My dear son has bought his Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop home with him after locking himself out of it .
Upon switching it on, it immediatly "says" that it is protected by a Password Authentication System ... it requests an Administrator password.
He cannot remember the pasword.
Neither of us have any XP OS discs.
How do I sort this out please ?
Mike P the 1st
Angle grinder.
Literally immediately?
So it's a BIOS password, rather than the operating system?
immediately as in, still at the bios screen, before any part of windows has started loading?
Sounds like the machine's own password, not windows.
Assuming he has a backup of any files and settings he needs to retain, he can do a factore restore. This will wipe the disk and put it back to the state it left the factory in. See here for destructions:
Try 'password'
On reflection, that sounds right. If so, removing/replacing the coin cell battery may do the trick by clearing the BIOS flash memory. You can find out how to do it from the service manual, downloadable from here:
Or WD-40, which is well known to do everything.
Clip round the lughole.
As others say, it sounds like the silly b*gger has set a bios password which is not easy to clear. I doubt removing the M/B battery will work. In desktop PCs, there is sometimes a jumper than can be temporarily set to clear a bios password but I've never seen anything similar in a laptop. Getting at the motherboard in a laptop is a lot more tedious.
Maybe something here will help.
Tim
I don't think it's that simple, if the machine is registered to the present owner then Dell can issue a password, if it was bought from ebay then it might be thank you and goodnight.
On Mon, 22 Nov 2010 08:26:23 +0000, Mike P the 1st gently dipped his quill in the best Quink that money could buy:
Thanks for all replies.
Yes .. I reckon it is a BIOS password.
No it was not from Ebay .. his Mum got it for him, but not from Ebay. He was just delving a bit too far for his own good with passwords.
Will a clip round the ear make it better .. or will it just make me feel better :-)
I will go look at the www links that I got from this thread, tonight.
Can I use any laptop power cable, if it fits ..... as he has lost the original. ... another clip ?
Thanks
Mike P the 1st
A master password can be calculated from the service tag.
(have not tried this, dark side of the net warning, set AV scanners to stun, etc....)
Just how many passwords does he use?
"Mike P the 1st" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
Seems to me that your first port of call should be the Dell UK web site. I could see nothing in the available manuals for that laptop referring to your problem but you can pose the question to Tech Support here:
"Mike P the 1st" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
Lost the power cable AND forgot the password? Are you sure this is really the laptop his mum got him?
To replace the power supply you'll need to match the voltage and have adequate current supply and have the right plug. There are a surprising number of incompatible plugs..
Tim
If you have a little PC skill you can do this. From another machine download and burn an ISO copy of Ultimate Boot CD Insert CD in locked machine. At startup hit F12 and choose boot from CD. Once loaded (takes a while) go Start/Programs/password tools, from there you can do what you like with passwords, including delete CMOS. Good luck
Allan
I'd be surprised if a bios password lock would let you get as far as booting from a CD.
Tim
Instructions here:
I'd be surprised if a bios password lock would let you get as far as booting from a CD.
This is all a bit strange, a BIOS password just stops you entering the BIOS . Does'nt stop the machine booting. Maybe some kind of 3rd party software.
Many have the option of setting the password for booting or just for accessing the BIOS.
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