Crack my bios password?

[bX510]

I was doing some cleaning and I found my mom's old Toshiba Satelite 460CDT laptop. She said she wants me to check if the hard drive has anything that she might need and to reformat it. When i turn it on, it asks me for a password (I am guessing this is Bios password?). Is there away to get by that? My mom couldn't remember the password.

Is it possible to replace that harddrive for this old laptop? What can i do with this thing?

 

[Atheus]

Find the BIOS battery, remove it (remove the main battery too), wait, put it back and try again.

 

[bX510]

Having a bit of trouble opening it. Where is the battery located? Do i have to remove the key board?

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: bX510
Having a bit of trouble opening it. Where is the battery located? Do i have to remove the key board?

No idea, never worked with your model of laptop before. Google?

 

[bX510]

I opened it, but couldn't open the whole thing. I saw this green battery pack, and thought it was the bios battery. Are laptops bios batteries the same as desktops?

 

[themisfit610]

Generally not. There's a huge variety of CMOS batteries for laptops.

I dont think resetting the cmos is going to clear the BIOS password. I think you should pull the hard drive and get a 2.5" -> USB adaptor and hook it up to your PC

 

[Ruptga]

Originally posted by: themisfit610
Generally not. There's a huge variety of CMOS batteries for laptops.

I dont think resetting the cmos is going to clear the BIOS password. I think you should pull the hard drive and get a 2.5" -> USB adaptor and hook it up to your PC

Agreed, modern laptops don't use volatile memory for their BIOS. They did it becuase it was entirely too easy for thieves to reset system passwords.

 

[Steven the Leech]

Can you flash the BIOS to a newer version, may get rid of the password, if not you can buy a password remover off of e gay fairly cheap.

 

[WackyDan]

Flashing will not get rid of the password... .

and it may be a "power on password" or a "hard disk password"... Power on passwords can be reset, hard drive passwords can not.

If it's a supervisor password, you most likely are SOL depending on the age of the laptop.

Best advice above was grab a 2.5 to 3.5 converter and try it... If it's a HD password you'll know it for sure then, though usually there is some sort of indicator on the screen

Try the vendor's site, if you dig you may find the hardware maintenance (what IBM calls them) type manual and it will detail resetting the Power on password if 1. that's what is set, and 2. you can even reset it on that laptop.

 

[bruceb]

If your Toshiba has a DB25 printer port then try this ... you will need a DB25 Male Plug and some jumper wires

Connect these pins on a DB25 plug to make the dongle:

1-5-10
2-11
3-17
4-12
6-16
7-13
8-14
9-15


After you wire it up, insert it into the printer port, then power up the computer .. the BIOS password should clear

This should do it (if it is the BIOS password)
Let us know

 

[bX510]

that sounds very complicated bruceb. Thanks for all the advices, I am probably going to try the harddrive method first.

 

[jfall]

just hope she didn't put a hdd password on it. In most cases you need to send it back to the manufacturer to get it unlocked.

Also, a lot of bios's have backdoor passwords. Do a search on google, you might get lucky

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: bX510
When i turn it on, it asks me for a password (I am guessing this is Bios password?). Is there away to get by that? My mom couldn't remember the password.

Have we established that this really IS a BIOS password, and not a Windows password? Is the screen totally black, with only a small box that asks for a password? Or is there a screen that says something like "Log into Windows", with graphics?

 

[corkyg]

Laptop makers generally make them so that BIOS passwords cannot be user compromised or zeroed out. That is deliberate as a way to lessen the threat of theft at airports, etc. Most require you to send the laptop in to the maker to have that done.

It usually requires accessing components under the keyboard - not a user friendly operation. Lesson learned here - never put a BIOS password into a laptop unless you really need to because of security problems. In that case, make sure you have thepassword recorded and stored safely in several places.

Hard drive changing is not hard. Remove the laptop in its caddy or tray, then put the new one in the caddy/tray and reinstall the OS.

 

[techs]

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

If you can still boot to a floppy, search for a program called killcmos on the web (easy to find) and you run it from a floppy and it will reset the bios and blank the password

 

[corkyg]

From Techs reference, this might work with your Toshiba Satellite:

Toshiba BIOS
Most Toshiba laptops and some desktop systems will bypass the BIOS password if the left shift key is held down during boot

 

[Dave Richardson]

An official dealer for the type of laptop ypu have should be able to clear the password for you. They are deliberately made difficult to clear for obvious reasons. They are NOT like desktop PCs.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: bruceb
If your Toshiba has a DB25 printer port then try this ... you will need a DB25 Male Plug and some jumper wires

Connect these pins on a DB25 plug to make the dongle:

I've done stuff like this before and it really works (for certain notebooks).

 

[bX510]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: bX510
When i turn it on, it asks me for a password (I am guessing this is Bios password?). Is there away to get by that? My mom couldn't remember the password.

Have we established that this really IS a BIOS password, and not a Windows password? Is the screen totally black, with only a small box that asks for a password? Or is there a screen that says something like "Log into Windows", with graphics?

Yes, the screen is black with white letters. No graphics of any kind.

Originally posted by: techs
Try this:
http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/reference/biosp.htm

If you can still boot to a floppy, search for a program called killcmos on the web (easy to find) and you run it from a floppy and it will reset the bios and blank the password

Very interesting, I'll give it a try when i get back to my mom's place.

Originally posted by: corkyg
From Techs reference, this might work with your Toshiba Satellite:

Toshiba BIOS
Most Toshiba laptops and some desktop systems will bypass the BIOS password if the left shift key is held down during boot

I'll give this a shot too, when i get back.

Originally posted by: Dave Richardson
An official dealer for the type of laptop ypu have should be able to clear the password for you. They are deliberately made difficult to clear for obvious reasons. They are NOT like desktop PCs.

If all fails, I will ask a friend the works at CompUSA.

 

[bruceb]

There is no reason for you not to make the DB25 jumper plug
All you need is a DB25 Male Plug, some bare jumper wires
and a soldering iron .. it should take you no more than 10 minutes
to make it ... and it will work on the Toshiba .. you can also buy them
but they will cost a lot more than making it yourself .. especially if
you already have a plug to use

I could make one for you, but it would cost you about $20 to cover
part, time and shipping

 

[SparkyJJO]

or just stick the wires in the holes of the printer port and not even bother with buying a plug... But honestly I've never heard of that method before.