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hi, i hope that there is someone who can help,

my younger brother has been playing with my laptop and managed to put a password on the bios. this has ment that i can`t get the laptop running.

does anyone know if there is a way around this? i am running xp and it is a Dell inspiron 5100 256mb ram, 1.7gb pentium 4.

i am willing to reinstall if need be, but of course i`d rather not.

hope that someone out there has a few sugestions.

dnick

Reinstalling wont help if it is on the BIOS. The p/w is in the hardware. and you wont be able to boot to install. But surely your brother must know it, he put it in twice to set it up, so wouldnt be a random key press. Just kick his ass for a while.

Alternatively after a quick search on Google, if you call Dell support, with proof of your owenership they can generate a master overide password.

my brother did this weeks ago when i was away and has said he can`t remember, git.

i also bought the machine second hand, so no proof of ownership.

so i take it the machine is buggered!

My son did exactly the same thing to an old laptop that we had (a Compaq I think). Searched for ages for a way around it but ended up taking it to the dump :(

Hope you have better luck than I did.

Sam.



"Due to budget cutbacks, the light at the end of the tunnel has been extinguished." Spike Milligan

try secret, I bought a second hand laptop years ago and was told this was the admin password for the bios, dont know if it was true or not however have not had the lapton for 8 years know probably changed it by now.

A WISE MAN ONCE SAID

Take the CMOS memory\bios backup battery out.

This item was edited on Monday, 30th August 2004, 23:52

ok, now that i have striped my laptop down, were the heck do i find the bios chip and battery?
there is not much left to take out!!!!

Dunno about on a laptop, but on a desktop PC, the battery is one of those small digital watch ones. If it is soldered in place, have a look for a jumper that says Bios reset or something similair.

*Snip* Ignore the above.

Here are the instructions on how to reset the Bios on a Dell laptop. Do it at your own risk mind!

But first, try here. It is a list of backdoor passwords for certain BIOS manufacturers, and one of them may work.

This item was edited on Friday, 3rd September 2004, 23:54