My very generous coworker bought a Sony VAIO laptop (a P4) for her neice several years back. The story is a bit murky, but somehow the laptop recently got a BIOS password put on - a boot up password. Turn the system on - goes through it's normal POST and such and then you must enter a password.
Unfortunately, in searching for ways around this, I first found a bunch of default password. None worked. Moving on, I assumed (wrongly) that I could disconnect the CMOS battery. I found the battery, pulled it - no dice. Then later read that many laptops have settings such as this stored in an EPROM.
You can call Sony and have them give you some form of code or such to get around it, but they *demand* you fax them proof of ownership. Unfortunately, there's no proof of ownership anymore. My coworker has no bill, the store she bought it from is long gone.
So, she said it's useless, threw it at me and said "play around, keep it if you can get it running".
I've found that there are services that for $120 will sell you a chip, which I'm sure amounts to an empty or pre-programed EPROM that you have to install.
I'll be honest - I'm looking for an utterly cheap or free way to deal with this. If I can't I'll ditch it as well. It might be nice for a computer down in my workshop.
Am I hosed?
If required I'll post up the model #. Unfortunately the PC is at work and I don't remember the # off the top of my head.
Unfortunately, in searching for ways around this, I first found a bunch of default password. None worked. Moving on, I assumed (wrongly) that I could disconnect the CMOS battery. I found the battery, pulled it - no dice. Then later read that many laptops have settings such as this stored in an EPROM.
You can call Sony and have them give you some form of code or such to get around it, but they *demand* you fax them proof of ownership. Unfortunately, there's no proof of ownership anymore. My coworker has no bill, the store she bought it from is long gone.
So, she said it's useless, threw it at me and said "play around, keep it if you can get it running".
I've found that there are services that for $120 will sell you a chip, which I'm sure amounts to an empty or pre-programed EPROM that you have to install.
I'll be honest - I'm looking for an utterly cheap or free way to deal with this. If I can't I'll ditch it as well. It might be nice for a computer down in my workshop.
Am I hosed?
If required I'll post up the model #. Unfortunately the PC is at work and I don't remember the # off the top of my head.