[Fordboy460]

I was trying to help out a friend of mine a little while ago with a laptop that her son left to her. I cant remember the model, but I do remember it was a dell. Anyways, the laptop had a bios password on it and she is no longer in contact with her son, so she could not get the password. I know that on a PC that there are ways to reset the password by removing the battery or by the jumpers, but I have never found a solution to reseting a bios password on a laptop. I even went as far as to breaking down the laptop and actually desoldering the cmos battery and leaving it out for several minutes, but when I soldered the battery back in and reconstructed the laptop it still asked me for a password and will not even attempt to access the hard drive until I provide that password.

I no longer have the laptop in my possession because I gave it back to her, but I don't like to fail on projects like this and it has been bothering me ever since. So, I was wondering for my own knowledge if anyone knew any way to get past it.

Also, I did say bios password but I wasn't totally sure if it was because the password was to access the hard drive, not the bios.

[gdi1942]

Have you tried to get into BIOS (using the BIOS key?). If you can get into bios then there is no bios password, you may have a boot password or hard drive password. There may be a built-in backup password that may be able to override that password. Sometimes removing the battery doesn't always work as the password can be stored in flash memory in which case it needs no power to rememberit. Have you looked for a CLR_CMOS jumper on the board before you put it back togeather? This will reset the bios to default. You must jump those prongs then turn the laptop to clear.

I would first look for a default password, then try getting into bios using the bios key and then finally open it up. Laptop is useless without a password.

[JohnWill]

Laptops can have passwords on the BIOS, and some hard disk models (Toshiba for one) also have the capability of having a hard disk password.

Neither of these measures are easily bypassed, as they are specifically intended as theft prevention measures. I'd contact Dell and ask their advice, because we can't assist in this matter. While your intentions may be pure, there is no way of knowing if this is a stolen laptop. Please don't assume I'm calling you a thief, just telling you why we don't assist in this kind of issue. From this end of the keyboard, there's no way of knowing what the situation is.