Reset bios toshiba A210?

[postmanfw]

I have a mates Toshiba A210 laptop here which his girlfriend put a bios passoword on whilst drunk. The screen was then smashed but thats another story and repair.

Currently have the laptop totaly stripped down and have found the bios battery is soldered onto the underside of the motherboard and there is no obvious way to remove it or resest the bios to clear the password.

Any suggestions?

Found a guide on fixya but very dubious as no pictures show up and bits dont match up...dont want to kill this laptop by shorting out the wrong bits.

cheers

 

[beermonster]

I think under the memory cover under the ram there is a reset jumper, looks like two contacts just wide enough for a small screws driver to short out 3mm gap maybe. You might have to peel the sticker up as well.

 

[postmanfw]

Yes the guide on fixya mentioned them

Any idea which ones and the exact method?

 

[beermonster]

its the ones circled, I usuall take battery out, have the mains in, and hold a screwdriver or bent paper clip for about 10 seconds or so acoss the contacts.

 

[postmanfw]

Cheers mate thats fantastic...will give it a try later tonight once i rebuild it.

 

[postmanfw]

Cheers mate for that...worked a treat!!

Had read that it needed to be shorted whilst turning it on which seemed a bit wrong to me. Can confirm it just needs that wee gap shorted and hey presto bios password gone

Now just need to change the cracked screen on it.

Thanks a million...ocuk forums to the rescue yet again

 

[xtornado]

beermonster can you PLEASE tell my where a clear bios jumpers on my toshiba a210-19a ,pass is 0809 but it won"t accept. i dont now why please help me

 

[beermonster]

Looks like its the xxx jumper near the screw hole on that model.

 

[xtornado]

yeah it works!!! thx a lott chears

 

[Samycasanova]

xtornado ! My board is exactly like yours and couldn't reset the bios !
I have the model A210-157 and the board is exactly like yours, i did the shunt for a few seconds on those pins, but after turning it on, i have the same pass request ! I already tried several times....

Does anyone knows the address where the Phoenix bios stores the password ? I can see the Hex code easily.... I found the address where the pass is stored in a AMI bios but i can't find that info on a Phoenix...

I don't know if i can shunt the battery... making a shortcut makes me nervous and removing the battery is out of the question since is soldered to the mainboard.
Any more clues ?

 

[Samycasanova]

Finally i found the answer! I have done dozens of bios resets but none like this one and i didn't tried that before because seemed to me a bit none sense...

In this model you have to boot the computer with the shunt placed on and after the Thoshiba logo disappears, take it off.

I found the correct description for this model in the following link: http://www.fixya.com/support/t941257-toshiba_a215_password_removal

It's a weird and risky method but it works fine.

 

[Vesta_Man]

Security on Tosh laptops is a joke as is the security on most lappys!!
If you want a challenge try recovering the SVP from an IBM laptop, thats how tough it should be otherwise it's a pretty pointless feature imho.
Even then though someone with a little electronics knowledge and steady hand can crack that within 5-10 mins, did one the other day, easiest £100 I have ever made

 

[chronic86]

awsome this worked a treat!

 

[borboyous]

Hi there! Sorry to ressurect an old thread, my mainboard looks a lot like xtornado's above, mine is a Toshiba A210 and I was wondering if you could help me pinpoint the bios chip? I'm pretty confident with electronics as a rule but I can't work out which is the bios chip! Please see the attached pictures of the top and bottom of the board.

If anyone can help I would REALLY appreciate it!

 

[HORNEX]

Toshiba Sat Pro A210 Kill Cmos PassW

-Pull off the memory cover on the back of your computer.

-Now, take out any memory cards that are present.

-Look at the circuit board under where the memory was. You should see a rectangular black plastic sticker.

-Pull the sticker up.

-Look VERY closely at the circuit board under where the sticker was. You should find two soldering points close together that are labled with "B500."

-Now put one memory card in the slot that is furthest from the circuit board. DO NOT put a memory card into the inner-most slot at this time.

-Carefully hold a very small straight screwdriver over these two points and turn the power on to your computer.

-The Toshiba boot up screen will appear.

-Continue holding the screwdriver over the two points until the Toshiba screen goes away.

-When the screen goes away, pull away the screwdriver.

-Turn the computer off.

-Put the black plastic sticker back in place on the circuit board.

-Put all memory cards back in the memory slots.

-Put the memory cover back on the laptop case.

-Turn the computer on.

Enjoy

 

[HORNEX]

Enjoyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

 

[HORNEX]

Hi everyone,
I have a dv9000 which stops. no more boot. when I press the power button, nothing is done. The led of charging is on.

can anyone help?

 

[beermonster]

what about if you press the quick play button this should turn it on also, this eliminates a fault with the button, if that fails then its new mother board time.

 

[Olivier974]

I confirm this method is working on a TOSHIBA A210-17z

The method with the screwdriver works with TOSHIBA A210-17z, no more bios lock

The two soldering points close together that are labled with "B500" are in the same place as the Xtornado picture on my laptop.

Thanks a lot guys, i'm sorry for my english.

 

[bees]

Hi everyone,
I have a dv9000 which stops. no more boot. when I press the power button, nothing is done. The led of charging is on.

can anyone help?

it seems chipset problem not BIOS password problem.