Enter password help

AdamScott85

AdamScott85

AdamScott85

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Joined
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Hi guys, so my wifes nursery has been donated some old computer towers from a local school that is closing down. They have asked me if I can get them working and maybe install windows, usually not a problem and I won't be charging them as it's where she works. The problem is, when I boot all of them up, I try to enter the bios and I get a blue box saying "enter password". The problem is, the school has shut down and we have no way of getting the password. I tried clearing the CMOS, tried the hard drive in another pc and its fine, tried booting from a pendrive OS no luck. This system password is blocking access for every tower and I am stumped. Also to add, none of them actually boot up and all of the drives have been wiped already so there is no luck with getting past post. Also no bootable devices will get past post either.

Any ideas guys please ?
 
When you say cleared the cmos, have you removed the battery for 5 mins before retrying? With no mains cable plugged into the pc.
 
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mattyfez said:
When you say cleared the cmos, have you removed the battery for 5 mins before retrying? With no mains cable plugged into the pc.
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Yeah mate, 10 minutes i left it for. Very strange this, I tried that on all the towers and its the same with them all. I have fixed hundreds of computers but these are just being odd. I am thinking it's something to do with the school security they put on it, but I would have thought clearing the cmos would have removed that.
 
Im stumped then.. maybe unplug the psu from the mobo to be sure there's no residual power supply, wait 5 mins.
If they are ex school pc's they may have some kinda locked BIOS, but I can't imagine that's the case, if it is then the mobos are worthless and you'll just have a bunch of spare cpu's and ram sticks.
 
mattyfez said:
Im stumped then.. maybe unplug the psu from the mobo to be sure there's no residual power supply, wait 5 mins.
If they are ex school pc's they may have some kinda locked BIOS, but I can't imagine that's the case, if it is then the mobos are worthless and you'll just have a bunch of spare cpu's and ram sticks.
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Yeah it could be looking that way, I am gonna try and get the nursery to contact someone for the password tomorrow, if that gets nowhere, these may just be for the junk pile.
 
Are these RM branded machines or anything like that? Something in the deepest darkest slightly fuzzy corner of my memory is telling me that those things could be locked right down with no return without the password.
 
I seem to recall that some machines have a jumper that you need to short in order to wipe the BIOS. If the motherboard has any markings on to identify it you may be able to find an online manual for it that may help.
 
If they were setup properly then the BIOS will be set with HDD as the first (or possibly only) boot option and passwords set to prevent the BIOS from being entered. This will probably stop you from being able to flash them (as you wont be able to boot from another device) or enter the BIOS to change the order.

If they are built by someone like HP / Dell / Lenovo within the last 5 years or so you will likely find that removing the battery etc will simply not remove the password as with security improvements it writes to an area of memory that isn't wiped due to lack of power. When you think about it it's actually quite sensible as the password was originally intended to stop exactly what you are trying to do.

I would suggest your easiest way would be to get your Wife to get in touch with the person who donated them and ask them to contact the old IT team for the BIOS password.
 
If you install DOS on a hard drive and put it in the PC you can then use the debug command to corrupt the checksum of the bios password,
This will cause it to blank the password, you will probably get a message about a checksum error too

I would test it with one first in case it bricks it, but thats unlikely

See method 1 on here for a step by step

Edit:
Also if you get an error code of some kind, it may be worth trying it here
Sometimes they are actually the hashed password.
 
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BinnsY said:
If they were setup properly then the BIOS will be set with HDD as the first (or possibly only) boot option and passwords set to prevent the BIOS from being entered. This will probably stop you from being able to flash them (as you wont be able to boot from another device) or enter the BIOS to change the order.

If they are built by someone like HP / Dell / Lenovo within the last 5 years or so you will likely find that removing the battery etc will simply not remove the password as with security improvements it writes to an area of memory that isn't wiped due to lack of power. When you think about it it's actually quite sensible as the password was originally intended to stop exactly what you are trying to do.

I would suggest your easiest way would be to get your Wife to get in touch with the person who donated them and ask them to contact the old IT team for the BIOS password.
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They are older than 5 years. Tried everything and no luck. Gonna check for markings on the board now as above post , i will post back mate.
 
A few images, all I can make out is Intel. The tower make is Stone on all of them.

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Googling the model number or serial number may help, but it's hard to see from the pics, cables in the way etc. But you're right, it's an intel board!
 
It's probably an obscure OEM model, but I had a similar issur with a batch of lenovo pc's, it turned out they were basically the same a a retail equivalent so the drivers and stuff worked fine in them.. but that's not much help when the BIOS is locked down.
 
AdamScott85 said:
They are older than 5 years. Tried everything and no luck. Gonna check for markings on the board now as above post , i will post back mate.
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Yea, even older than that it wouldn't surprise me. When you actually think about it the fact you could ever clear a BIOS password simply be removing the battery was laughable as it completely negates the point of the password. Manufacturers must have caught onto this as I know most modern PC's this doesn't work and the 5 year time frame was something of an estimate based on the PC's I deal with at work.

I honestly think your easiest way would simply be to ask if anyone can get hold of the old IT people in the first instance. If they were doing their job correctly the BIOS password wouldn't match any domain passwords or anything else that could still be in use and it will be fine to give out.
 
BinnsY said:
Yea, even older than that it wouldn't surprise me. When you actually think about it the fact you could ever clear a BIOS password simply be removing the battery was laughable as it completely negates the point of the password. Manufacturers must have caught onto this as I know most modern PC's this doesn't work and the 5 year time frame was something of an estimate based on the PC's I deal with at work.

I honestly think your easiest way would simply be to ask if anyone can get hold of the old IT people in the first instance. If they were doing their job correctly the BIOS password wouldn't match any domain passwords or anything else that could still be in use and it will be fine to give out.
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Yeah mate that is the next thing now, I am gonna goto the nursery tomorrow and do everything I can to get hold of someone from the school that knows the password. It is crazy that removing the battery isn't working and you can't get anywhere, but like you say the fact you can remove the battery to clear the cmos on some does make passwords pointless.
 
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