re: can't enter bios
Tuesday, April 14, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Windows Me Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Ed
(742 messages posted)
This excellent page might resolve your Compaq password problem: http://www.elfqrin.com/docs/biospw.html
Ed
On Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 3:03 pm, Robbo wrote:
>I've been fiddling with an old Compaq Armada 1750 laptop now for about a week. It
>had been formated which destroyed the diagnostics partition on the HDD. I searched
>the internet all over the place, found information and files here and there to the
>point where I now can set up the HDD with DIAGS partition (7Mb FAT) at the start
>of the disk and look at the BIOS, but there is a BIOS password to prevent access
>to saving settings. I have flashed the onboard BIOS ROM, set up the HDD and loaded
>Win98 with all necessary drivers etc and all the Compaq software. I can access anything
>EXCEPT the BIOS via f10 at boot to make changes. Damned password stops me. The
boot
>setup floppy works fine, just cannot save settings back to BIOS. I've even disconnected
>the CMOS battery, allowed it to reset and re-done the DIAGS partition setup. Nothing
>allows me into the press f10 to get into BIOS because I don't know the password.
>Just access by floppy setup disk. This is really frustrating, but the laptop works
>fine so I'll just put Linux on it as the Compaq software is pointless without full
>access to BIOS. I get a conflict with the PCMCIA port and cannot resolve it via
BIOS
>without saving the BIOS changes, so cannot get Win98 to run the wireless card.
>
>BTW, the Fn, F8, F11 key combo at boot just re-sets the BIOS to default settings
>and allows you to save or ignore the checksum condition it finds, but does nothing
>to remove the BIOS password.
>
>I tried a number of tiny Linux distros, so far DSL 4.4.10 runs best on it. Partition
>the HDD (without removing the DIAGS partition) to Ext2, also make a Linux swap partition
>at the end of the disk. I use 298Mb for it. You boot to the CD and then install
to
>HDD. It will find the swap on re-boot to HDD. Using Lilo bootloader works best with
>it. It takes all of half an hour to be partitioned and running, whereas windows
98
>can take you a week of stuffing around and it's not secure for the internet anyway:~)
>Partition magic pro does the job fantastic. Find it on Hirens boot cd 9.7
- Written in response to:
- re: can't enter bios (Robbo: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 3:03 pm)
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 | | | | |  | |  | Linux (pieter: Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 1:21 am) |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  | re: can't enter bios (Ed: Tue, Apr 14, 2009, 1:48 pm) |
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