bios password

[Silver Trooper]

Rusty503, I have thought about your problem several times and have even set my own BIOs password in defense against this problem.

Have you considered, and I am nor even sure that it is an option in your case, letting a good CID Investigator take a stab at extracting the information from the most likely suspects.

You will have to excuse me, I am a old cop, and to a man whose favorite tool is a hammer, the whole world looks like nail...

They won't touch it because it is my personally owned computer. That on top of the number of suspects. They can't go on just my feelings. They want something much more concrete to go on.

Okay, as a military man and a sometimes LE type, how about another approach? Go to the CSM and tell him what happened. The enlisted network is there for a reason. Don't go to him in an "official" capacity (at least not at first). Just let him know that someone in your group has been a real pr%^k and ask him for his advice/help. Don't go in as a whiner, just explain to him that your computer is your link to the rest of the world, including your family, and that someone has turned it into a $2K-$3K doorstop. Jokes are one thing, but when you f*&k with someone's livelihood or their family, the gloves come off. If someone can offer time off or something tangible as a reward, you may get some results. Everyone has their price and whoever did this bragged about it to someone, you can bet on that.

[denrosten]

Teo, i don't know if it will work on a CF-30, but i always have success with removing all the battery's and then shorten the cmos battery pins on the mb for a second.
That is what the jumper on desktop mb does when you want to reset the bios

[teo]

den...I've tried that already and every option available on the net without success. This machine boot up only on harddrive all available boot up option are not available. The only option I think is to replace the eeprom on the mbo. but wait I have still one left option to drain the cmos power by connecting a 10,000ohm resistor. I will try this for a whole week wothout powering it up. Its a great machine MK3 the latest model with all the option installed except for fingerprint reader. BTW, thanks for your info. highly appreciated. Anybody has any idea or just toss it out and maybe replace the mbo. from MKII.


teo

[rusty503]

My CF-30 is in the same boat. It will only boot from the HDD. Shorting across the CMOS battery pins will do nothing. One thing I did find out is that if you power on the computer without the DIMM installed, that will invalidate the CMOS settings but WILL not reset the password. Try it on yours and see what happens.

I don't think the password is even stored in the BIOS chip. I read someplace that the password might be stored on the TPM chip. I have removed my BIOS chip and used an universal programmer to read the chip. I can't see anything that sticks out as an obvious password. I did however write down anything that remotely looks like a password and will try them when I get this thing back together. I have found an older copy of the BIOS files and would like to clean out this chip and reload the BIOS but I don't want to chance screwing up this chip. I am trying to find some of these chips online. I figure if I can get some other chips, I can load them up and try them without screwing up the original. The chip is a M25PX32-VMW6E. I have found them at one place but the minimum buy is 741 at $1.17 each. I can't afford that! If I could find another motherboard from this series to read that BIOS chip, I could compare the two and see what the differences are. If I could even find the latest BIOS files, I could work with that. That will be an additional project for me - replacing the TPM chip.
I won't be able to do anything for the next 3 weeks(I'm going to be at another base for a bit - don't ask).

[Azrial]

Have you contacted Panasonic to see if they would repair it in their depot for you and how much that would run?

[rusty503]

I just found a source for the BIOS chips. I ordered some and hope to get them soon. Doesn't matter too much as I can't do anything with them for the next 3 weeks or so. Hopefully when I get back the chips will be here and I can report good news not long after that.

[teo]

Rust...I tried to boot up without the dim and it doesn't boot. Also based on the manual the eeprom module is IC76 with tag no. M24C02-RDS6TG


teo

[rusty503]

Rust...I tried to boot up without the dim and it doesn't boot. Also based on the manual the eeprom module is IC76 with tag no. M24C02-RDS6TG


teo

What manual are you looking at? IC76 on my board is a ST 402RP. I haven't found the datasheet on this chip yet. I will say this, the chip I mentioned before IS a/the BIOS chip. I base this on the data I read from the chip. I compared that to the copy of the BIOS file I found I think on the Canada Panasonic site. Although not a perfect match, I have found it to be extremely similiar. I did a data compare and out out over 4Mbits, 477k bits were different and the vast majority of what I looked at was just relocation of the same bits of code. I am not saying IC76 on my board is not a BIOS/CMOS chip. If the manual you are looking at is for the MK3, can I get a copy? Also, how are you crossing the Panasonic part numbers?

[rusty503]

Rust...I tried to boot up without the dim and it doesn't boot. Also based on the manual the eeprom module is IC76 with tag no. M24C02-RDS6TG


teo

No, it will not boot but it will invalidate the CMOS settings. Remove the DIMM, power up for a few seconds or so, power down, reinstall the DIMM and power back up. You will get a message saying that the year is invalid or something like that. I don't remember for sure what it does say.

[canuckcam]

BIOS passwords in laptops are usually stored in an EPROM outside of the BIOS itself and battery removal won't do anything. The password methods on the 'net are for desktop machines.

I'm trying to do the same thing on a Fujitsu TabletPC that I put a password on and now I forgot it!!