Practically Classics Forum

This is a laptop repair tool:

Perfect for any Apple products.

hello chaps, ive been given a computer tower.. its had hardly any use but its password protected & mother has forgotten her password.. is there any way i can bypass this??

Bios password or operating system password? If the former, then whipping the motherboard battery out and putting it back in again might clear the password(s), though not in every case.
If it's the system password, then yes, if the machine runs Windows this is a piece of cake to do and GIYF. Though some people set themselves up with a user account and don't bother to create a password for the admin account so you can simply log in as admin and reset the other users' account passwords, so I always try that 1st, you'd be surprised how many folk don't bother to set an admin password for the one account that can't be removed!


Failing the successful application of any of that, may I refer you to David's post just above.

Hi Rich, John beat me to it but BIOS passwords are a case of changing a jumper on the board (or pulling the battery out for a few hours), Windows passwords involve booting from a CD and pressing a few keys (I can send you a link to a download for a handy tool and some instructions).
On the other hand if it is a HDD BIOS password then you will need to replace the hard drive (or the PCB on the hard drive but as you can get a new one for less than £30, it's not worth the bother).

To identify which of the above it is, you need to determine at which point in the boot-up sequence it asks you for a password. It's all very well my learned friends above talking about BIOS, HDD and system passwords, but the non computer-literate won't know which is which. As an aside, I recently bought an (allegedly) new HDD from Ebuyer only to find it had a password set. I was able to re-format the drive in order to use it, much easier than sending it back.

Good point Pete,
With your hard drive, I would have sent it straight back as it is used. Fortunately it sounds like you had a secured partition rather than a HDD BIOS password so a format will get around that.

Telling if you have a Windows or either type of BIOS password set is fairly easy. If you have a "text" looking screen which pops up pretty quickly after turning the power on then it is a BIOS or HDD BIOS password. If you power it on and see the windows logo which hangs around for a few moments then you get a nice smooth looking graphical display, you have a windows logon password to get around.

BIOS and Windows passwords are easy and (more importantly) free to get around. Secured partitions are free but will require re-installing windows, HDD BIOS passwords will require a new hard drive. (they are possible to get around but it is not a quick simple process)

thanks chaps, at the moment im trying to get mother to remember the password

from experience try:
password
password1
Password1
12345678
qwertyui
letmein1

or work your way through this list:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 73969.html

It would be quicker to have your Mother hypnotised and get the password that way.

Currently, the most common passwords are those based around the numbers from a date of birth and the letters from the name of a child and/or pet.
A quick glance at the list of members' passwords from a web forum that's hosted at work suggests that many people also believe that their vehicle registration numbers are safe to use so maybe older, more trusting people would use one of those.


I'm off to the betting shop to see whether they'll give me odds on Rich using a tool like the one in David's picture before the end of the week!

Oh, and if you want to hack my online banking, the password I use is - surprisingly - on that list, it's "monkeysteeplefacejacket".
But please don't pay too much money in if you do that.

I tried to take some out, however it requested that maybe some should be paid in before being withdrawn.

That may just have been my account though, I'm not sure...