cannot boot from cd or access bios

[lspracklen]

I bought a used laptop off of ebay and the stupid boob who owned it
put XP Pro on it and forgot the bios password. I have taken the laptop
apart and was not able to find the RTC battery or any jumper to reset.

From everything I've researched about this laptop it is nearly

impossible to get the bios password. It came with the recovery cd and
a license for XP Home. XP Pro keeps asking for a license key and the
one for XP Home won't work. If I can somehow delete XP Pro I can boot
from the recovery CD and reload the factory software. Is there anyway
I can get XP Pro to delete itself? I can't get a DOS prompt or boot
from anything but the harddisk. I need some kind of software utility
that can do this or target specific windows files to delete which
would trick the bios to bypass the harddisk and boot from the CD. Does
anyone know of what specific files the BIOS looks for to load XP Pro
from the harddisk?

 

[Guest]

What type of laptop....Either way,the parts were not mfg together as 1 unit,
somebody or thing assembled it,you can disassemble or take to pc shop..Either
remove battery for 5 minutes or so,and/or locate the CMOS pin on the board,
move from 1-2 to 2-3 for .45 seconds or so,then back to 1-2.The battery
should
be removed 1st,but many dont w/o results...

 

[1D10T]

I bought a used laptop off of ebay and the stupid boob who owned it
put XP Pro on it and forgot the bios password. I have taken the laptop
apart and was not able to find the RTC battery or any jumper to reset.
impossible to get the bios password. It came with the recovery cd and
a license for XP Home. XP Pro keeps asking for a license key and the
one for XP Home won't work. If I can somehow delete XP Pro I can boot
from the recovery CD and reload the factory software. Is there anyway
I can get XP Pro to delete itself? I can't get a DOS prompt or boot
from anything but the harddisk. I need some kind of software utility
that can do this or target specific windows files to delete which
would trick the bios to bypass the harddisk and boot from the CD. Does
anyone know of what specific files the BIOS looks for to load XP Pro
from the harddisk?

I had the same problem. Go into setup - press 'delete' or F8, or whatever it
requires and change the boot order to CD first. Put the XP Home disk in the
drive, power off and restart. It will then load XP.

 

[John John]

That might be a costly purchase! With some laptops you have to contact
the manufacturer of the laptop or have an authorized service center
actually replace the laptop's security chip! Before they do it they
will ask for a confirmation from the registered owner that the laptop is
indeed yours, it a theft deterrence measure. What make of laptop do you
have? Did you consult the support section on their web site? Some
laptops do have backdoor passwsords or you may be able to use a brute
force utility to crack the password but if the readers know the make and
model of the laptop they may be able to offer better help.

John