Post by PatrickPost by S***@mail.con2.comPost by PatrickPost by PatrickPost by S***@mail.con2.comPost by PatrickPost by S***@mail.con2.comI was given an IBM T22 laptop about 4-1/2 years ago and it has been
gathering dust ever since.
I took it out and powered on, but there is a password set and so I
Do you mean that the BIOS has a password or that the
OperatingSystem
has a
password ?
I'm guessing the BIOS.
Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
So what error report do you get when you turn it on, do you perhaps
get a blank screen or a screen with a single '-' cursor flashing in
the top-left, or;
Do you get this screen;
Sorry, I gave a wrong link, heres the right one !
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1tp845a98m8u2jq/DCP00610.JPG?m
Post by PatrickI have just been messing with mine and the CPU-fan is now working, I
am running on AC (Mains).
I have disconnected the CMOS-battery to see if it still boots and it
does and I get the above Screen.
If I press F1 to go into the BIOS, it complains but goes into the BIOS.
Yes. I get that screen.
I decided to pull some more and this time the connector came out with the red wire.
I put the main battery back in and powered up. But for some reason I
still need a password regardless of whether I wait, press F1 or F12.
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll257/Statenislander/Computer/IBM1_zps9303f75f.jpg
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll257/Statenislander/Computer/IBM2_zpsd628a163.jpg
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll257/Statenislander/Computer/IBM3_zpsd152c60c.jpg
Looks bad, apparently if it's a 'Supervisor Password' the only option is the
right PW or a new Mobo.
Heres a link to a 'Lenova' T2X forum anyway;
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewforum.php?f=28
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll257/Statenislander/Computer/IBM4_zpsdeb9a7f6.jpg
Post by S***@mail.con2.comThanks.
Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
There are two kinds of hardware implementations.
1) Trivial kind. Both passwords are stored in CMOS RAM. Pull
the battery, and "poof!", no more password. Low security
computers use this method. I like this implementation,
because the user is not lulled into a false sense of security.
2) Business people expect high security ( :-) ) computers.
For this purpose, some of the business laptops, use a
separate 2K EEPROM to hold the password. You can pull
the CMOS battery all you want, and you aren't going to
erase that one. For the wily hacker, this is no problem at all.
For the end user, it's a disaster.
So that's the challenge you could be facing, depending
on the situation. The password can be hiding in an EEPROM.
And when hacking computers like that, remember that some
of them are wired to self-destruct. For example, some
computer hard drives, the contents are encrypted, and
are *relying* on TPM information to work properly.
If, in your ultimate cleverness, you decide to reset the TPM,
you could forever lose access to the encrypted information.
So some of the implementations in modern computers, if you
"reset them", it could lead to data loss. (The owner of the
computer, was probably too stupid to make the "key disk" to
recover the data in an emergency. Usually situations like that,
the manufacturer provides a second method so there won't be
data loss. You have to prepare the recovery floppy or USB
key in advance.)
There are even a few computers, where you can't add hard drives
to the computer, without the drive being "branded". So something
is written to the disk, to make it "acceptable" to the computer.
If the end-user goes to Walmart and buys a hard drive, they
discover it just won't work.
While for the most part, modern computers are "open" systems,
you will occasionally run into surprises. And the "I can't
erase the password" problem, is one of the more common
surprises. And a business-class laptop, is more likely
to use the EEPROM method. All my computers I have here,
are the low security kind - pulling the battery, is the
only procedure I need.
Paul
).
).
