Toshiba CMOS password

[Tootles]

I've got a Toshiba T4900CT laptop that I was given by someone at work, but it's got a bootup password on it. I've tried everything apart from making one of those serial plug jumper things, but none of them worked. Shift Key. Nothing. Key Disk. Nothing. Trowing at a wall. Nothing... it still works (these things must be made of bricks), but won't actually get past the password. I've even opened it up and taken the BIOS battery out - and that was nearly 2 years ago! I've kept this blasted laptop because I believe that it'll have a use (IE: playing of Rogue), but nothing I've tried will allow me to actually use it. Is there something special/retarded about this stupid model, that makes it exempt from being hacked? Can someone please help me? Thanks.

[Andy]

Is there a set of 3 pins next to the battery with a jumper pin over two of them? If so this will be the CMOS clear jumper. Take out the battery, and take off the jumper to short the middle pin and the pin that wasnt shorted before, leave it for 10 seconds, then replace back to the other jumper and replace the battery.

If it doesnt have one, short the battery terminals with something metal. Itll get rid of power in any caps along the way.

If that doesnt work its probably a hard coded password. Look for the default online.

[kichimi]

I have a toshiba tecra 8100 and it had a boot password. allthough i didn't remove the boot password my friend did and he told me if i removed the case and took the cmos battery out for 10 mins it should remove the password. it might be the same so its worth a try

[Andy]

I have a toshiba tecra 8100 and it had a boot password. allthough i didn't remove the boot password my friend did and he told me if i removed the case and took the cmos battery out for 10 mins it should remove the password. it might be the same so its worth a try

He took the battery out two years ago, same problem

[Daniel]

I've got a Toshiba T4900CT laptop that I was given by someone at work, but it's got a bootup password on it. I've tried everything apart from making one of those serial plug jumper things, but none of them worked. Shift Key. Nothing. Key Disk. Nothing. Trowing at a wall. Nothing... it still works (these things must be made of bricks), but won't actually get past the password. I've even opened it up and taken the BIOS battery out - and that was nearly 2 years ago! I've kept this blasted laptop because I believe that it'll have a use (IE: playing of Rogue), but nothing I've tried will allow me to actually use it. Is there something special/retarded about this stupid model, that makes it exempt from being hacked? Can someone please help me? Thanks.

Can you start windows???

If you can start it, open cmd,
- type "debug" [ENTER],
- type "o 70 17" [ENTER],
- type "o 71 17" [ENTER] and
- type "q" [ENTER]

Now the BIOS setting should be deleted!

UPDATE:
If this shouldn't work, type "o 70 2E" instead of "o 70 17" and "o 71 FF" instead of "o 71 17"!

[empireum]

He said he can't get past the password and thus is unable to boot the system.

[Shadcr]

Have a look at this site http://www.tech-faq.com/reset-bios-password.shtml
It has "backdoor" passwords and a few other ways to reset the password.

[Tootles]

Thanks. I'm afraid I've been there already, and it hadn't worked. This is making me feel like a right awkward sod. I'll try and open it up, and play around with the jumpers a bit.

[ppc_digger]

Thanks. I'm afraid I've been there already, and it hadn't worked. This is making me feel like a right awkward sod. I'll try and open it up, and play around with the jumpers a bit.

AFAIK laptops don't have password reset jumpers.

[RentedMule]

If you can boot a cd, linux has plenty of CMOS recovery apps:

First hit on google: http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Security ... 0852.shtml

DOS does as well. Worst case is you install a temp OS onto the hard drive from another machine (requires adapter), and boot it up in the laptop and run said CMOS password recovery tools

[Andy]

He said he can't get past the password and thus is unable to boot the system.

Please read the topic people!

[theSpam]

You may be out of luck since I've read that Toshiba laptops store their CMOS passwords on an EEPROM.

So, I'd think it'd be impossible to retrieve the password without an EEPROM reader.

[Tootles]

In other words, I might as well get rid?

[Vista Ultimate R2]

In other words, I might as well get rid?

Would be a shame to waste it There must be something that can be done with it!

Would it be possible to replace the bit storing the password with the same bit from a similar laptop that is completely dead ie the screen's broken or whatever?

[fireshark]

At that point you might as well just read it off the EEPROM instead of resoldering the other one back on, which you don't know is the exact same as the one you're taking out.

[psiren]

Nooo! Don't bin it. I was a Tosh engineer in a previous job and have a dongle at home that can reset bios passwords. Depending on it's age, you may also be able to reset it using a floppy disk.

The disk way: Get a floppy disk and stick it in a working machine. Format it and get yourself a hex editor to rewrite the first four bytes of the disk. I can't remember the hex values, but it translates to "KEY" (uppercase) followed by a space character. Save your changes and put this in the laptop. Turn it off, turn it on. Wait for the password prompt (it'll check the disk a couple of times) and hit ctrl+alt+del. When the password prompt comes up again, leave it blank and hit enter. Job done. (This only seems to work with oldish machines. ie: pre Sat 4000-4300 era).

The dongle way. It's basically a device that you attach to the parrallel port and restart the machine. I say device, but I've taken it apart and it simply shorts a few pins together. If you want to do this properly: get hold of a 25pin d-type parallel port plug and solder the following pins together. Or, if you're anything like me, get a selection of thin wires and stick them in the back of the laptop as follows (Seeing as it's temp and there isn't any voltage above TTL in there - you should be fine). Ok. The pins that you need to connect are:
1, 5 and 10,
2 and 11,
3 and 17,
4 and 12,
6 and 16,
7 and 13,
8 and 14,
9 and 15,
18 and 25.

Put this in the back of the machine, turn the power off and on again. When the password prompt comes up - hit enter and all passwords should have cleared.

Btw: It goes without saying disclaimer, I accept no responsibilty for loss or damage blah blah, etc.


EDIT: We had it drummed into us on the Tosh course that the passwords are written to the flash memory. Pulling the batteries out for years on end will achieve nothing apart from killing the CMOS config. Also, AFAIK, there isn't any way to reset the password via the serial port (as mentioned by someone in an earlier post)

[clt_42]

if you dont want it ill have it. i collect old laptops

[Tootles]

Cheeky git so do I (but not just laptops, computers in general)! I still have a C64 that I bought a few years ago for about a tenner (but never got it to work), and a load of others. I want to fix it so I can learn C again. I'll try the dongle, which might take a while, but should be worth it (thanks for that psiren).

Good try though clt_42 - it's always worth asking isn't it? .

[clt_42]

if you have soldering skills, you might be able to solder another eeprom from a similar laptop. i have some from a t1910, if you want it.