BIOS/HDD password

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

I found an old HDD knocking round at work which is for a toshiba tecra
8100. Wasn't sure what was on it so shoved it in my own laptop, booted
it up and it wanted a password. Took it out, and put my original HDD
back in. Now when it boots its still asking for a password!

I bought my laptop as a refurb unit so its well out of any support and
dread to think how much toshiba woudl charge to remove the password.
Can anyone suggest anything apart from sending it back to toshiba? I
have tried the keydisk but that did nothing, I have seen stuff about
creating a parallel loopback cable, anyone actualy had this work
before i waste my time?

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Andrew wrote:
>
> Rachel <thee_psycho@hotmail.com> wrote:
> : I found an old HDD knocking round at work which is for a toshiba tecra
> : 8100. Wasn't sure what was on it so shoved it in my own laptop, booted
> : it up and it wanted a password. Took it out, and put my original HDD
> : back in. Now when it boots its still asking for a password!
>
> : I bought my laptop as a refurb unit so its well out of any support and
> : dread to think how much toshiba woudl charge to remove the password.
> : Can anyone suggest anything apart from sending it back to toshiba? I
> : have tried the keydisk but that did nothing, I have seen stuff about
> : creating a parallel loopback cable, anyone actualy had this work
> : before i waste my time?
>
> Desktop machines have a little jumper on the motherboard you can use
> to erase the BIOS password. Opening up a laptop is a huge pain (not
> necessarily something I would recommend you do) but that might be what
> is required, presuming a laptop motherboard has something similar.
> Can you even boot from CD?
>
> You put the keydisk in when the machine is asking for a password,
> correct (as described in your users manual)? And it has no effect?
> How about putting the other hard drive back in and try the keydisk
> with that one in?

With the added caveat of, if there's a HDD password set,
you're not gettin' in. (Unless, of course, you're willing
to spend *big* bucks!)

Notan

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Barry Watzman <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote:
> There is a question here as to whether it is the BIOS asking for a
> password, or the hard drive.
>
> There are two classical ways of clearing a Toshiba BIOS password, and
> you mentioned them both.
>
> But if what you did somehow set a hard drive password, you are really
> screwed, although I'd have to admit, that seems unlikely.
>
> To try and isolate where the request is coming from, try booting from
> a flopppy or CD with no hard drive (at all) installed.
>
> And yes, I'd try the parallel loopback. It does work, at least on
> some (many) models.

Barry, you're much more familiar with Toshibas than I, but if this were a
Thinkpad laptop I could tell you what probably happened.

Posit: The laptop has a supervisor level PW set which, provided there are no
changes to the system, normally lies dormant and transparent to the user and
OS.

But, any attempt to change anything on the machine that requires a BIOS
change will activate the PW. Hence, swapping the HD has resulted in the PW
activating. Putting the old HD back in is not sufficient to clear the
problem and the unit will continue to prompt for the PW until it is cleared.

--
Regards,

James

Checkout the NEW Thinkpad Forums: http://forum.thinkpads.com

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

JHEM, your theory is as good as any.

Yes, the BIOS password can be cleared, but the methods are the same as
for clearing a user password, and they are the methods that the original
poster already discussed.


>>
>>Barry, you're much more familiar with Toshibas than I, but if this were a
>>Thinkpad laptop I could tell you what probably happened.
>>
>>Posit: The laptop has a supervisor level PW set which, provided there are no
>>changes to the system, normally lies dormant and transparent to the user and
>>OS.
>>
>>But, any attempt to change anything on the machine that requires a BIOS
>>change will activate the PW. Hence, swapping the HD has resulted in the PW
>>activating. Putting the old HD back in is not sufficient to clear the
>>problem and the unit will continue to prompt for the PW until it is cleared.
>
>
> And, for the $64,000 question, can the "supervisor level PW" be cleared?
>
> Notan