Service Forum

[cruseda]

Hi,

First of all thanks for all the great information I found in this forum. I followed the guidance and successfully removed the supervisor password from my TP R51
At the moment if I boot without a HD I can enter BIOS setup.
If I insert a HD I get a prompt for a hard disk password. The HD I am using is from an old Acer that I no longer use (their casing is crap), I did a low level format to check for bad sectors and installed Slackware while the drive was in the old laptop.
I now want to use the drive with the TP but I cant boot to it...
Again, if I remove the HD I can boot to the CD drive or enter BIOS, but as soon as I insert the HD I can't do anything, even enter BIOS...!!

I am banging my head in the table, can anyone help?

[victor]

I suppose the HD was locked into the Acer, just put the drive back and remove all locks. You gotta know the HD password in order to do that.

If you don't know it, then the only way is to crack it with EraseON in HD Securty Tools.
_________________
Victor Voinea
ALLservice HQ, Romania.

[cruseda]

Thanks Victor, you were right - the hard disk was locked from within the Acer bios, and I think I managed to unlock it there as I do know the pass.

Problem is, when I put it back in the TP to test I was asked for a supervisor password again, even if I had previously disabled it... I went ahead and did another dump, but there is nothing in the field where I previously saw the pass - hex is all 0s
What did I do wrong this time...?

[victor]

If the dump is valid (not blank anyway...) then could be the POP. POP and SVP share the same logo - a padlock+desktop PC. Simply remove the CMOS back-up cell to lose it.
_________________
Victor Voinea
ALLservice HQ, Romania.

[cruseda]

The dump seems to be valid, its 1024bytes as reported by the eeprom reader. I tried removing the cmos battery (its encased in yellow plastic sheeting and is plugged into the board with two short wires) but no luck.
I took out that battery in the morning, when I came back I realised I had left the main battery in, so I took that out too and turned it on to test a few minutes later, but the password prompt was there.
Seems I was too happy too early when I removed the SP ...

[victor]

I gotta see that dump..email the file at support-at-allservice.ro
BTW, remove both batteries then use some tweezers and do a shortcircuit on the 3V battery's connector to drain any remaining energy in the caps.
_________________
Victor Voinea
ALLservice HQ, Romania.

[cruseda]

Finally!!
TP is fully operational
It was the cmos password, obviously it needs longer than a few minutes to reset. I left both batteries off for the night and it greeted me with a 'cmos checksum bad resetting to default' message in the morning.

Thanks for all your help Victor and the information on the website, I would never have made it without it!

[victor]

Ok, but wasn't a big deal
_________________
Victor Voinea
ALLservice HQ, Romania.