I bought my dell latitude 400cs second-hand at a thrift store, with no way of finding the previous owner.and dell won't help.... Anybody have some ideas no how to remove it? It won't let me change any bios settings. help.............. :suspiciou

Is it the bios pw or the logon pw?

dell latitude 400cs bios ADMIN password

my apoligies for not responding sooner, work is killing me...It's the bios admin password. I keep hearing about people with same problem wiping the admin password by shorting out certin pins on some chip on the board (under the cpu) having hard time finding what pins......

A reliable method can be found here:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/
look for Password recovery.

Try the backdoor password Dell

Christophe Grenier has written a program that will calculate the master BIOS password for Dell Latitudes from the Service Tag number. That program is available at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~skynet/zips/latitude.exe.

if you call dell they will help you !! They will generate a working key that will disable the bios password.

Call again :haha:

dell latituden admin password

i've already called dell 3 times, and each time they say sorry but you are the proud owner of a dell latitude cs doorstop. very rude service from dell!!!!!!!!!

What the.....

I got the program latitude.exe from 5 different sites and when i click on it to start it in windows xp it just opens the DOS window and then shuts itself immediatly! What gives?? I tried running it in compaibility mode of every OS and it still does the same thing.

I don 't believe you can run a DOS based program with XP. You will need an older OS such as 98 (the one I used to run the program). Unfortunately, the one I downloaded just askes for the service tag. As soon as I enter the first key, I get the message that the program is shutting down. Anyone have a working copy of this program???
Thanks.

Go into a command-session (or DOS-box) in any OS you like.
Go to the directory with the LATITUDE.EXE program in it (size is only 5,467).
Type in latitude 12345 and hit enter.You have to substitute 12345 with your 5-character service tag number. The program then gives you the password.
Simple (if you know how to).

Attached is a working version in a zip-file

Edited by Per: Note that some antivirus programs might indentify this file is a "hacktool" that is perfectly ok, the file indeed is a "hacktool" but it does not do anything "bad" to your computer.
That is it only does what has been explained in this thread and that classifies it as a hacktool...

Edited by kimsland
Here's some more help:
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http://www.techspot.com/vb/post610782-4.html
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I get the message:
"cannot execute C:\documents and settings\latitude.exe"
This is the directory I have placed the file.
I am running XP under the run: cmd box
Please help!!!

Assuming you have a floppy drive. Try running the latitue.exe off of a DOS boot disk. That way you bypass all the XP/NT compatibility issues.

If you don't have a boot disk handy, DOS boot disk images can be found for free at a website called bootdisk-dot-com. Make sure you copy the latitude.exe on to the boot disk.

Thanks, I got it to work, however, the password is incorrect.
Any other options?

If you do a google search on "latitude.exe" there is a couple of forums that could help you.

I snagged this blurb from someone on the windrivers forum who was having a similar problem to yours
.

Have you tried removing the CMOS battery for a day or so; let the charge dissipate completely. This used to work on older bioses!

I think that works on ALL of them

Since the CMOS stores all the settings, removing/replacing the battery will reset the BIOS password.

Unfortunately, NO.

What would be the point of a security password that could be so easily bypassed..?


Laptop computers use far more stringent methods of securing themselves than old desktops used to.


Removing the CMOS battery will NOT remove the passwords on a typical laptop. The passwords are stored in a NVRAM area, usually in the same chip that the BIOS is stored in. Simply removing power to this chip will NOT erase it.

Oh, I didnt kno he was using a laptop

I am not all that familiar with Dell systems

But yes, laptops use enhanced security and it is a lot tougher to bypass

Where can one get another one of these chips? I can easily desolder and resolder a new one.

Found this too: http://qasimtoep.tripod.com/dell/dell2.html

Ihave already made an attempt to reset it by doing the proceedure in the post above. No luck, my quest now is to hunt for one of these chips and replace it.