmm....
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post #4 of 18
9/19/05 at 2:32am
Thread Starter 
I have tested the various backdoor passwords, to no avail.. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

-merci
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post #5 of 18
9/19/05 at 2:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by intolerance
I have tested the various backdoor passwords, to no avail.. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

-merci
hah well that does me in
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post #6 of 18
9/19/05 at 3:32am
Most laptops store the BIOS password in a security chip. Each Dell laptop does have a master password to unlock the unit. If you call Dell, give them your service tag number and verify identity of original purchaser correctly they will give you the master unlock password. As long as the laptop is not reported stolen, Dell can do a transfer of ownership and give you the master password.

If you received your laptop through inappropriate methods, then you can have the security chip removed and replaced with a new one. There are services out there for that. One such place is

http://www.pwcrack.com/security_chips_dell.shtml

Good luck.
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post #7 of 18
9/19/05 at 4:25am
Thread Starter 
I have bought the laptop secondhand, so it may be difficult to prove to Dell that I am the owner.

What information might Dell need for me to prove such things, and to obtain this password?

-merci
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post #8 of 18
9/19/05 at 5:05am
I wonder if you can clear the BIOS by removing the BIOS battery, or shorting the BIOS jumpers... I know this works with desktops, althought I've never tried with a laptop.
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post #9 of 18
9/19/05 at 5:37am
Ownership transfer... eh not much
Old owners email address. What they do is email the previous owner saying ownership is transfering and i guess if they don't complain, they ownership will be transfered to you.

I sort of did this with, but instead did a country transfer. But it's the same process. They pretend I was transfering ownership too. Takes about a week to transfer.

But I'm curious, why didn't you just ASK the previous owner to unlock before purchasing. Or jsut ask them now, that will simply be alot easier than what you're going to be doing...
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post #10 of 18
10/1/05 at 2:57pm
Thread Starter 

More Problems

To bring back an old topic.

I replaced the old locked harddrive in this laptop with a new one, allowing me to install an operating system though a boot CD. I tried 98, because at the time it was the only OS that I had bootable. It worked fine to begin with. So I finally got an XP OEM that I could boot off of. I installed it and it began to blue screen on me as I installed the drivers for the various componets on the laptop. Puzzled, I attempted to reinstall XP, and now im getting a blue screen in the Setup of the OS, right as its about 15 minutes from finishing.

Does anyone here have any advice to offer?
I'm hoping the lappy doesn't have hardware problems.

-merci
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post #11 of 18
10/1/05 at 3:02pm
Thread Starter 
Also something I forgot to mention, is that the laptop doesnt turn on everytime I hit the power button. Some times it just powers up and simply shuts down. Is this someform of security measure?
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post #12 of 18
10/1/05 at 3:35pm
Why couldn't you contact whomever you aquired it from?
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post #13 of 18
10/1/05 at 4:33pm
he keeps avoiding the "ask who u got it from" question. I hope you didn't steal it from someone.
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post #14 of 18
10/1/05 at 5:04pm
Thread Starter 
The owner was a previous employee of the business I recieved the laptop from. The owner of the business is a mutual friend who lent me this laptop to see if I could get it working. It has been lying around his office for about a year now, and I don't know if I could get into contact with the former him/her employee.

I took out the memory, and cleaned the contacts with electronic contact cleaner. I no longer got blue screens in the setup of XP, but am still having blue screens as i attempt to log in.

Any suggestions?
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post #15 of 18
10/1/05 at 6:16pm
Now that's a twist.

Usually the ownership rights lie with the Employer and the former employee has the laptop
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post #16 of 18
10/2/05 at 2:16am
What? then who owns the laptop? The business or the emplyee? If so, why would the emplyee leave behind a laptop?

The way you make it sound, the emplyer owns the laptop, so your "mutual friend" can contact dell for the master pass.
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post #17 of 18
10/2/05 at 7:27am
here is a suggestion-
throw it away and buy one that works
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post #18 of 18
10/2/05 at 9:52am
In my many perusals to combat my dell paper-weights I came across this on:
www.hardwareanalysis.com

Quote:
Bruce Aurand
<snip>
The chip is below the processor so you have to solder two very small wires and bring them outside the laptop then reinstall the processor. Short the two wires and power on! Pin 1 is the one with the dot in the corner. Next pin on the same side is 2 then 3,4, and 5,6,7,8 going around the corner with pin 8 being across from pin1. The power on password will be disabled and you will be able to access the system settings via the F2 during bootup as if it was never there. This works for me, works great.
<snip>
The chip he is explaining was the security chip but on older cpi and lattitue models.
attaching a wire to pin 3 and pin 6, short wires, turn on machine then disconnect wires.
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