Maybe you will have to do the change of ownership on Dell's website. I was just talking to a bud (who works for Dell) he is almost 100% sure that with that model system you will have to either get a new motherboard or change ownership over. Some models you don't but he said that one you do.

Once again a reason not to buy a Dell an ISO security feature on a system that is not ISO stamped.

In the case of replacing the mobo I would go out and get and Asus AMD Mobo (or any AMD 939 64 bit mobo) and have the world's only Dell that works and has an AMD CPU... Well Second that I know of, I have a frankienputer that is a Dell case but and Asus AMD mobo I used to use it for lanparties... people would LOL at it till I booted the system up faster then them and fagged them.

I have a latitude CPx latitude and i need the administrator password... i need change the boot secuence.... I tried the latitude.exe and the "master password" is incorrect. my service tag is ""FAZNG""

Help me...

Thanks

If you are the owner of the laptop and can verify that then Dell will give you the password, or if you can verify any info about who owned it before you, if not then you need to do a transfer of ownership on the Dell support website.

man, I've seen so many problems with dell's proprietary architecture it's amazing. We're dealing with trying to buy RAM for a Dell at my office. And the RAM is proprietary.

Latitude.exe only works with the D-35B models. With the service tag you gave I am getting "0zprhnvz" (using the updated Latitude MasterPW.exe). If your service tag number ends in D-35B, be sure to type in all the characters that are displayed on the "enter password" screen, for example, "FAZNG**-D35B". You will have to use the Latitude MasterPW.exe, because the older Latitude.exe only takes five characters.

I'm having problems of my own, but I'll write about it in another post.

I used to think that Dell were the "Cat's meow" of laptops, now I have and Aser Farrari AMD 64 3500 and a HP-Compaq P4 3.2 Ghz and they both will pound and Dell into the ground un like my Dell Laptop that is now my soon to be wife's Internet and note station I can use my USB harddrive and DVD burner on my two laptop I can use the USB data cable from Radio Shack with them the Compaq has a 5 in 1 memory card reader Bluetooth, wireless, cd/dvd burner, 128 bit ATI with vidio in and out graphics, the aser has most of that excluding the video in and with the both the Compaq and the Aser I can use other rame and hard drives. "Them FiretrUCKERS at Dell put some stupid ket on the cables so you have to use their ATA drive and can't just run down to Ma' and Pa's Computer Extchange and get an ATA laptop drive... But being the morons they are at Dell they put the key on the cable and the key slot on their drives so I just filed the key off the cable leaving just the one that should be there and TADA!!! it now works with any ATA drive.

All this with the spyware Dell adds to their systems and a few other things like not even given the choice to buy their systems with AMD I am fedup with Dell, if Dell was got go Belly-up tomarrow I would be Dancing in the streets.

The only thing I like about Dell is they are moving all their Tech support centers back to North America and they are all DELL owned Compaq HP uses a call center contractor and the person the is taking your call for Compaqs could be taking calls for three or four other Computer companies.

I'm no fan of Dell, either. I own a Dell home computer that I've had for over six years, and it still runs fine, but I wouldn't buy anything else built by Dell because of all the "proprietary" parts they slap into their equipment. Last year I built my own computer and I'm quite happy with it.

The laptop I have is not mine. In fact, I've never owned a notebook computer. My son-in-law picked it up from the university where he works (a five-year-old Dell Latitude CPtS). It was going to be tossed into the dumpster and they just gave it to him. I offered to help him get into it, not knowing what a pain in the a** it would be. Turns out it was loaded with passwords (Primary Password, Administrator Password, HDD Password Lock, and Disabled BIOS). I was about ready to do the EEPROM trick before I discovered how to get "LatitudePW.exe" to work.

I spent many hours combing the internet for info, taking the notebook apart (to reset the CMOS battery -- which is underneath the palmrest -- before I realized that would not work due to the NVRAM chip), etc., etc. So, FYI to anyone who is interested, the LatitudePW.exe -- which only works with the tag ending in D-35B -- will give you not only a Primary (User) Password, but will also unlock the HDD if you type in those characters exactly as they appear on the "HDD Password Enter" screen. When I typed in the HDD Password, it permanently disabled the hard drive password. Unfortunately, once I got into the BIOS I was unable to change any settings because an Administrator password had been typed in (Administrator can disable the BIOS, which they had). After some more web surfing, I finally discovered that you have to enter the Primary Password (the Master obtained from LatitudePW.exe) and then, rather than just striking Enter, hold the Control button down while striking the Enter key twice. That wiped both the Primary and Administrator Passwords at once, which also enabled the BIOS configuration.

Anyway, now I'm waiting for a Dell diskette drive with external hook-up cable I bought on Ebay, since the notebook only has a CD-Rom drive. The hard drive had been wiped, so I'll have to install a copy of Win 98SE, drivers, etc. I was going to ask my son-in-law if he would like to trade something for the notebook (I just wanted it for typing and web browsing), but now that I've been messing with it for a while, I realize I don't like the feel of the keyboard -- it's too cramped.

All in all, it's been a learning experience (which I'd rather not repeat, thank you). If anyone has any questions about this particular type of notebook, I'd be glad to offer you whatever help I can over the forum.

Cheers!

On the motherboard there should be a small jumper called Reset CMOS. Jump it and the password will default to "". (Blank)

I have an old Latitude CPx with a password that the owner's daughter set. Now they don't know it and I haven't been able to figure out how to reset it. I haven't been able to get my hands on a copy of the latitudePW.exe or find the chip inside to short the pins. Anyone have ideas or suggestions (or a link for the program) so I can reset the password? I couldn't find what I needed up to now. Many thanks!

Nope. There is no jumper on this particular notebook to reset the CMOS. Even if there were, it would make no difference. The Primary and Administrator passwords are stored in an NVRAM chip (non-volatile ram) that is not dependent on an electrical charge. I disconnected the battery (twice -- and left it disconnected for hours), which is equivalent to resetting with a jumper. It did not clear the passwords, just reset the BIOS back to its defaults. I don't want to go into it in great detail, because it has been covered earlier in the thread. The Dell notebooks (at least this model) are notorious for their difficult-to-bypass passwords.

Sorry, I didn't write out the full name: It should be Latitude_MasterPW.exe. This version worked on my XP and Win98SE computers without having to use a Command Line or DOS window. As I wrote before, from what I have read, it will not work on anything but a service tag that ends in D-35B (you will see it when the administrator password prompt screen appears when you try to boot up). I've included the attachment on this post. If the attatchment does not come through (I've never tried to send one here), I'll look for the link where I found the attachment and post it for you.

If you want to short out the NVRAM (or EEPROM), you have to take the laptop apart (you can download a service manual from Dell) and remove the microprocessor board to get to the EEPROM (erasable-programmable) chip. It's an eight-pin chip marked with 24c02 -- though I've heard it can be a 24u05 or something else that starts with a 24. You have to solder fine wires to the third and sixth pins, then put them together (no more than two seconds per try) to short out the chip after you have powered up the computer. Definitely not for the faint-of-heart or unsteady-of-hand -- though the computer is just a doorstop anyway if you can't get it to boot. You can find more detailed info by doing a Google search using terms like Dell/EEPROM/short/password. I took it apart but decided to try the password thing again, and got it to work with the Latitude_MasterPW.exe utility.

Best of luck.

Attached Files

Latitude.zip (8.6 KB, 8759 views)

They way my IBM works is you have 3 password options:

1. Bootup password (after all post, can be reset by remove battery)

2. Hard drive password (more secure, can't get into BIOS without it, but has ways to remove)

3. Master password (big momma password written to the BIOS ROM and can't be removed without replaceing the BIOS).

This is what IBM will tell you. Beyond that, trying to short pins on the BIOS or some such horror, will probably just wipe your whole bios out. Replace the BIOS chip. There are manufacturers out there, if you give them the dimensions, type, number of pins, and so forth, they can burn a generic BIOS to the chip and send the chip to you. For only like $20 or $30 bucks. We did this on a DIPP BIOS once and worked perfectly. Good luck trying to get the BIOS from DELL or IBM directly!

cheers

Yep, you can forget about getting help from Dell support unless you are the original owner. I imagine there are plenty of second-hand notebook computers around that are the equivalent of bricks with keypads, thanks to forgotten passwords.

I didn't try the EEPROM short thing, so I can't vouch for it, but several posters on various forums claimed it was a workable option. Replacing the BIOS chip won't do any good: The EEPROM will just flash the passwords right back onto the new chip when you powerup. The site I checked that offered replacement EEPROM chips were not cheap, and completely removing an NVRAM chip from the motherboard is not a trivial thing to do. You need the proper desoldering tool and some soldering experience. Soldering on a new chip would be difficult, and it's possible (easy, in fact) to overheat the motherboard or end up with a solder bridge that would destroy the chip. The components have gotten so tiny over the last few years that no manufacturers use hand solderers anymore (except for certain types of repairs); they just send the entire circuit board through a wave solder machine (I know, because I used to operate one). I'm not saying it can't be done; I used to do similar repairs, but that was in a factory with all the proper equipment, and I would only try it as a last resort at home.

There is another method for getting the password by building your own little circuit that can be soldered to the EEPROM, connected to another computer, and used to capture a data dump (with a small utility called Ponyprog) when you power up the notebook; however, you would have to send the dump to someone who can read the hex and extract the password from all the other stuff. Jeez Louise, what a holy pain in the a**! I suppose it would be worthwhile for a thousand-dollar-plus notebook, but not for an old warhorse like this Dell I've been tinkering with. It probably wouldn't bring over $150 on the used market.

The passwords on the Dell notebook are:
1)Primary 2)Administrator 3)Configure Setup 4)Hard Drive

The Primary is on the post bootup, and equivalent to a Master password. ALL of the passwords are stored on the NVRAM and cannot be cleared by resetting the battery. Since you can't get past the post bootup without a Primary password, there is no way to flash the BIOS. Even if you could flash the BIOS, the original passwords would would be loaded back onto the BIOS chip via the NVRAM.

I'm just looking forward to getting the OS installed and handing it back to my son-in-law. If I ever buy a laptop computer, it will NOT be a Dell.

At this point I would be looking for a very high building to test if Dell Laptops are airodinamic enoughf to fly... the More I lear about dell the more I think they are evil and not worth my time.

The Do make cool doorstops though don't they. :giddy:

we can replace or erase the chip, and reprogram it.
over 10 years exerience with consoles etc.
in uk
[COLOR="Red"]email removed[/COLOR]

Thanks for your reply, Baldanders! That was the version of the program I was looking for. However I ran into another problem. The master password doesn't work even if I hold control and press enter twice. The password screen says "This computer system, #6GBEN**-D35B, is protected by a password authentication system." I don't know why the * characters are inserted there as everybody else's examples had complete service tag numbers. Entering that into the program gives an Invalid Input error and entering just 6GBEN gives me a password that doesn't work. Anything I'm missing?

I think you may be entering the # sign. That is not part of the password, but all the rest of the characters are. If you just enter 6GBEN it will give you a Master password, but it won't work. Enter 6GBEN**-D35B and you should get a Master (Primary) password that reads: qb80eycj. When you type it in the first time, I would suggest that you only strike the Enter key (don't hold down control), because if you have a Hard Drive lock password, that screen will come up next. Then you can enter the HDD service tag that's displayed on the screen into Latitude_MasterPW.exe, and it will give you the Hard Drive Master Password. The HDD Master password will permanently disable the password and unlock your hard drive (I suppose you could enter a new one later). The Master (Primary) password will have to be entered each time, until you do the Control/Enter thing to completely clear it.

Please let me know if it works for you.

Good luck!

Success! The master password worked this time and I have full access to the computer again. I really appreciate the help of Baldanders. Many thanks!

WOW! you learn something new everyday, I am going to take nots on this as I get stuck with Dells all the time. :bounce: ... I still would like to know if you and use some of these Dells as a wing??

That's great! You're welcome. I hope this thread will be of some help to other people who run across it. I got my diskette drive yesterday and finished installing the OS and drivers. Now I'm just adding a few extras to it (firewall, SpyBot, etc.) before I give it back to my son-in-law.

Cheers!