HDD password, can I LLF and re-image

[Doug.Gentry]

I'm the desktop support person here at work. We have 2 IBM ThinkPad A20m's that the sups use during the day at times in the cars.

Somebody over the past few weeks had accessed the bios and placed a hdd password on it which is resulting in nobody being able to use the laptop.

They brought it to me and I used all the known passwords we use around here but to no avail.

I've given up on trying to find a way around the password because it's too much hassle and takes too much time for benefit.

What I wanted to do yesterday was to just do a LLF and then just re-image it with the image we have.

Unfortunately it seems that DFT can't get to the point of being able to even LLF.

Anyone have any kind of idea?

Pondering now if a Linux boot disk would work but I don't think it will either.

Any ideas?

 

[PanicX]

Formatting the drive isn't going to resolve a BIOS level password protection. You'll need to contact IBM support and see what method they use for resetting the password.

 

[Nodsu]

Very thief-proof, those ThinkPads

You can contact IBM support and see what they tell you. There is no user-doable way of removing the password (what would be the point of it then?).

 

[Samstoned]

some of these have a back door command that gives you a temp password getting you to bios to reset the main password and ibm will give you this info with no problems
some do not you will need a new chip or special flash device to reflash chip
new chips can be bought legaly and the kit on how to replace
good thing there not dells

 

[Nodsu]

Even if you know all the BIOS passwords, you cannot remove the HD password.

Hard drive security is a feature of the HD itself (ATA standard) and any unlocking procedures are drive-specific. Feel free to extort some Hitachi engineers to find out how to get around the device lock