BIOS PASSWORD AND LOCKED HARD DISK RECOVERY

If your computer won't boot without a password or you need a password to enter the computer set-up or change the settings, then you have a BIOS password set. BIOS is an acronym for  basic input/output system. The BIOS is the basic instruction set that "teaches" the computer  how to access disk drives, keyboard, display, etc.  The BIOS is typically placed on a ROM chip in the computer, hence the term ROM BIOS. The ROM BIOS allows the computer to boot itself. The BIOS is required to boot the computer.  Thus, if the BIOS is password protected, the  computer will not boot (or you will not be able to enter or change the BIOS settings.)

There are a number of different BIOS types, but most PC's have a BIOS supplied by one  of four companies: American Megatrends, Inc. (AMI), Award, Inc., Phoenix Technologies, Inc.  or IBM. Award Software became part of Phoenix Technologies in September 1998  – their main website is the Phoenix Technologies site.

Additional security features have been built into laptop computers. These usually include a hard disk password and a more secure BIOS system BIOS passwords can be set to require the password before booting the computer or to  require the password only to enter and/or change the BIOS set-up (which might be required in order to upgrade the computer.)   RECOVERY IF YOU CAN BOOT THE SYSTEM   If you can boot the system, BIOS password recovery is usually easy. The first thing you  will want to do is to use a BIOS password cracker to recover the actual password. There are a large number of BIOS password crackers available from a variety of sources. Some BIOS crackers only work with certain BIOS versions and some work better than others.  You may have to try a number of crackers before you find one that works.   Some BIOS' have pre-installed backdoor passwords that enable access to the system if  you have lost or forgotten your password. Attempting to regain access to the computer  by using one of the following backdoor passwords should be your first step if you have  lost or forgotten your BIOS password and cannot boot your computer. If you are able  to regain access to your system by using a backdoor password, you can then use a  password cracker to reveal the stored password or enter the BIOS setup to change the password. These backdoors are more likely to work on older desktop systems. We are  not aware of any name brand laptops or notebooks that have backdoor BIOS passwords.

At boot-up note the BIOS provider (Award, AMI, Phoenix, IBM, etc.)

For Award BIOS' try these backdoor passwords: AWARD_SW j262 HLT SER SKY_FOX BIOSTAR ALFAROME Lkwpeter j256 AWARD?SW LKWPETER syxz ALLy 589589 589721 awkward CONCAT d8on CONDO j64 szyx

For AMI BIOS' try these backdoor passwords: AMI BIOS PASSWORD HEWITT RAND AMI?SW AMI_SW LKWPETER A.M.I. CONDO

For PHOENIX BIOS' try this backdoor password: phoenix

These backdoor passwords have been provided to you free of charge. If you have attempted 
to use these backdoor passwords on a system (even just as a test), we would appreciate 
knowing whether these backdoors have worked for you.

HARD DISK LOCKS

Some laptops provide a utility to lock a hard disk with a password. These passwords are not the same as BIOS passwords. Moving a locked hard disk to another machine will not unlock  it, since the hard disk password is stored in the hard disk firmware and moves with the hard  disk. Also, adding a new (unlocked) hard disk to a locked machine may cause the new hard  disk to become locked. Also, note that hard disk lock passwords cannot be removed by reformatting the disk, fdisk or any other software procedure (since the disk will not allow and reads or writes to the disk, it cannot be reformatted. ) Usually, the BIOS password and hard disk lock passwords are set the same by a user and we can recover the BIOS password  directly from the laptop security chip (after it is removed from the system board.) However,  it is possible that the BIOS password and hard disk lock passwords may be set different. In this  case the BIOS password will not unlock the hard disk. You can test to determine if your hard disk is locked by attempting to access it in another laptop