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insperion 1501 bios password and hd password

post #1 of 23
8/11/07 at 3:26pm
Thread Starter 
Hi everyone, i've gotten a Insperion 1501 from a customer. The BIOS and HD require a password. Dell laughs when i call about this issue. Does anyone know the backdoor passwords for this model?

I have pulled the batteries and plug and let it sit over night, the password s still on the machine.
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post #2 of 23
8/11/07 at 11:24pm
i think you should ask your client first. maybe they put the password.
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post #3 of 23
8/12/07 at 12:44am
Thread Starter 
well that's the problem, they claim they got it this way. In any event it wont boot past it. Anybody else got any ideas?
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post #4 of 23
8/12/07 at 6:12am
is it stolen? if not then you client should be able to ask the person he got it off.
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post #5 of 23
8/12/07 at 1:08pm
The Hard Drive password won't be removed easily. Those passwords are part of the ATA Spec so just plugging it into another machine won't get rid of it. I spent the better part of a week trying to figure out how to bypass that password and the only real way to do it is send it to a company like DriveSavers who charge an arm and a leg (More than the cost of a replacement drive)

Your client has unwittingly received stolen property most likely. The only real way to get past the passwords is to replace the Motherboard and the Hard Drive.
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post #6 of 23
8/12/07 at 2:07pm
Thread Starter 
well i called dell and they pointed me to an online utility. so after inserting a new hd and installing xp, i ran the utility and got the service tag, and keep it's been reported stolen from a local college. I think i'm gonna see if the police cant get teh onwers info from dell and maybe we can return this and dell will be helpful for once. LOL These BIOS passwords are a pain in the butt tho thats for sure.
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post #7 of 23
8/13/07 at 1:08am
Thought it would of been stolen, in cases like this its usually the norm.
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post #8 of 23
8/14/07 at 11:49pm
Thread Starter 
ok well here's the update.....
After talking to Dell 5 times, they arent willing to help at all. One agent tried to talk me into "donating" it to the katrina thing from thier website. The local PD dosent have a police report on it, the college says they only keep track of thier college owned laptops, none of which are dell. So what do i do now? I have a cop i kno coming by the store tomorrow to place a call to dell and see if they will be more helpful with the police on the phone. If not how do i proceed? I'm comfortable keeping it at this point since I'm tried everything i can think of to return it to the correct owner.

In any event I tired a boot cd on it, now the bios needs to be gotten into because the only boot device it sees is "Diagnostics". So i gotta get in there to get anything to work again. If the owner is found i need to be able to get into thier HD. So how about cracking a hd boot password? heck that might even let me find the owner.
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post #9 of 23
8/15/07 at 1:47am
The only problem is the bios password is put into programmable chip that i have found cant be cleared by a jumper and can only be sorted by returning it to the manufacture (not in all cases) But as they wont help you im not sure what you can do except change the motherboard and put a new drive in it.
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post #10 of 23
8/15/07 at 3:28am
The only way to nix the Hard Drive password is a $30,000 machine that can rewrite the firmware tracks on the Hard Drive. The password isn't some trick by the Laptop it's actually a part of the ATA Spec. It's infinitely cheaper to buy a new drive than to pay someone to remove the password. If the original owner wanted their data but could not remember their password that's what the password removal service is good for. Also, if you want to change boot order, just press F12 at the Dell POST screen and it'll give you a temporary menu.
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post #11 of 23
8/15/07 at 8:23am
Thread Starter 
well the f12 thing dosent work anymore. I said i tried a boot cd. well it didnt flash the bios just went stupid with all the settings, basiacly making it featureless so now if i do f12 all i get is 7 listings of diag. so the bios password has to come off before any progress can be made now.
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post #12 of 23
8/15/07 at 5:10pm
I’m at Dell Headquarters in Austin, Texas and I just came across this thread. I have to admire your honesty in trying to track down the rightful owner of the system. It sounds like it was probably issues of customer privacy that prevented the people you spoke with from being able to put you in touch with the person who bought the laptop. Admittedly, I've never dealt with a situation where someone was trying to return a stolen laptop but it seems as though our strict policy of not sharing customer information might be preventing someone from getting their laptop back.

I clearly must follow the same policy so I can't send you the customer’s information either but I can definitely either pass yours along to them or capture the system and send it from Dell HQ. In order for the servicetag to be labeled as stolen, they must have called in to report it so there should be records of all that here. Again, I really appreciate you wanting to give the system back and I’m sure they’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Neil
Dell, Inc.
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post #13 of 23
8/16/07 at 2:58pm
I don't know if this utility will help but I have used it a long time ago to get into the bios of an old 486 I found and rebuilt: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2969.html However,I accept no responsibilty for the use of this program.
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post #14 of 23
8/16/07 at 5:25pm
Thread Starter 
actually iused that and cmos was jacked up however i forced it to factory again afterwards by pulling the cmos battery for a lil while. after going back into windows i reset the date and time however the damn bios password is still there, and dell worked with me after i got the owner but the bios isnt taking the master code either... so props to dell i'm SUPPOSED to be getting a new mother board and harddrive cause they cant crack the passwords..... stay tuned
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post #15 of 23
8/16/07 at 6:20pm
you are booting to windows on a different hard drive I take it? If there was a password on the drive you're booting from....well you wouldn't be booting from it. You wouldn't be able to read anything from it or write anything to it either. Those ATA passwords are strange animals I tells ya.
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post #16 of 23
8/17/07 at 6:52pm
Thread Starter 
yep exactly i'm booting to a new hd, the old has the ata password on it, and i have 3 questions

1. where / how do you put a ata password on the drive in the first place?
2. This is my first encounter with one with the password on it, can i just reformat it or partition it?
3. can the ata password be defeated by any means? odds are the hd contains the thiefs info, or the orginal owners info. in either case i'd like to recover it.


thx for any infothat would be helpful
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post #17 of 23
8/20/07 at 6:00am
It's an option in the BIOS to put a password on the Laptop. Desktops typically don't have this option for some reason.

Without the password you cannot do ANYTHING to the drive, you can't read from it, or write to it in any fashion. If you plug it into another machine the machine will either lockup at a non-existant password prompt or will just not recognize the drive at all.

ATA Passwords are written on the firmware tracks of the Hard Drive. There are machines out there that can write to the firmware tracks, but they are typically used by drive manufacturers or data recovery services like Drivesavers.com. These Machines run roughly $30,000.

If you REALLY want to get that data off the drive. I have a 10% off coupon for Drivesavers.com I can PM you. They have a working relationship with all the major drive makers and OEMs like Dell (hence why I have the coupon). I can tell you right now though....even with the discount it won't be cheap. (Outfits like DriveSavers usually can give you a ballpark figure on the cost when you call them and explain what is going on with the drive.)
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post #18 of 23
8/20/07 at 1:59pm
well as far as worrying about the passwords, its not your problem, let dell/original owner (if they ever see it again) worry about it.

give it to the police and help your client find a reputable place to buy a laptop, or smack them for stealing
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post #19 of 23
8/22/07 at 3:28pm
there is a simple way to get rid of the bios password, which just takes a few minutes

you have to use a paperclip on certain chip pins when booting up, different pins for different laptops

I only know this as I needed to remove the bios pasword for a work laptop that was handed down to me, goto ebay and search for dellpass, its quite simple
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post #20 of 23
8/27/07 at 1:18am
Thread Starter 
sorry about the wait....

we got the parts from dell in less than 12 hours for 2 laptops... i was impressed. anyway I installed the new mobo and hard drive set her up on xp home which according to dell she had from the get go. It's in transit to her in MD right now. So the customer got her laptop back!!! She's happy as can be.
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