Hello everyone,

I am new to this forum and look forward to using this site for assistance. My company just recently purchased another company and we have inherited a ton of T30 Thinkpads. All of them are in good working condition however one user set a Bios password and now cant remember what it was. I have tried removing the Battery and underneath the battery appears to be another small lithium battery (yellow casing). I also removed that battery and I still get the prompt for the Bios password when I turn it on with the wall charger. Does anyone know what my option are for getting this system to reset the Bios password so we can clean it up and get it back out to users? Is there a Master password I can use?

Thanks!

Ryan

Sure - the IT department of the old company should have set the supervisor password. Just ask them what they used.

Barring that, you'll be needing to cut a PO to IBM for a system board or a password recovery service to pull the password out of the eeprom. Might be more trouble than a T30 is worth.

Ed Gibbs

Ed,

Thanks for the response. The old IT department never used Bios passwords so when I asked them, they were shocked that it was set. So it sounded like the end user did it without the IT department having any knowledge. I guess I will just use place it in the pile of stuff that is not worth fixing.

I'd be happy to pay the postage if you want to get rid of it.

There are three possible passwords, Power-on Password (POP), Hard-disk Password (HDP), and Supervisor Password (SVP). If only the SVP is set, the computer will boot without need to enter any password, in other words you should be able to use the machine normally except for the ability to gain access to the bios setup.

If an HDP is set, it can be removed but will erase all data on the drive. (Search here for "locked hard drive" for info on clearing a locked drive.)

If a POP is set I'd fire the guy who says he can't remember as it would have been needed at every bootup. A POP can be removed by removing the main and backup batteries then turning the computer on then waiting for the POST to complete. Once the POST completes, turn off and reinsert the batteries.

If an SVP is set, you are screwed as mentioned in the other reply. IBM will fix it for $500-$600 by replacing the mainboard. There are companies that specialize in recovering passwords that don't charge as much as IBM. You can buy a used mainboard and repalce it or if you are handy with a soldering iron and comfortable with small surface mounted devices, you can remove the EEPROM from the mainboard and replace it.

If you do a search here for "power on password" it appears that it may be more complicated than the previous post implies. Also see item #12 of the FAQ ( http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=1689 ).

My post came right out of the T30 Harware Maintenance Manual.

Call Len at Absolute Computers in Raleigh, NC (Actually in Cary) at (919)468-3999 or write him at Contact@AbsoluteRaleigh.com He can help you for a fraction of the cost mentioned above. It will take him a few days, but this is something he was able to do for me, and I had my Password and was able to boot my computer again. Good luck.

I should have been more explicit in my previous post.

1) My reading of the HMM indicates that the procedure outlined above to remove a "POP" will only work if no supervisor password is set.

2) While the original post is somewhat unclear, it seems the OP may have followed the procedure and "... still get the prompt for the Bios password when I turn it on". Sounds like a supervisor password is also set.