I have a sony vaio srx51p which I bought off ebay a few months ago. I've just got round to attempting to reinstall xp on it. However I need to set the external dvd drive as the boot device. The problem is there is a password on the bios which the original seller doesn't know. Is there anyway of getting rid of the password?
ah...the joy's of laptop and passwords!!! I am pretty sure that most laptops (well all of the dell range laptops do) have a chip on their motherboard used for storing the password to the bios, which does not require power for the password to be stored, so removing the battery wont do a thing...I ended up following a guide on the net I found, where I had to find the chip, solder two wires, and then reset the password by connecting the wires whilste booting, which cleared the memory, and then I unsoldered them, and put everything back together...not really worth 6hrs of trying this and that, and taking a laptop apart and putting it back together, but at least I learnt something!
i had a few laptops witch were pretty easy to reset the bios. just unplug the battery, plug in the power and turn it on for a few seconds. works for some laptops (but i dont think its healty....)
Mr.ME Do you mean unplug the bios battery? I'e had a look on the internet but I can't see any soldering guides. I'd rather not screw this laptop up as it's my main machine at the moment
I've been looking into the unlocking of IBM thinkpads and most of them require either new security chips (solder required) or alternatively you need to construct a circuit, attach it to the old chip, and then connect the circuit to your PC via a COM cable. This is for passwords that completely lock the PC down though. Its all a bit of a nightmare really.
I've been running it off the mains without a battery in for a few days now. I'll try rebooting and see if the bios password is gone Otherwise I think I'll just have to live with it. Can't afford to mess around with solder
Yer quite a lot are like that, got a few HP/Compaq's at work that I need to sort out but it's too much effort Have you tried searching for back door passwords or contacted Sony for one? I would cut to the chase TBH otherwise you will just waste hours of time... theres normally two ways that will work, remove the bios battery or short the eprom chip (that stores the pass), you will probably have to do the latter. Just gave Google a bash, this link looks like it covers most things, including shorting the bar***** eprom chip: http://www.elfqrin.com/docs/biospw.html Good luck
Try wiping a magnet across JUST THAT chip. It wipes it, so it needs no password. It has worked for me before many times. Admittedly it has always been on old laptops, so I don't know if technology has changed. EDIT: Try this: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/CmosPwd Or this: http://www.myplc.com/sony/bios_password_recovery_solution.htm
Well for desktops at least (dells in particular) they as said above have a jumper that you simply remove, take away that connection no password at all and you're good to go. As to other computers, some have backdoor passwords that always work, others are basically locked up Have you tried emailing the person?
