Usually its better to strip it right down as they are usually underneath the board somewhere

Hello to one and all I hope i am posting this message in the right place if not i am sorry.. I am new to this forum and am in need of assistance i have a dell inspiron 8100 that some one who was supposed to be my friend locked up with the administrator/ primary password in the infamous gray dell security screen. would you be able to provide an unlock code for it. the guy palyed a april's fool joke on me amd locked the laptop to the point where i cant boot from cd, floppy anything else for that matter and he even forgot what the password was or so he says... any help would be appreciated. i need to file my taxes and the info is in my laptop so you know the stress i am in.

my info is as follows:

SERVICE TAG: #HR1V311-595B
EXPRESS SERVICE CODE: 38641016341

Well this is certainly an entertaining thread; I did a search on Google and it comes up at the top of the list. I began reading the first few postings and then was hooked.

Great stuff here, and hats off to Paragon and Ididmy600 for all the help and support they have offered to folks here.

So why am I here? I bought several C-series laptops from the company I work for and am getting them ready for resale. I came across a CPxJ650GT that has the dreaded HD lock. The CMOS is accessible and the HD lock is the only lock in place. The ID info it is prompting for is:

#***********-595b

Since I can verify ownership I called Dell and after they verofied the number of asterisks and my service tag number they offered me the unlock password of n4dvw4de which sounded good but didnt work. They recommended holding the ctrl key and hitting ENTER twice but no change. No num lock or caps lock was on, I even tried and external kbd and no change.

In most circles this unit is considered to be as old as Methusalah (<-sp?) and I am not sure that I can hold Dell liable. (but I will try )

Are there any secret keystrokes I missed in this thread? Or am I destined to certain fate armed with a screwdriver and paperclips and chewing gum? I really thought Dell should have been able to unlock this but has there been other that didnt unlock when the correct master password was applied?

model: CPXj 650GT
service tag: JXM5501

Just junk the drive and install a new one, or at least one that is not Password protected. Dell frequently is not able to help with HDD Passwords as they are stored on the drive in either Firmware, or on a maintenance cylinder at the drives root, and not in the EEProm Chip. There are pro services that can crack them, but unless the data on the drive is needed, or it is a large fast spinning drive, the cost is not worth it.

Thats what I thought too. I have tried a few different drives in it and the PC still has the password protect on bootup.

EDIT: It would appear you are correct. The drives I was testing were from other later model machines. I had some older Hitachi Travelstars and they work fine. BIOS shows HD password as disabled.

Thanks for the response, I will tinker with the suspect locked drives in other machines to see what can be done to remedy this.

Is it me or does the DST-CDR.iso.zip file not work?

I tried to burn directly using nero and it said "unknown file format"

tried to unzip and still nothing, tried to change the name to .iso!

Please help.

It's Alive It's Alive!!!

Ok heres what I did, I used the floppy disk to create an image using Undisker, Undisker created a .img file, Used Nero to create a boot image and Voila bobs your uncle!

Thanks so much for the help, such an informative thread.

Glad to hear you used your head and found a way round the problem, however the ISO is made from an original Dell Disk so it should work OK,

Sorry to ask a dumb question but you did extract the file from the ZIP first then try to burn it, you didn't try to burn the ZIP file as an ISO did you?

I will download the file from the site (in case there is some corruption) and test it.

I'll post the results shortly.

Sorry to tell you but there is no shortcut to this, you are going to have to go down the road of resetting the EEPROM chip, for all the info you need then visit the site in my tag.

If your friend (ha some friend) has locked the Hard drive then your stuffed as there is no way to defeat the passwords (well there is a way but its costly).

Well this is still a valid topic for me as the drive that is locked is a newer 40GB.

Can I slave it in a desktop machine and do a low level format or something? I couldn't care less for the data, I just want the drive to be usable

MT

I live in hope that one day we meet someone who can provide a way to defeat a locked HD, just think of the glory this thread and all those who contribute will reap.

Hi Mike

Nope I tried that, if you slave it as a drive it just shows as a zero sized drive, I have tried reading the Sectors with a Hex Editor and it would'nt read it, I'm still looking for a way.

I work for a large telecom company and have laptop drives fail all the time. If I cant figure it out I guess I can engineer some sort of damage that might render the drive even more useless and submit it for warranty replacement.

I would much prefer to find the solution and emerge a hero than take the cowards way out on this you know :bounce:

I appreciate both you guys responses here

MT

You may have to resort to a sledgehammer to render them more useless

:knock:


How was the Gumbo ?

I tasted it after I made it and it is fine, but it is being held in abeyance for Dinner on Palm Sunday.
If I did not send you the link for the Harddrive crackers, mea culpa and here it is
http://hdd-tools.com/products/rrs/

As my handle would suggest I am a Newbie to this site. But as it goes I have a Dell Latitude CPi A366XT Laptop, and I am trying to get pass the Administrators Password (like alot or other people here are).
I have read about the paper clip method but instructions on how to actually apply that method in practicle terms have seemed to allude me in this thread. I was hoping that someone out there could point me in the right direction to get such procedures. I have found the 24c04 eeprom chip and all I need is detailed and concise instructions on how to short that chip out with the paper clip method.

All assistance with the above would be much appreciated.

Regards

Newbie Techco

a great thank to paragon 33 his solution forked fine on my dell d600 bios protected.The hd still locked but i'll replace it.the important thing is laptop now is un***.A great thank :angel:

The chip should be located under the CPU/Integral Circuit board and a paper clip will not work. You must spot solder a small insulated wire to Pin # 6(see attached diagram) bring the wire outside the recess, reinstall your CPU and heatsink, touch the free end of the wire to a ground point on the motherboard and then Power On the laptop. That should clear you to Manufacturing Mode. Screws attaching the M'board to the bottom chassis or the holes for the screws with bare metal "haloes" are reliable ground points. Pin 3 or 4 on the 24 series eeproms are grounded also and are one of the 2 pins shorted with a paper clip when the chip is accessible with the board in bootable condition. The CP/CPiD/CPiA all have the chip under the CPU. Some of the very late models have it under the video card and require the same shorting/grounding technique.

Attached Images

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Hi any chance of sending me the pdf file for dell d400?

Cheers.....roy [COLOR="Red"]email removed[/COLOR]