HELP BIOS PASSWORD OR ANYTHING???

[Arkatek]

The issue is this. My roomate has a laptop that he got from a job he is no longer working at. For that reason the laptop has been sitting in his closet for close to a year. We opened it and turned it on only to have it get stuck booting.
I dont know much about this stuff so any help is appreciated.

When I turn it on the hp invent screen comes up with the (push f10 for setup, push f12 to boot from LAN, etc). After that screen goes away it goes to a black dos looking screen(which looks like its just booting as usual) but it stays on this screen reloading it over and over. At the top of the screen that keeps loading it says:

Intel UNDI , PXE-2.0 (build 082)
Copywrite (c) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation

For Realtek RTL8139(X)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v.2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM.

That **** just keeps reloading and thats it.

Now if I press F10 to go to setup before it gets stuck on that page it asks for a SETUP password. Which I dont have.
I googled it and found that i can remove the internal battery but finding it and doing it without **** it up seems a bit tricky. And I dont even know if that would fix anything other than possibly reset the password in the setup. So any backdoor passwords or suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated.




If it helps heres the specs of the pc:
Processor: Pentium 4 3.0GHz with hyper-threading technology
RAM: 512MB shared
Video Memory: 128 shared
Video Card: ATI Mobility Radeon 9000
Display: 15.4 WXGA widescreen (1280 x 800)
Hard Drive: 60GB EIDE 4200RPM
Optical Drive: CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo
Networking: Built-in LAN and Modem
Wireless: Built-in 802.11g
Battery: Lithium Ion
Audio: Built-in harman/kardon speakers with 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro-compatible card
Peripheral Connections: 3 USB 2.0, 1 IEEE 1394 (FireWire), 1 PCMCIA, 5-in-1 Digital Media (support for Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO and SmartMedia)
Weight: 7.9lbs
Dimensions: 14.3” long, 11.6” wide, 1.8” height

 

[SizroSpunkmire]

When your computer boots up there is a list of items stored in the BIOS that it looks at to find a device to boot from. These devices can include a harddrive, a usb key, a cd/dvd or booting from the network. The items are listed in order and the PC boots off the first device it can find contains boot files and then ignores the rest of the devices in the list.

The Intel PXE network boot means the system is looking to boot from your network card.

Two things cause this:
A) Boot from LAN is the first setting in the list of bootable devices.
B) The computer cannot find anything to boot from on your HDD or CD/DVD Drive and has now reached the Boot from LAN option and is trying that.

The lame thing about PXE booting is it will try over and over and over until you cancel it if there is nothing left to boot from.

The way to fix this is to do what you already found. Remove the CMOS battery (its the small one that powers a car starter or keychain flashlight) that can be found on the motherboard. There are plenty of do it yourself guides on Google that can show you how to access it. Once you get the battery out the password is cleared and you can change the boot order.

Unforatently there is no backdoor

 

[dwellman]

You have to remove the battery for a "SETUP" password. Lucky its not a Power On Password or Administrative Password.

 

[Arkatek]

thank for all the input guys. I guess now I just have to figure out how to do that without messing it up.

 

[Arkatek]

well Ive ripped this thing apart as much as i can with out breaking it apart and i cant gain access to the cmos batt. if anyone knows how to get to it or knows of a tutorial showing how id appreciate it.

 

[tngopher]

Not knowing what specific brand and model laptop you have, may I suggest www.fixya.com. I had good luck finding an online service manual for my HP dv1000 there.

 

[shabaa]

Easy way without having to tear it apart.....
1. Download the Windows 98se boot disc ISO and use a burning program that will burn the "ISO" disc.... (Nero or EZ CD creator) http/www.bootdisks.us/windows-98/13/windows-98-bootable-cd-images.html

2. Download: kill cmos (Google it!)http/majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2969 (most anti-virus programs will recognize this as a virus.... and it should as it resets the bios configuration to default. So you may want to turn off your anti-virus program as it will probably delete it .) Unzip the kill cmos file and put only the KILLCMOS.COM file on a second disc....

3. Put the 98 iso disc into the cdrom and boot the laptop
Start Win 98 WITH CDROM support
After it goes through the motions of everything ( Pay attention as the 98 boot disc is starting as you will need to know what letter it has assigned to your CD Drive... you will need this letter..... it is usually E ) and you wind up with A:\

4. Now with it at A:\ you add E: (it should look like this A:\E: ) and press enter

5. It should now show E:\

6 now type in after E:\killcmos.com

When you get an E:\ and a blinking cursor ... take the CD out and reboot the laptop.

It should now reboot to the hard drive unless the hard drive has failed.......

I have a CD that I use to do al lot of diagnostics and tests and perform other assorted tasks with everything being on the 1 CD and it would have been possible to put the kill cmos on the boot CD but with out getting into a lot of hassles this is perhaps the easiest way to do this....... (ISO buster ... adding files... explaining dos and commands..... etc, etc......) Hope that this helps..... Good luck!

Would have be even easier if the laptop had a floppy…..