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26th February 2009, 06:44 PM
|  | TST Oracle | | Join Date: Dec 2007, 7,960 posts. Location: Market Haemorrhoids, Middle England Reputation:  | | | Missing Dell BIOS (boot) password
I have a client's machine on which one of his darling little brats has created or reset the BIOS password and now denies all knowledge of the thing. I seem to recall there is either a means of generating the default password from the Service Tag or, failing that, shorting out one of the motherboard chips. That I have done before but would prefer to know which chip it is.
The system is a Dell Dimension 3100.
Anyone able to help before I condemn the thing to perdition and a drop kick into the neighbours wheelie bin?
__________________ Never take life seriously; nobody gets out alive anyway.
Last edited by Albert Lionheart; 26th February 2009 at 06:47 PM.
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26th February 2009, 06:55 PM
|  | TST Oracle | | Join Date: Jul 2008, 8,169 posts. Location: UK Norfolk ..... Reputation: | | |
Cant you just take the battery out Albert wont that reset it
__________________ Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming...
Damn, What a ride!!  |
27th February 2009, 01:37 AM
|  | TST Master | | Join Date: Dec 2007, 2,107 posts. Location: England Reputation: | | |
Taking the battery out wont work on a Dell. The password is stored on a chip. You have to short the chip out in order to cause a malfunction to force the system to blank the bios. There is no other way of doing it apart from contacting Dell but absolute proof of ownership is required for that. If the lappy is second hand then Dell refuse to help.
__________________ "If at first you do not succeed, sit down, have a coffee, have a smoke, and think for a bit. If that still doesn't work, post it on TST". |
27th February 2009, 06:57 AM
|  | Security Team | | Join Date: Dec 2007, 2,555 posts. Location: Tulsa, OK Reputation: | | Quote: How To Hack CMOS or BIOS
Dell computers will have a jumper that has the letters PWD or PSWD beside it. In fact, most motherboard manufacturers have a similar jumper. Just short the jumper and turn on the computer. It will beep a couple of times and the BIOS password is now removed.
Failing physical access to the computer, you are still not dead in the water. Using a program named CmosPwd, you can extract the passwords of most BIOS manufacturers. CmosPwd is an open source program and has ready binaries for Windows, Linux, and DOS.
Downside time. To use it, you need to be logged on as Administrator since you need to install a .sys file for it to run in windows. The Linux Version can be thrown onto a LiveCD and voila! BIOS Password!
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27th February 2009, 02:30 PM
| | TST Master | | Join Date: Dec 2007, 2,107 posts. Location: England Reputation: | |
That's handy EF.
__________________ "If at first you do not succeed, sit down, have a coffee, have a smoke, and think for a bit. If that still doesn't work, post it on TST". |
27th February 2009, 02:57 PM
| | TST Oracle | | Join Date: Jul 2008, 8,169 posts. Location: UK Norfolk ..... Reputation: | | Quote:
Originally Posted by Rik  Taking the battery out wont work on a Dell. The password is stored on a chip. You have to short the chip out in order to cause a malfunction to force the system to blank the bios. There is no other way of doing it apart from contacting Dell but absolute proof of ownership is required for that. If the lappy is second hand then Dell refuse to help. | Thank you Rik 
__________________ Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming...
Damn, What a ride!! |
27th February 2009, 03:12 PM
| | TST Master | | Join Date: Dec 2007, 2,107 posts. Location: England Reputation: | |
No prob, it's one of those things you just wouldn't know unless you had tried it on a Dell.
(I learned the hard way)
__________________ "If at first you do not succeed, sit down, have a coffee, have a smoke, and think for a bit. If that still doesn't work, post it on TST". |
27th February 2009, 03:35 PM
| | TST Oracle | | Join Date: Jul 2008, 8,169 posts. Location: UK Norfolk ..... Reputation: | |
Half expected Albert to be spitting 
Oh dont PC World make Dells
__________________ Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming...
Damn, What a ride!! |
27th February 2009, 04:33 PM
| | TST Oracle | | Join Date: Dec 2007, 7,960 posts. Location: Market Haemorrhoids, Middle England Reputation: | | |
Lay off, Donna!
I have the patience of a saint, just not the morals.
I have already tried the battery out bit as well as the shorting of the CMOS battery jumpers - NBG (no b looody good) so will heave out the motherboard and short out the chips to see.
By the way, it is a desktop so not quite such hard and fiddly work as a laptop!
__________________ Never take life seriously; nobody gets out alive anyway. |
27th February 2009, 04:41 PM
| | TST Oracle | | Join Date: Jul 2008, 8,169 posts. Location: UK Norfolk ..... Reputation: | |
__________________ Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming...
Damn, What a ride!! |
27th February 2009, 04:43 PM
| | TST Oracle | | Join Date: Dec 2007, 7,960 posts. Location: Market Haemorrhoids, Middle England Reputation: | | |
Patience is a virtue
Virtue is a grace
Grace is just a dirty girl
Who doesn't wash her face.
(Ancient Norfolk Ditty)
__________________ Never take life seriously; nobody gets out alive anyway. |
27th February 2009, 04:45 PM
| | TST Oracle | | Join Date: Jul 2008, 8,169 posts. Location: UK Norfolk ..... Reputation: | | |
I added a bit to my post
Has it a floppy drive ??
__________________ Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming...
Damn, What a ride!! |
27th February 2009, 05:06 PM
| | TST Oracle | | Join Date: Dec 2007, 7,960 posts. Location: Market Haemorrhoids, Middle England Reputation: | | |
I can have but when I tried to download it Kaspersky thought it was so dangerous it refused to allow it!
Ah well - thanks for the thought!
__________________ Never take life seriously; nobody gets out alive anyway. |
27th February 2009, 05:11 PM
| | TST Oracle | | Join Date: Jul 2008, 8,169 posts. Location: UK Norfolk ..... Reputation: | | |
Avg didnt like it either
__________________ Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming...
Damn, What a ride!! |
27th February 2009, 05:25 PM
| | TST Oracle | | Join Date: Dec 2007, 7,960 posts. Location: Market Haemorrhoids, Middle England Reputation: | | |
There you go, then!
__________________ Never take life seriously; nobody gets out alive anyway. |
27th February 2009, 05:40 PM
| | TST Oracle | | Join Date: Jul 2008, 8,169 posts. Location: UK Norfolk ..... Reputation: | | |
But Malwarebytes scanned it as clean
It does warn that AV might pick it up
__________________ Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming...
Damn, What a ride!! |
27th February 2009, 05:51 PM
| | TST Oracle | | Join Date: Dec 2007, 7,960 posts. Location: Market Haemorrhoids, Middle England Reputation: | | |
Even so, I wouldn't touch it with your bargepole, Donna!
__________________ Never take life seriously; nobody gets out alive anyway. |
27th February 2009, 07:01 PM
|  | TST Expert | | Join Date: Aug 2008, 776 posts. Reputation: | |
Every new OS or even vendor has been increasingly making it harder and harder
to clear bios or system passwords. Having Linux Live CD helps many times...for me.
I had known backdoor passwords and even some debug entries if I could get
to DOS of the machine.
Albert, you should find that shorting technique to work.  |
28th February 2009, 12:29 PM
| | TST Oracle | | Join Date: Dec 2007, 7,960 posts. Location: Market Haemorrhoids, Middle England Reputation: | | |
It is not my intention to go chasing round looking for second hand motherboards to fit this heap. I hate Dell machines with a passion and it would give me enormous pleasure to recycle it - in other words jump up and down on it in my great big hobnail boots until it is dead.
As I think I said above, I have reset boards by shorting out chips before so I will try that - if it fails that is the end of it.
__________________ Never take life seriously; nobody gets out alive anyway. | |  Only registered members can participate in forum threads. You must register or log in to contribute.
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