Password Lockout

[Microgers87]

I have a toshiba satallite a75-s226 with a phoenix bios 4.0... my friend set the password on me and he can't remeber... how do i default it.. i also don't have a floppy drive available.. anyway to default it or bypass?

Thanks

[Chaz]

I think the only way is to reset the CMOS, but by doing that you'll wipe all of your BIOS settings. Look in your manual for how. Usually there's a jumper you have to pull off the motherboard, place onto some pins, and then put it back onto the original pins 10 seconds later.

[Southern Man]

Which P/W are we talking about?

Bios or Windows?

If it is a windows NT, 2000, or one of the XP platforms password it can be changed but you will have to find someone with the software to do it. I'm sure you will have to prove ownership also......

Like Chaz said... if it is the bios then just clear it, though I'm not sure how that is done on a laptop......

[Microgers87]

problem is that its a laptop

[noob]

If Bios password, you can reset the CMOS, either by jumpers or take the batteries out for about 30sec.

If NT, 2000, XP (I think 9x as well) you can either reformat, or take it into someone who has the software to reset it.

You will have to prove ownership, and it will be expensive. May I suggest next time you use the help menu, and create a password reset disk, if its windows.

edit < take batteries, cords out, take the back cover off, CMOS battery should be in small window you take off.

if you cannot find it, google system specs for that model >

[Microgers87]

its the bios..not the windows... trying to take laptop apart... what should this cmos battery look like?

[noob]

its a round disc, like a very oversized watch battery about 1.5cm diameter

Unless its a very old laptop, then it will be square and black, have 2 leads coming off it (red and black), and be a bit bigger than a AA size battery

[Chaz]

http://www.devhardware.com/administr...mg/battery.jpg

That's what you're looking for.

[Microgers87]

mine is soldered in.. how long will it take to die and lose the info.?

[noob]

Originally Posted by Microgers87

mine is soldered in.. how long will it take to die and lose the info.?

Ages if it hasn't already, depending on situations, but they can last for up to 3 years.

Is it lightly soldered?

If so, VERY gently heat the solder, and take it out, use a very fine tipped soldering iron

[Phat Pat]

http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/reference/biosp.htm

Backdoor passwords

Also, if it is a very old machine you may be able to do a buffer overflow on the password input. just keep hitting a as many times as you can, I've never seen this work, but I've heard it does on older bios revisions.

[Southern Man]

I'm going to ask a stupid question.......

Do you loose the password if you flash the bios?

It's been forever since I flashed my bios ...

[noob]

not normally, but some do

some others even ask for the password to flash the bios.

Usually the best thing to do is find some layout documentation and use the jumpers to reset the bios

[Áedán]

My experience with Toshiba laptops is that they store the password in a non-volatile EEPROM - removing the CMOS battery will erase the CMOS settings, but not the password.

Some Toshiba laptops respond to a specially wired parallel port plug, if the laptop you have has a parallel port. You can try wiring up the following pins:

• 1 - 5 - 10
• 2 - 11
• 3 - 17
• 4 - 12
• 6 - 16
• 7 - 13
• 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 (these are all grounds)
• 8 - 14
• 9 - 15

Another alternative is if the machine has a floppy disk (Yes, I know you said it didn't) - you can try making a key disk. You'll need a sector editor to do this however. Basically, you edit the second sector and put the hex sequence 4B 45 59 00 00 in as the first five bytes. Shove the disk in the drive and cold boot the laptop. If it works, you'll be able to press "enter" for the password prompt.

I believe that newer Toshiba laptops may require a USB key in order to bypass the password. I don't have details of these USB keys I'm afraid. Otherwise, it's ring Toshiba up and see how much they'll charge.

[Azriel]

If it's the bios password, reset the cmos. If it's the windows password, you will have to either crack the hash, or just change the pass. You won't be able to read files incrypted by windows though, even after changing the pass on the acct. This was explained in detail on the 3rd episode of The Broken. http://videos.revision3.com/thebroken/thebroken3.avi

thebroken.org