[RESOLVED] Gateway laptop BIOS password - SOLO 9300

[Bakup_uk]

I've had a client come in today with a Gateway SOLO 9300 laptop. Unfortunately for him he let his young daughter play with it over the weekend and she has managed to put a password on the BIOS and password the Hard disk. Yeah you read it right - never seen that before either

I've rung Gateway for him and they couldnt help me as far as password recovery was concerned. Unfortunately I cannot boot the PC as this Harddisk password appears everytime it boots. I have tried removing the BIOS battery (only for 3 mins though) and both passwords are still there. Can someone suggest a "fix" for recovering the password or getting it to boot so I can attempt some of the "kill bios" programs.

Needless to say his employers - BT, will not be impressed if its irrepairable (the poor guy was in shock to say the least

Thanks in advance

Matt


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-= Sanity checked in at the door as requested =-

[kewos2]

Try the following site, then go to 'Password'. You might be lucky to solve your problem. Goodlucky.

http://www.windrivers.com/tech/troub...exceptions.htm

[Bakup_uk]

Thanks for the reply but, unfortunately, the link was not relevant to the problem I've got. I cannot even get the machine to boot past the memory check as a blue box saying "Hard disk password : " appears and I need it to actually boot.

Anything else I can try?



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-= Sanity checked in at the door as requested =-

[CKite]

Is there a J7B1 jumper on the mainboard?
If there is put the jumper on 2-3 and it will, should, go into password reocovery/pentium speed setup.

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Conrad, Version 1.0 beta

[Bakup_uk]

I stripped it down after the guy left and as far as I can see there are no jumpers on the board at all. As far as I can see I cant determine which chip is the BIOS. It doesnt stand out like other laptops I've worked ob before.

I've also checked the chasis number and found that it doesnt match the ones listed on the Gateway site



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-= Sanity checked in at the door as requested =-

[Drone2903]

I had a similar prob not long ago with an IBM disk that came from an IBM laptop. The password was on the DISK itself, and proved to be irrecoverable (sol)
My only suggestion (beside beating the password out the little brat) would be to mount this drive as a slave in a working machine, see if u can access the data, back it up to a new drive and remount that.

Good luck, sounds like you are going to need it !
Dan

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C'est la vie....