How to solve this? Help!!!

CW_2 · 29 Apr 2012 at 09:22

My laptop which is around 7 years old is found in the store room. However, I got a problem when I run it.

Before it is even loading the windows, there is a message prompting "Please type in the hard-disk password [ ]" "[S/N: KM9862 ]".

The password allowed for 8-digits space. Any expert out there can advise what happened to my laptop?

It is an old laptop, but with some data inside which is good if can be recovered. The laptop is Dell Inspiron 1100, running on Windows XP.

Help!!!

theheyes · 29 Apr 2012 at 09:43

Sounds like somebody enabled the disk password. Unfortunately I believe this is stored in the firmware and is very difficult to get around, even though the contents themselves aren't encrypted.

Beans on toast Dave · 29 Apr 2012 at 09:47

could you take out the bios battery and reset? or put the hdd on another pc to get the info?

CW_2 · 29 Apr 2012 at 15:29

Hmmm... Thanks for the suggestion. I think I'll try what challengedavid mentioned. If really no choice, have to give up the data inside... sigh...