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RegisterQualcomm’s secrets disappear
Irwin Jacobs, the CEO of Qualcomm, has reported that his laptop was stolen from a ballroom where he was addressing the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. According to reports, the laptop was left on the podium for about 15-20 minutes and was taken when Irwin went to talk to a small group.
The laptop is believed to contain valuable company secrets and proprietary information that could be valuable to foreign governments. According to Qualcomm, the laptop is password-protected and its data was previously backed up on a computer at Qualcomm's headquarters.
As of this writing the laptop has not been recovered and Jacobs is considering contacting the FBI.
Read more at TechServer.com.
JOEL'S OPINION
While Jacobs did say that his laptop is password-protected, I haven't been able to find any information that talks about what kind of password protection his laptop actually had. For example, if all he had was basic BIOS-level protection, someone could easily take his hard drive and plug it into another IBM laptop to access the data.
I don't understand why companies like Qualcomm wouldn't use the highest level of protection possible to ensure the safety of the data that its executives carry around. In this case, the person carrying the data is the CEO so you can imagine that his laptop would be a definite target. I've walked through hotel conference rooms in the past and seen laptops just sitting around. This could have been a completely random snagging, too.
Perhaps it's time to rethink the way we currently offer security on laptops. For example, if instead of typing in a quick password to protect his laptop Irwin actually had removed his hard drive and took it with him off the podium, this problem would never have occurred. Then again, we don't know for sure that Irwin even password-protected his laptop. After all, he probably felt pretty safe there talking to a small group.
USER COMMENTS 311 comment(s)
| CEO's and rules…. (11:17am EST Mon Sep 18 2000) It's been my experience that the upper management of any large corporation feel that they are immune to processes and procedures that have been put in place. A low-level grunt such as myself would have security galore on his laptop, but CEO's are generally lazy enough that they would not want to be bothered with the hassle of actually having to key more than one password. BTW – I've seen it mentioned that this is an IBM laptop. Hopefully for Qualcomm, a hard drive level password was set. There is a way to lock the hard drive behind a password so that no matter where the drive goes, the password goes with it. According to IBM, this password is secure enough that even they would not know how to get around it if you have a memory lapse. Not sure if this is true or not, but we all know that there is no such thing as absolute security on a computer. - by Porsche |
| IBM Laptop Security (12:34pm EST Mon Sep 18 2000) There is a way around hard drive level passwords on IBM laptops, but it isn't easy, and it isn't general knowledge. - by Just a Guy |
| Just curious (12:46pm EST Mon Sep 18 2000) Generally speaking, how would one get around a hard drive level password? Could you break that down for us, Just a Guy. I'm simply curious, as we have a few IBM laptops at work. Thanks. - by 0311Grunt |
| HDD security (2:07pm EST Mon Sep 18 2000) Well… if a it was stolen to get his files then trust me it was “opened” already with any security level. Fastest and easiest that comes up in my mind would be “DATA RECOVERY LAB”  … just open up HDD and u have all the data .
Later - by Pred-R |
| conspiracy dammit… (2:21pm EST Mon Sep 18 2000) He was paid by foreign goverments to allow his machine to be stolen, there's no other explantion… - by Yet Another Retard |
| Hard drive level security (4:15pm EST Mon Sep 18 2000) As far as I know, there is no such thing. Unless anyone publishes a link to an article describing this, then I will not believe it. What if an IBM hard drive was to be used on a Toshiba machine? The Toshiba BIOS would not recognize a proprietary “hard drive password.” I think that's just made up. BIOS password – yes, Windows 2000 password – yes, security for a naked hard drive – not that I've ever heard. - by RobGeek |
| Wouldn't matter anyway… (7:22pm EST Mon Sep 18 2000) His password is probably “PASSWORD” or his wife or mistress's name. - by DeafDude |
| Hard Drive Level Security does exist (9:22am EST Tue Sep 19 2000) I have supported over 1,000 IBM ThinkPads over the last 4 years (760 and 600 series). I have used the hard drive level password. If I can find a link to it somewhere on the IBM site, I will let you know. - by Porsche |
| IBM Passwords (11:39am EST Tue Sep 19 2000) I have an IBM Thinkpad 600X, and I do have some sort of Hardrive password, when I turn on my computer and enter the password it first shows my computer unlocking and then it shows my hardrive unlocking… obviously this might just be flashy pictures with nothing really happening, but my hardrive doesnt work in any of my other laptops when i have this enabled. - by Kevin |
| Hard drive passwords (7:37pm EST Tue Sep 19 2000) Interesting. Thanks for the info. So, it appears that IBM has some special mechanism in their hard drives to effectively leave them in an on or off state based on whether they are locked or unlocked by an IBM notebook BIOS. Well, I still don't have a link to the security… In fact, I checked and I couldn't find anything about this. Is it some kind of big secret? Searching for “security” on all of IBMs websites reveals 1 page. Yikes. - by ROB'S |
| Removing IBM HDD Passwords (6:31pm EST Wed Sep 20 2000) IBM ThinkPads can have up to three levels of security passwords. (1) Power-On Password – This password is stored in the system bios, and can be cleared by disconnecting all batteries, or by shorting a jumper. (2) Hard Drive Password – This password is stored on the hard drive itself. Therefore, moving a drive that is protected in this manner to another computer will not allow you to access the drive (unless you know the password). This can be defeated by shorting a jumper on the hard drive itself, but on most ThinkPad models, this will require that the drive housing be partially disassembled. (This will likely damage the drive housing on 760 class machines. 770 class drive housings should be able to be reassembled without too much difficulty. 600 class machines do not have any drive housings. I don't know about other models). (3) Supervisor Password – This is a combination of Power-On and Hard Drive password. This requires that these two passwords be identical. If a hard drive is removed from a machine with a supervisor password, the hard drive cannot be accessed (as with a hard drive password), and the ThinkPad will not boot – even with another hard drive. These can be bypassed by clearing the hard drive and power-on passwords seperately. - by Just a Guy |
| Conspiracy Theory II… (5:29pm EST Fri Sep 22 2000) If this was a corporate or government theft, expect the thief to have access to a clean room where they can transfer the drive platters. - by format c: |
| IBM's hard drive insecurity (5:46pm EST Fri Sep 22 2000) I had that problem with a user's IBM laptop. The moron forgot his HD password. So being the geek that I am, I ghosted his image up the network and took Ghost Explorer to get into his image of NT. I just saved his data,gave him attitude and got him a new image. - by geek 1: IBM 0 |
| thinkpad 770 hard disk password (8:52am EST Sat Dec 16 2000) hi! can anybody tell me the details regarding clearing the hard disk password for an IBM Thinkpad 770? i am really stuck. i didnt know that my machine had a supervisor and hard disk password and the CMOS battery died. now i cant do anything with the machine. thanks in advance. - by Gaurav |
| Think i1400 (5:54am EST Sat Dec 30 2000) Hi, for anyone that can help me, my boss has a thinkpad i1400, now there is a little key that comes up on boot, and i dont know much about Ibm laptops, is this a cmos password?? Also he has forgotten the password and i was wondering if there is anyone out there that can tell me how to get around this as it would be much appreciated. - by Gubby |
| IBM EMPLOYEE (1:45pm EST Tue Feb 06 2001) GOOD LUCK YA'LL THIS IS A TRADE SECRET OF IBM AND WIL REMAIN ONE…. IMB does offer for about 300 bucks to “used advanced techniques to rest the passwords OFF but with complete data loss - by john baeste |
| IBM EMPLOYEE (1:45pm EST Tue Feb 06 2001) GOOD LUCK YA'LL THIS IS A TRADE SECRET OF IBM AND WIL REMAIN ONE…. IMB does offer for about 200 bucks to “used advanced techniques to rest the passwords OFF but with complete data loss - by john baeste |
| please help (just a guy) (8:07pm EST Thu Feb 15 2001) hi i read your comment and I wont to tell you that I have a big problem with the thinkpad 770 I've tried to remove the backup battery to remove the password but ofcurse it didn't work and thae laptop also I am an electrical engineer so can you tell me more tecnecall about the jumbers you talked about whats there pin numbers and I will be very gratfull - by bassel |
| 600x Thinkpad (1:33pm EST Mon Feb 19 2001) I've read that Nortek can remove passwords on Thinkpads, so how come IBM claim that the serial board needs replacing at $950. Are they robbers, their laptops are'nt the cheapest the least you would expect is that they would be more responsive to peoples problems. And JUST A GUY is talking nonsense if he knew of a way to clear a supervisor password he would give it up freely. Good Luck to all, eventually the way will become clear, we all may just have to wait a while. IBM employee do the right thing! - by Assimilated |
| ThinkPad Supervisor password (2:46pm EST Wed Feb 21 2001) I'm having the same problem as everyone else. I have a user who somehow set the supervisor passowrd on their laptop. IBM say's there is no way to reset it, but for 799.00 they will install a new system board and hard drive. Nice customer service. Come one IBM people. What a shadey way to do business. - by Some Punk |
| supervisor password (3:45pm EST Sat Mar 03 2001) i stole my bosses a20p and if i dont get the password im just goin to break it lol - by saw loser |
| supervisor password (3:48pm EST Sat Mar 03 2001) security sucks ibm lose a future customer because im breaking the machine so who wins in the end ill continue to look for thinkpads to break lol - by very saw loser |
| Removing IBM HDD Passwords (9:56am EST Mon Mar 05 2001) I Have a second hand IBM 760XL, with the hard drive password set (I cannot contact the person who set it) As the drive is as useful as a paper weight at the moment I would like to have a crack at shorting the jumpers (as suggested by just a guy) – anyone know what jumpers? or know where I can get diagram / instructions. I did find one company who said they could do it (for a hefty charge) so it must be possible – apart from this company it seems no one can do it! - by pdpdjh |
| supervisor password (2:07am EST Wed Mar 07 2001) working on a way will have it soon and make it public knowledge hate moneymakers |
| HDD Password (12:19am EST Fri Mar 09 2001) I have a useless 770x, due to the hdd password. It had a supervisor password on the motherboard. Sourced a used board, put it together only to find the *#$%^&@ hdd password. Sending it to that guy in Canada cost more than a new drive. - by gugliem |
| removing power on password for ibm thinkpad 390x (8:02am EST Thu Mar 15 2001) i have ibm thinkpad 390 model laptop, but the geek that i am i have forgetton the power-on-password. being the a lamer, i don't no know what to do. please help, email me your suggestion to neilamish@yahoo.com thnaking you in advance - by neil |
| Hard disk drive password (6:34am EST Wed Mar 21 2001) i have manage to remove the power on password but now have trouble with the hard disk drive password. Does any one know to remove this password from the hard drive, i will willing to money for it, like i did for power o password. email on neilamish@yahoo.com thanking u all |
| IBM Thinkpad 240 password (4:12pm EST Mon Mar 26 2001) I have IBM TP 240 with Supervisor password set. Apparently IBM can dial into these computers to reset the password. If this is true, is there any way I can replicate that? We are all waiting for your solution, Profix - by bob |
| Has anyone here tried Nortek (10:12am EST Fri Apr 20 2001) Has anybody tried Nortek and were they successful? I've had a price from Nortek for $195, supervisor and hardrive password removal. If I bought a new hardrive this would still not clear the supervisor password and may even write it to the hardrive and encrypt the new drive also. Message for Profix keep up the good work, do you have a list of things you have tried, if so please email to me at deansmith@ukonline.co.uk |
| What if you know the HD password and want to get rid of it? (3:49pm EST Fri Apr 20 2001) Hi, I have a TP 770x that has a power-on password and a hard disk password. I know what they are but what to take them off. My BOIS doesn't seem to have an option to completely remove the passwords even if you know them. Any suggestions anyone? - by wiseoljedi |
| Ibm Travelstar HDD Supervisor password (1:43am EST Fri May 04 2001) Help I have managed to lock up my laptop now it says i need a supervisor password Its a New Travelstar HDD and i got it from the newspaper 2nd hand and now i dont know how to unlock it… IBM wont help what do i do….. - by Useless |
| ibm 1400 hdd password (3:23am EST Fri May 04 2001) i have a 2621 ibm 1400 series notebook. while i was in the bios i reset the password twice and rebooted to find out that the password did not work and could not enter. so, i have contacted nortek, they claim they can remove it. Has anyone had success ? Does anyone know how to remove the hdd password on these computers ? - by global |
| thinkpad password (7:11am EST Thu May 10 2001) So does anyone know how to crack the power on pasword. I could use some help - by cokin |
| password (3:41pm EST Thu May 10 2001) try this site too advance for me - by Don |
| ThinkPad Password Solutions (9:29am EST Fri May 11 2001) An unknown ThinkPad Power On password can usually be removed by the user (servicing a system yourself may void any or all remaining warranties). ThinkPad Power On password removal information can usually be found in a system’s Hardware Maintenance Manual. The following web site contains links to IBM web pages where specific ThinkPad system manuals can be downloaded. Marty Wanner |
| ThinkPad Password Solutions (10:26am EST Mon May 14 2001) Anyone with a non-commercial solution, someone out there must know how to do it, not that I am against commercial solutions, I realise the importance of R&D – I work for an R&D company. I had visited the nortek website already, as I suspect most of the people who have posted here have. It is simply not cost effective (especially as I am based in the UK) to do this – I am not interested in the data, I just want to be able to use the hard drive. Maybe nortek would consider lowering the price for unlock-only (no data recovery). This may make the option more attractive for many people who have posted here and elsewhere. If they want the business. - by pdpdjh |
| hdd password (4:43pm EST Mon May 14 2001) Same problem…I'm selling used laptops in Lithuania, and this problem is a big problem for me… CAN ANYBODY HELP? Mail me directly, please. svidas@takas.lt Thank's - by Vidas |
| hdd password (9:49am EST Sat May 19 2001) I have a Travelstar 4gig HDD with a password. I bought it used. Been looking everywhere for a solution(I know about Nortek, but $100US is WAY too much for this drive). I tried plugging in just the logic board to see if I get an error and it bings me to setup screen, but nothing happens(just hands at the Thinkpad logo, no password icon comes up). I beleive it(password) is on the HDD platter and not the logic board. Oh well, I guess I'll keep lookin. - by TRoN |
| supervisor password (11:42am EST Wed May 23 2001) Contrary to IBM lies, the supervisor password can be reset by removng the power supply, battery and then removing the cmos battery and waiting 20 minutes or so. On the IBM Thinkpad A20M, the cmos battery is conveniently located beside the mini pci modem/network card. Gently unplug the battery and voila! Sorry IBM, you can't have the $750 to replace the system board! Now if someone could post the HDD password unlock solution, we would all be back in business instead of dealing with slimy, money-grabbing so called customer service reps/companies. - by Trallane |
| IBM ThinkPad Passwords (6:02pm EST Fri May 25 2001) The supervisor password cannot be removed on most ThinkPads by unplugging the CMOS battery because it is stored in an EEPROM. It can be got around quite easily if you have the gear but there is no quick or dirty fix. The BIOS of a ThinkPad will read the checksum of the EEPROM as well as looking for a password so replacing the chip won't help either. I haven't spent much time figuring out the Harddisk password system as these can be replaced anyway, I did swop controller boards on two identical drives however and the passworded drive remained so. This means the password is somehow stored on the platter and causes the drive to mis-report itsself to the BIOS. Connecting a passworded drive to a desktop machine simply resulted in the password protected drive not being reconized, although the IBM Tool DiskManager could see the drive and also the password. This means it won't allow you low level format it. - by Dan |
| Thinkpad Supervisor Password Removal (11:19am EST Mon May 28 2001) If Nortek can do it why can't anyone else? They claim to have developed proprietory software. How is this software loaded if the machine won't even boot? How is profix making out? - by Chuck |
| Data Recovery Password Lock (8:11am EST Tue May 29 2001) Try They can recover your data and unlock your drive. I do it all the time :O) - by Dan |
| Thinkpad Supervisor Password (9:15am EST Tue May 29 2001) Question for Dan – what “gear” are you referring to in your comment on Friday? - by Chuck |
| HDD password (7:08am EST Wed May 30 2001) I have had some success in defeating the password. I removed the logic board from the HDD, connected(just the logic board) to my Thinkpad and powered up. After a few minutes, the password screen came up. 2 attempts at entering a password and it halted(hand icon). Normally it's supposed to be 3 attempts before it halts. I then re-assembled the HDD and this time it didn't ask for a password when I booted with a win98 startup disk. When I ran fdisk, it asks if I want a FAT32 drive, then quits saying it cant access the drive.I downloaded a utility from IBM that performs diagnostics and low level format. The low level format ran for about 20 hours, then failed at about 85%. If Nortek and that UK company can do it, so can we!! Someone out there MUST know. - by TRoN |
| Supervisor Password (10:42am EST Wed May 30 2001) Any ex-IBM Tekkies out there, or are they all sworn to secrecy? - by Chuck |
| More on Passwords (5:21pm EST Sun Jun 03 2001) In response to Chuck I was talking about EEPROM programmers. As mentioned before the password is stored in an EEPROM, in the ThinkPads case a serial EEPROM designed for small sensitive data such as passwords in mobile phones and notebooks etc. My company once purchased 30 x 760ED notebooks from a corporate who then refused to give out the passwords. Although we were willing to junk the drives we would have lost out big time on the machines so we simply brought in an non passworded 760ED and cloned the EEPROM(Probably what the other companies do) Looking at the tech PDF's of TravelStar drives they support a command to disable password protection. At the moment we are working on an assembly programm to low level interface the drives and hopefully disable the password to allow a low level format. I suspect removing the password and keeping the data intact would prove tricky but we really only want to be able to use the drives. - by Dan |
| Passowrd (4:01am EST Mon Jun 04 2001) i want crack my password through the software plsss help me i want to learn also this program - by Rup |
| Razza has cockrot (9:27am EST Mon Jun 04 2001) Id just like everyone to know that Razza indeed has a severe case of cockrot. - by WAZZZZUUPPP |
| Razza really does have Cockrot (9:38am EST Mon Jun 04 2001) its true.. very true.. people cockrot is common.. just ask razza.. razza's case is of unbelievable proprotions and will not get any better… so please send sympathies to razzahascockrot@stds.rape.him Thanx - by Wasabe! |
| Cockrot (9:45am EST Mon Jun 04 2001) I do beleive cockrot is a very common disease among relations of Frutia. Believe me as I am Doctor Cockrot, the leader in the field of cockrot therapy. - by Doctor Cockrot |
| Cockrot among animals… (9:48am EST Mon Jun 04 2001) Are there any users here who have pets who suffer from a severe case of COCKROT ? - by dahhhhhhhhhhh |
| Supervisor Passwords (5:07pm EST Mon Jun 04 2001) Message for Dan – Try this page – there is some interesting stuff - by Chuck |
| cockrot (10:27pm EST Mon Jun 04 2001) bahahahahaaaaaaaaa - by bahahahaaa |
| cockrot (6:30am EST Tue Jun 05 2001) i think the guy goin on about cockrot is this dickhead from my uni: his email is adam@rendrag.net he is a dickhead feel free to spam him |
| The Cockrot Vandal (7:09am EST Tue Jun 05 2001) I emailed the administrator of that domain and they have removed the offender's account. So much immaturity in this world. - by Chris |
| You are bored arnt you? (6:29am EST Wed Jun 06 2001) You should be studying you realise. Get off msn already. - by Mr Squiggle |
| Oh god,. (6:31am EST Wed Jun 06 2001) There really are some deadset wankers in this world. - by Blackboard |
| hdd password (12:18pm EST Sun Jun 10 2001) if u get a drive thats unlocked the same or similar to the drive thats locked and swop the board fdisk and format and walla unlocked drive thanks guys to unlock machine download the ibm magic disk put it in thinkpad as it is about to boot eject put in a normal boot disk and walla ure into the machine but to get the password removed go to dans response - by profix |
| locked hdd (5:28pm EST Thu Jun 14 2001) profix, didnt a couple of people already say that swapping the board didnt work, the hdd password is on the actual platter? Also where can I download the IBM Magic disk you refer to, I cant find mention of it anywhere. Many thanks and keep up the good work people! - by Rich |
| IBM 390E (9:26am EST Mon Jun 18 2001) Yeah, so my IBM 390E laptop is in a similar boat… I have 2 IBM laptops ( IBM 390E and an IBM 390X ). My brother used my 390E a while, and gave it back after a few months of use, with a damn boot up password that he cant remember. ( this is why he gave it back…. ) Anyways, So I heard that Shorting out the CMOS Battery / chip will allow me access to my box again… has this been done with An IBM 390E? - by – Dave Moganstein |
| power-on password (2:25pm EST Sun Jun 24 2001) i own an 380ED thinkpad – silly me – cant remember my own power-on password since i got back from holidays – i've contacted IBM which they refer me to some authorized dealer to get my password reset but the cost is too much for me at this point – can someone help - by needy student |
| hard drive password (3:14pm EST Wed Jun 27 2001) i have heard that norton your eyes only might be able to brute force search the password. can anyone confirm that? - by cookie |
| ibm thinkpad 390x supervisor password (2:33pm EST Fri Jun 29 2001) i was playing with my friends with my computer and we were all joking around with it and This DUMB idiot friend of mine set a Supervisor password!!! i called ibm and they said they would have to replaced the system board and it would cost me $700!!! is there any other way to get the password off??? (back door bios password, bios crack???) please e-mail me @ S_komorek@yahoo.com - by Steve |
| Laptop Password Removal (9:25pm EST Sat Jun 30 2001) Our Company can remove ANY password from any type of laptop, including IBM ThinkPads. PowerOn, Supervisor, Admin, User and so on… BUT HARDDISK PASSWORD is very difficult thing, we can't it remove yet… The removal of this passwords aren't soo easy (exceptPower On), it needs dvanced technical knowledge, for more questions: virtuatech2000@yahoo.com - by PassWord Doctor |
| Very clever guys. (9:39am EST Wed Jul 11 2001) I'm guessing you guys are (low rate) Technical support guys with nothing better to do than comment on stupid (insignificant) “security” issue. Don't you have anything better to do? - by Clinton Volzke |
| Cracked 760ed supervisor password (4:55am EST Thu Jul 19 2001) Well, for all you people out there who want their 760E, 760XL, 760ED (do not ask about any other types) thinkpads working then would some one please tell me where I can post a “dirty fix” that ACTUALLY WORKS!!!not here…I need a less conspicuous arena as IBM may SUE me ( ex-engineer )and I definitely do not want that! If you do not mind virtually stripping your laptop and trying a bypass operation (hey, if its locked then you wont mind) then I have a solution that has worked eliminating the supervisor password…afraid you must change your hard drive first…the thinkpad original will never relinquish its password this way and will remain stone cold dead still…give it up…suggest putting a low capacity hard drive in temporarily. This is no hoax and is done without profit…I have known this for a while but my conscience on giving this info plays me up!!! - by static sensitive |
| less conspicuos arena (2:01am EST Tue Jul 24 2001) just send it to this email from an anonimous account: sgerper@hotmail.com and i'll post it on my bbs - by arana |
| superviso password (5:30pm EST Wed Jul 25 2001) i have ibm 600e iwant to remove its bios password plz help me. send me th e-mail badar1@hitmail.com. - by radab |
| supervisor password (5:33pm EST Wed Jul 25 2001) i have ibm 600e i want to remove its bios password plz help me. send me the e-mail badar1@hotmail.com - by radab |
| 380z (8:09pm EST Wed Jul 25 2001) My test on a 380z type 2635 using magnets. I removed the system board memory and cmos bat shorted the cmos bat terminals then ran a rather strong magnet over the system board. I then re assembled the 380z i it reports error 161 and 163 then asks for the password. any password will do and it then attempts to boot but now it will only boot off of a system program disk any other disk and it go's directly to a halt message. the system program disk boots but when i try to program the bios it tells me that the power management is disabled and will not continue. - by 380z |
| 380z continued (8:21pm EST Wed Jul 25 2001) I was referring to the Administrator password. shorting the cmos and password terminals alone did nothing. also this dose not address the hd password. I have attempted to use the hd in a apple powerbook but partitioning the drive always fails with an unknown error. Having a password that can not be removed or at such a ridiculous price is idiotic thing for IBM to do. any common thief probably would not ask more than 50 bucks and i dought they would even turn it on. the chances that someone's ***CHILD*** would set the password when they found daddies laptop is much more likely and just puts a sour note in the consumers mind. and any serious thief with purpose would have ways of extracting the data. the hardware in the system except the mb and hd are still viable parts for resale even for the educated thief and probably more profitable and less obvious.. any way I think of it its pad for the consumer and meaningless to the thief….. - by 380z |
| cracked thinkpad password (7:20pm EST Sat Jul 28 2001) Further to my earlier writings about the cracked 760 supervisor pswrd….thank you arana for stating a method so blindingly obvious to me that I never even considered it. I will send it to you in due course ( currently trying out a more refined hardware version of the same method ). If anyone else would like a copy to try and then distribute for FREE then send me a blank email with the header “info password” to vsm28a@hotmail.com and I will send it to them also in due course…thanks - by static sensitive |
| 760ED Supervisor Password (12:41pm EST Thu Aug 02 2001) Does anyone know where the Password Files reside? I purchased a 760ED 6 months ago (2nd User) and wanted to upgrade the Bios however as the supervisor password is set, i cannot complete the task. I have stripped the machine down as the casing was broken and have all the parts required to refurbish it (ordered from IBM NPL Part Sales UK) Reading the datasheets for the relevant I.C.s the security space is either the Dallas DS17485 RTC. (4Kb ram) or the Intel E28F004 Flash memory. Or is there something I've missed? U41 looks suspicious (serial EEPROM??) it bears an IBM part No. Once I know where the passwords are I will use a device reader to read the contents, then usecmospwd (downloadable from numerous sources)to convert to ASCII or keyboard scan codes. Reassemble the machine and enter the relevant password at the prompt. Please reply Dan or Static Sensitive - by Stella artois |
| hdd password detection (3:22pm EST Thu Aug 02 2001) I just found out my used ThinkPad 770 has a supervisor password set – found this out when I went to put a larger hard drive into the machine. Since I bought the unit used, I do't know the system password (working on getting that, but doubtful). Since setting the system password sets the hard drive password, is there any way to detect the hdd password? This may give me the system password! - by Xopher |
| hey hello Hi !!! i got the logic to remove Supervisor Password (8:03am EST Sun Aug 05 2001) just email me at i2hot4g@yahoo.com to remove ur supervisor password for IBM ThinkPad 390/E/X …… - by Shafiq |
| has anyone tried this: (4:39am EST Mon Aug 06 2001) it just came to my mind that PROBABLY and JUST probably, the HD password is stored in the HDD partition, if it is, then putting this HD as SLAVE or SECONDARY drive on a 2 drive SYSTEM, may allow you to boot and THEN try to repartition the drive in order to clean the drive (maybe even get your data before repartiotioning just by copying) i think it will worth trying that with some pc and a laptop harddisk adaptor for “normal” ide pc connectors. i thought about this when i remembered a very old but useful utility called “protdrx” that just “as some virus does” stored some boot info on the partition area of a hard disk that prevented you (if you didnt know the password of course) to access HD with write permisions, no permissions at all, write or read from flopppie (in order to keep you out of copying information to/from floppies) CAN SOMEONE GIVE IT A SHOT? - by arana |
| Thinkpad password (12:28pm EST Fri Aug 10 2001) Bought Thinkpad 760ED on ebay, seller failed to mention it had an unknown supervisor password on it. If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks - by Steve |
| IBM T20 (6:16pm EST Fri Aug 10 2001) Hi, Nice to see the great non-profit work being undertaken here. I have a small problem. I purchased an IBM T20 from a workplace clearout (upgrades to company machines). Ive left the company and my machine has a hdd password. The above comments seem to be for other IBM machines. Is there any reasonable way of removing or bypassing the hdd password. I dont think it has a supervisor password but im not sure. any help would be greatly appreciated as it would save me IBMS costly route and also make my machine usable. |
| Supervisor password 760ed (1:24am EST Sun Aug 12 2001) Thinkpad password (12:28pm EST Fri Aug 10 2001) Bought Thinkpad 760ED on ebay, seller failed to mention it had an unknown supervisor password on it. If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it. Please email me at sudlovertoo@aol.com if you can help. Thanks - by Steve |
| IBM THINKPAD 390X POWER ON PASSWORD (11:12am EST Sun Aug 12 2001) POWER ON PASSWORD FORGOTEN HELP ME PLEASE - by HMID34@hotmail.com |
| IBM SUPERVISOR PASSWORD (6:32pm EST Sun Aug 12 2001) Could anyone help me remove the supervisor password from my IBM T20 Laptop.Somebody out there must know how to do it.Please e-mail me at angelos2@hotmail.com - by Angel |
| I FORGOT MY POWER-ON PASWORD (12:02am EST Tue Aug 14 2001) I DO NOT REMEMBER MY POWER ON PASSWORD…WHAT SHOULD I DO?? PLEASE EMAIL ME AT BYWNEAL15@HOTMAIL.COM |
| Thinkpad 390e Password (Power on) (10:35pm EST Fri Aug 17 2001) I too have the same problem with not knowing the password on a notebook I recently purchased at an online auction. Could someone please mail me the information or at least put me in the right direction. I tried e-mailing Shafiq, but I didn't get a response. Someone please help. Kuspchylde@yahoo.com - by Cuspchild |
| Cracked thinkpad password 760ED (6:48pm EST Sat Aug 18 2001) Too many people have emailed me to reply individually so here is latest progress: The chip that everyone is seeking is an eeprom located on a 760ED at location U30 which is located on the underside of the planar near the main power connector. The chip is typically marked C46C1 – ST 39AD. It is an 8 pin package and holds the security supervisor data and probably the code required to unlock the embedded code on the hard drive. I have now obtained 2 of these security eeproms that are new, clear of any password and unprotected but have not obtained a copier/reader as yet. Reading the contents of this would indeed be interesting. As for the hard drive…… - by Static Sensitive |
| Cracked thinkpad password 760ED (7:04pm EST Sat Aug 18 2001) Sorry, forgot to mention…still have the dirty hardware fix for the 760ED involving an unusual grounding technique on the U30 that will eliminate the supervisor password but this has oddly caused a few violent hiccups to my system recently. I will continue with this and inform you all about it when it becomes more stable. - by Static Sensitive |
| a possible COMPLEAT procedure (10:49pm EST Tue Aug 21 2001) this is how i had to do it 'hard way' mother brd/laptop/hardrive(lgc brd only) 0 STATTIC MAT DAMMIT 1 dismantle entire note/lap/desktp 2 remove ALL insulating stickers 3 remove all batterys and “DALLAS CHIPS” thicker than 1/4 inch [yes solder] 4 set on steel wool&fold it over board top to discharge ALL cmos 5 lookup all serial eeprom referances to your computer remove all of em 6 replace all of the dallas chips & eeproms you removed 7 DO NOT PUT THE HDD BACK IN 8 reassemble should be blank use floppy! 9 do same to hdd/test on OTHER computer A.if hdd ok or eraseable, hdd waz locked by logic board else goto b B.degause platterz(NOT HEADS OR CIRCUTS) use RADSHACK TAPE HEAD DEMAGNITIZER on oppizit side of spindle from read arm mount and away from head path) while it attemps to read lock out code frome boot sector,field will erase it. hdd conetor would ba at x OR y usualy x but dont count on it arm mount = o the spot = @ head path = spindle = O +———–+ | o | y | O | x | @ | +———–+ !!!!!!!!! or !!!!!!!!!! by pulling board and all else you can accept seals repeat above while atempting to spin the insides by twisting it on axis in a twitching motion - by WAPTEC@pdx |
| a possible COMPLEAT procedure dammaged?!!! (10:55pm EST Tue Aug 21 2001) sorry i forgot about the DAMMN remove all ascii art stuff that “must” run here is the diagram AGAIN AARRRRGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!hdd conetor would ba at x OR y usualy x but dont count on it arm mount = o the spot = @ head path = spindle = O “spaces” = . +———–+ |.o……..| |y……O..x| |………@.| +———–+ - by waptec@pdx |
| removing password HD on Laptop Dell (5:21am EST Wed Aug 22 2001) Can anybody help me .. ?? i have a Dell Latitude LS, it's set password harddisk n i've tried to put HD on primary slave ( see by arana ), but it's not working, 'coz the drive not detected, i think..password was set on boot sector HD, i've tried to put HD on primary master, it's not boot up..so, can anybody tell me, how to make it a normal..?? - by young |
| what type of bios chip is on a thinkpad i 1400 series 2621-460 (2:25pm EST Wed Aug 22 2001) I'm really angry, and stubborn, and not giving up yet, to save my thinkpad i 1400 2621-460, …. when flash bios updating, a system hang, and, now, blank screen…. IBM want's $799, which, is less than their parts department wants for a new system board at $2220 (Boulder IBM parts)… or, ascparts, etc. etc. at $600+. So, research the past few days leads to possible doing something with the bios chip, but, short of taking the unit apart, I'm having difficulty figuring out who did the bios chip for IBM on this machine. AMI? AWARD? currently, blank screen on power on…, and F1 doesn't do it… thinking… thanks for any info - by Galen |
| thinkpad 390 password removal (12:42am EST Thu Aug 23 2001) I acquired a Thinkpad 390 which has a power-on password. What is the procedure for clearing it. I don't have a manual. Where is the CMOS battery located? Keith - by kbsanborn@hotmail.co |
| How to Clear CMOS in my IBM Think Pad T20 (8:41am EST Thu Aug 23 2001) I have ibm think pad i forgotten my power on password. its having phoenix bios. whats the factory default password if any one knows please help me. and also i need the diagram of the main board of my laptap. where can i get if any one knows kindly help me out. thanks in advance muthuselvan15@yahoo.com |
| To Galen (3:24pm EST Sat Aug 25 2001) I think IBM thinkpad i1400-2621 BIOS from ACER…good luck…!!! - by mee |
| Power on Password 390e (1:57am EST Sun Aug 26 2001) Alright Folks, I have searched high and low for the answer and have found none. So, how does one bypass/defeat the “power on” password on a Thinkpad 390e? I think that I'm about to give up and just send the damn thing to Nortek. Spending $140 is better than IBM's answer. If someone has a better idea, please post a response or send me an email. Kuspchylde@yahoo.com - by Cuspchild |
| TP 390E (8:16pm EST Mon Aug 27 2001) I used a utility to reset my bios(1cool pack)and after rebooting I get a black screen with the lock and unlock icons. You can hear it check the A drive and try to boot but thats as far as it goes. Any help for this? Gary gcrater@asde.net - by Gary |
| To: all helpful friends…!!! (6:46am EST Tue Aug 28 2001) Thanks for all helpful infos posted in here and infos in the future…we're the people who like to learn…more and more…although…they,the infos, will help us or not…thanks…and thanks again… - by mee |
| power-on password (9:44am EST Tue Aug 28 2001) hi folks, i have a thinkpad 600e with a power-on password. can someone pleeeaaassseee give me help on removing it. thanx. my email is jaysingh1@excite.com - by jay s |
| supervisor password (4:30am EST Thu Aug 30 2001) The supervisor password is store in the supervisor chip which is control both the battery and bios…. to remove the password you have to look for where the chip locate at then remove the chip off the main board and erase by the EROM eraser or change the new chip if available … that how I reset any supervisor password - by superD |
| ibm thinkpad 600x, locked! NEED HELP! (5:22am EST Fri Aug 31 2001) hello, my friend's ibm thinkpad 600x locked, we can't start the laptop now, the computer is asking for a password (supervisor password i guess). how do we fix the problem? we have no access to the one who first used the ibm thinkpad here in our office. can somebody help us? thanks a lot. - by erap |
| IBM Travelstar HDD Password (9:07pm EST Fri Aug 31 2001) Need urgent help. can anyone tell me how to get ride off HDD PW on a Travelstar or name of a company in UK who can do it. E-mai: Ali.ghazinoori@gxs.ge.com - by Ali Ghazinoori |
| IBM Thinkpad 760EL Supervisor Password Removal (7:52pm EST Tue Sep 04 2001) WE have a number of IBM 760EL Thinkpads with Supervisor Passwords on them that are unknown. I have tried various means to erase these without success yet. We are not interested in the Hard Drives as we can replace these with others but would be very interested in finding an easy way of removing the supervisor passwords. I have read all the previous correspondence on this above but the chip on our 760EL Notebooks referred to above has a different code (B?56XX 93C46 M8). Surely someone has written some code that can interrogate these eproms and find the passwords. Anyone with this info please contact me at Email: Overlord@encore-auctions.co.nz - by Overlord |
| supervisor password has all answers/phat audio sites (2:38pm EST Fri Sep 07 2001) - by fadestyle |
| Clearing the Supervisor Password (9:16pm EST Mon Sep 10 2001) I have heard that pressing CTRL-D within the ThinkPad setup screen can clear the supervisor password (does not affect the HDD password, though). Has anyone had success in using this technique? If so, on which ThinkPad model(s) has it worked? I've also heard there is a way to disable the HDD password via software. My understanding is the drive has to be low-level formatted afterwards, but can be used again. Has anyone heard of this? - by Xopher |
| Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (10:36pm EST Tue Sep 11 2001) Guys – I have a TP-600X and someone put a sup-pwd on it without my knowledge. I tried reading through the whole thing – BUTTTTTTTTTTTTT – IS THERE ANYONE WHO HAS ACTUALLY BEEN ABLE TO FIX IT… Please let everyone know over here as we are all tired of wasting our had earned money on these multinational companies. IBM wants $890 to change my system board. Please email me at – khansam@iit.edu - by RedRum |
| IBM ThinkPad PassWord Removal (6:23am EST Thu Sep 13 2001) Hi friends. We CAN remove supervisor passwords from ANY laptops (so, we have repaired many laptops with password problem, and we made all) Possible passwords are PowerOn (it can be removed so easy, remove main batteries, unplug AC adapter, and remove backup battery (some little NiCD or LiIon battery) stay laptop for some hours while capacitors discharges, or short some jumpers to discharge these (like CMOS PW on desktop pcs) for the locations of jumpers see the user or technical manuals of Your laptop or search for it on the NET (all ibm powerOn PW removal procedures are public on IBM WEB sites) SuperVisor, Admin, HDD, and any non User or PowerOn passwords are stored on a security chip and cannot be erased so easy. We can remove it for $99 BUT not to say that we do it only for money, we will do it for FREE for the first 10 guys who ask us. HDD password are stored on the HDD plate (not in electronics) BUT in most of cases it's the SAME as the SuperVisor password, becouse if You set a SuerVisor pasword on an IBM laptop, and it has HDD, it will set the HDD password automatically, and this is the same as supervisor. We cannot restore SuperVisor password from a bare HDD, only, if the laptop is available for this. To remove only hDD password, we have an idea. Try to clear all data by a very strong magnetic field with some electro-magnet. Try television picturetube demagnetiser coil, but we didn't guarantee that hdd will be usable after than, it's possible that it will be total unusable, or with many bad sectors. For more question, ask virtuatech20002yahoo.com - by Laptop Service |
| IBM ThinkPad PassWord Removal (6:26am EST Thu Sep 13 2001) One more things – We are in Hungary – Europe. - by Laptop Service |
| IBM ThinkPad PassWord Removal (6:27am EST Thu Sep 13 2001) Soo – We are in Hungary – Europe an our CORRECT email address is virtuatech2000@yahoo.com - by Laptop Service |
| IBM ThinkPad PassWord Removal (12:55am EST Mon Sep 17 2001) Try it looks like they have chip solutions for most thinkpads/other brands. - by Thinkpad owner |
| If still under warranty (12:07pm EST Tue Sep 18 2001) Degauze the hard drive until it doesn't work–doesn't even get to the p/w prompt for the hard drive…then send it in for repair. Zap the motherboard at some point with 12 volts of current until it doesn't work–send it in for repair - by Dirty, but theyr2 |
| So, I talked to Nortek today… (4:53am EST Sat Sep 22 2001) Hello once again, In regards to the Thinpad 390e… Let's just say that I am looking at over $250 U.S. (after shipping) in order to get the “power on password” removed from my laptop and hard drive by Nortek. However, when I spoke to the guy about what was involved with performing this service for me he said, “I really don't know. It's all automated”. I take this to mean that something relatively easy is going on. Especially, since Nortek's lead time on these projects is only 48hrs and then the laptop is back in the mail to you. Folks, I'm not talking about some little BIOS dilemma where shorting the CMOS battery will work (I've tried that). I mean the “power on” job that also simultaneously locks the hard drive and doesn't allow the system to even boot to a prompt, All you get is the damn lock icon at the upper left of the screen. I have tried to cross the metal contacts on the CMOS while powering on the computer, but I haven't really had any success. About one try in ten results in the machine going through what seems to be a regular boot up to the point the system does a RAM check. Then the machine hangs. After I turn the power off and back on, the same damn icon of the lock appears and prompts me for a password that I do not know. Thanks. - by Kuspchylde@yahoo.com |
me to  (3:02am EST Mon Sep 24 2001)I have a thinkpad a20p, and im also looking for a way to hack the supervisor password. Ive tried to remove a little yellow battery, for a couple of days, but it did not work (cmos battery i think) .Please if anyone know how to help me. please contact me at, supermuzze@hotmail.com THANX thomas - by thomas |
| IBM Thinkpad 600 (9:06pm EST Mon Sep 24 2001) When I first turn on the computer it beeps and it says 161 163 then it asked for a password. I only press enter without entering any password it says OK> and it takes me to this page which has ERROR 00161 00163 OK Cancel When I press ok or cancel a page comes up saying same thing without OK Cancel this time.. then i cant do anything it just has the error page and i have to restart the computer.. |
| password removal T20 (6:25pm EST Tue Sep 25 2001) has any one found out how to get them removed or know of a company in the uk than can help many thanks tony32_uk@hotmail.com - by tony uk |
| Laptop Passwords (12:32am EST Wed Sep 26 2001) Well i have the same problem as most people here, Passwords to the hill on my new Laptop. I got by the bios password by removing the main and backup battery for awhile. Worked great. But how on earth do i get by the Damn Hard Drive Password. I know that Nortek site provides the answer but thats gonna cost me untold dollars cause im over seas. ANY advice is appreciated. I know there is a way to get by it, i dont care about data loss i just want the system to be up and working. nvboom@hotmail.com - by Starz |
| As per IBM Employee's coments (12:46am EST Wed Sep 26 2001) LMFAO Trade secret. Yeah have of the secuirty world wide is a “Trade secret” You only have to keep one thing in mind. If it can be made, it can also be broke. - by Starz |
| Toshiba HDD (12:12pm EST Wed Sep 26 2001) Does anyone yet know a way to remove a HDD password from a Toshiba laptop without replacing the HD? I really need help…. - by woodie |
| Woodie cant read (10:51pm EST Wed Sep 26 2001) If you read all the comments here you would notice we are all having the same probs. - by Starz |
| IBM Thinkpad 600 (8:15pm EST Sat Sep 29 2001) My problems too: When I first turn on the computer it beeps and it says 161 163 then it asked for a password. I only press enter without entering any password it says OK> and it takes me to this page which has ERROR 00161 00163 OK Cancel When I press ok or cancel a page comes up saying same thing without OK Cancel this time.. then i cant do anything it just has the error page and i have to restart the computer.. |
| Removing IBM Supervisor Passwords (8:52pm EST Sun Sep 30 2001) The password is stored on an eeprom chip on the IBM laptop motherboard. It will unlock both the supervisor and HDD password together, once read. To read the password held within the chip, an eeprom programmer device is required. When connected to the chip and PC, the password can be displayed in full glory. Re-entering the password into the laptop will unlocking it. - by Osama bin Laden Jnr |
| Toshiba pro4300 HDD Password (4:19am EST Tue Oct 02 2001) Hello is there a way i can get rid of HDD password at bootup, one of my freinds played around and forgot what he typed. |
| Toshiba pro4300 HDD Password (4:21am EST Tue Oct 02 2001) contact me on conic15@yahoo.com - by conic |
| Supervisor PAssword ThinkpadT20 (2:24pm EST Wed Oct 03 2001) Hello@all. can enverybody tell me somethink to remoce the Supervisor Password from the Laptop. Thanks@all siedefuss@hotmail.com - by siedefuss |
| Old 390x (3:04pm EST Wed Oct 03 2001) Ive just inherited a Thinkpad 390x from a old collegue from the company i work for. But the hdd. is protected by a psw. Im in no need of the data on the hdd. If I buy a new Travelstar hdd, is it possible to replace the old hdd (with a new) without any probs. ??? Sorry about my poor english - by Cleam |
| reply on Cleam (4:03am EST Thu Oct 04 2001) The hdd password is stored on the hdd. Therefore you can replace the hdd without any problems except if there are more password set (supervisor, or power-on). You can check this by removing the hdd, and then startup the machine. if there's no password prompt, you can replace the hdd. you can check the supervisor&power-on password in the bios… power-on password can be removed by putting out the cmos-battery for some time… |
| crack supervisor password (4:15am EST Thu Oct 04 2001) to crack supervisor password on thinkpad if you still can boot try: careful: if the cmos of the thinkpad is reset and the supervisor password is set, you can't get into the system anymore. because the timer is reset. you get error 161 (time) and 163 (date). the system automatically goes into the bios, and doesn't boot. to get into the setup you need the supervisor password… SO… |
| ibm thinkpad a20p (5:55am EST Fri Oct 05 2001) When my thinkpad boots, its says: 0270, check date and time settings 0251, bad failure checksum cmos and the the little damn padlock icon, with a little computer in the right buttom corner appears. :I is it a supervisor password? it still prompts, when i remove HD. WHAT CAN I POSSIBLE DO? - by thomas |
| reply on thomas (9:17am EST Fri Oct 05 2001) It's a supervisor password, because the cmos is already cleared… what can you do… 1. The supervisor password is stored on a eeprom. You need an eeprom reader to get the password. there's no way to crack the password by software, because you can't boot… 2. You can send your laptop to Nortek… - by flying eagle |
| anyone ever tried to (5:46pm EST Sat Oct 06 2001) remove all powersupply ( incl. backup battery) for 24 hrs or more ? ( 1 hour didnt have any effect on supervisor pass). maybe its stored resident in a special chip like a flash memory. - by cl |
| reply on thomas (9:17am EST Fri Oct 05 2001 (3:21pm EST Mon Oct 08 2001) What can I do to read the supervisorpassword when i can boot! Have you a idee becouse software can do it? Thanks @siedefuss - by siedefuss |
| IBM and Supervisor Password (6:43pm EST Tue Oct 09 2001) Entering the Bios (based on power up p/word) and CTRL-D. You another menu set. One of them is for eeprom. Now this is basically HEX shit. Does this in any way contain the password in it? If so, can one change it to, say, all 00's and remove the password? I'd be interested for some of you to go into this menu if you DON'T have a supervisor p/word, note what it 'says', then put in a supervisor p/word and see what it says then. Does it change?? If so, maybe this is a way to remove it? Fuck knows really, just a shot in the dark… Answers appreciated! - by KF'er |
| ThinkPad 770E (8:10pm EST Sat Oct 13 2001) same problem as ice and martin. ERROR 161 163 and then the icon of a power on pw. that's where it ends. removing all batteries and short circuiting won't work. The thing is, I got the ThinkPad on an absolutely legal way and nobody ever set any kinda password! can anyone help??? please!!! jsp71@angelfire.com - by cliff |
| ThinkPad T-20 (MT2647) (5:10pm EST Tue Oct 16 2001) Hey people I have all the same (I think) problem. The laptop tries to boot but can't because the bios settings are empty (there was used some 3rd party utility to clean the bios settings). Thank you in advance. |
| ThinkPad T-20 (MT2647) (5:12pm EST Tue Oct 16 2001) forgot my email: manfromdenhaag@hotmail.com - by Michael |
| 770 password problem, i guess.. (10:55am EST Wed Oct 17 2001) problem with a thinkpad: Errors 161 and 163 come up and then the password screen. I press enter and it moves to another screen with an error window and a picture showing me the documentation. Please help me, I have the passwords, it is just that I cannot even go to the BIOS to set it off! Thank you very much! Mauricio (msubieta@yahoo.com) - by Mauricio |
| Cracking Hard Drive Password Lock (7:12pm EST Wed Oct 17 2001) For anyone in the UK looking to unlock a password-locked notebook hard drive you don't have to send it to Canada. Vogon International (located in Bicester, Oxfordshire) will unlock such drives quickly and for a reasonable price. See for contact details although they don't advertise the password cracking service they use it when needed as part of their data recovery service. - by Check It Out |
| eeprom (6:02am EST Tue Oct 23 2001) sorry, what is a eeprom? and where can i find on my motherboard, and what do i do to flash it? or find the password stored in it? please help me - by thomas |
| flying eagle method for T20 (4:20pm EST Tue Oct 23 2001) Have any one tried flying eagle method of clearing the cmos using software, on a T20 thinkpad? I just need to remove the supervisor password, while I can still boot in to the computer, but I'm afraid of doing more damage than is already is. - by Johny W |
| HDD password workaround (10:49pm EST Tue Oct 23 2001) If the HDD pwd is stored in an EEPROM on the HDD…. Pull out the HDD. Strip away the electronic PCB and replace it with another from a known good drive (same drive of course) and reinsert drive. Reboot and voila!! – This gets the data. If the pwd is saved to the HDD platters then a s/w remedy is required via floppy. If the pwd is saved part to EEPROM on the drive and part to the platters on the drive (ie, the laptop won't boot from floppy if drive is pulled or swapped and the drive won't work in another laptop – both are required as well as the pwd!!) then this should also be solve using s/w. If there's access to the laptop using floppy then there is a s/w remedy. If your problem is merely HHD pwd – swap the drive's circuit board. - by t0t0 |
| HDD password workaround (5:37pm EST Wed Oct 24 2001) FYI The HDD password is NOT stored in any memory device on the drive electronics. It is written to the disk platters in the maintenance cylinder along with sector address map and calibration data. There would be little point in making password protection that could be overcome so easily (e.g. just by swapping the PCB). I am a design engineer working for an OEM and work every day with the manufacturer's design specs for 2½” and 3½” ATA drives. There is a solution for unlocking drives but this information is not available to end users. regards - by Nick Allsop |
| pwd cracked my thinkpad in uk (6:50pm EST Wed Oct 24 2001) used data rec company called vogon in uk, they unlocked my thinkpad drive & from that gave me the original supervisor pwd so i could unlock the bios too – they did not need the laptop. much cheaper than sending to nortek from uk so would reccomend - by mitch |
| HDD password workaround – IBM Thinkpad 390X (12:31pm EST Tue Oct 30 2001) I have read all of this threa, and have actually tried most of it. Unfortunately I do not have an EEPROM reader. I took the drive from the locked Thinkpad – placed it into another- previously UNLOCKED Thinkpad, and now that one is locked with the unknown password as well. I support laptops at a small school and a student placed a Power-on-Password. Thus I cannot boot to a floppy and so on. My limited understanding leads me to believe that Nick Allsop's post is unfortunately very accurate. I am tempted to try submitting the HDD to a strong magnet (don't have Degaussing equipment either). And yes, like everyone here, I cannot afford to send the laptops to Nortek or to Password Crackers Inc. I would have done so by now after spending so much time on this. My supervisor will NOT spend the $799 per laptop for IBM to replace the system board. The unlocking must be a two step process- the system board itself and the HDD. I am still looking for the appropriate diagrams for the 390X to get closer to the right avenue. The PDFs I get to from Nortek's site is what I already had. I am NOT concerned with Data as we ghost these laptops using Norton. Further hints seriously appreciated. The closest to a working solution I see thus far is that posted by WAPTEC@pdx Thanks very very very very VERY much julia.grover@marist.edu - by Julia |
| Request for Comments ~ Thinkpad BIOS (3:48pm EST Tue Oct 30 2001) Hello Again I have some hope in finding a way to delet the password altogether, as long as data recovery is NOT an issue (for me it isn't, just being able to USE the laptops the school bought for the students is). I am hoping that a utility called ZAP and/or another utility called WIP will enable me to get past the BIOS pwd. I am presently reading these from the IBM site of all places. I am hoping that f I can get the laptop to think that this is a NEW harddrive install that I will be able to fdisk and later return this laptop to the queue. Yes, I had an Admin password on the laptop but it looks like the student who backed me into this corner was one who used to work for me. (*sigh*) URLs I am referring to: Any guidance from the IBM employees in our midst would be terribly appreciated. - by Julia |
| ibm passwords (9:59pm EST Tue Oct 30 2001) will, i got a 760 el ibm off e-bay untested for 35.00 ? i get the machine and there is a password set, after zeroing out the cmos i found that there was a password set on the hard drive as will, that would stop the boot process some place in the post diag's on start up. there is a way around that i hard set the cmos values on my home computer, booted with a folppy and hot swapped the hard drive, once i was in the hard drive i coppyed all the data and reformated the drive. after i reformated the drive it still would not boot up, i latter flashed the drive with manufacture's bios data and it started to work agin ? so it can be hacked, but the price of a new hard drive is not worth the trouble i went through just to get a 1.2 gig hard drive back ? nothing is fool proof and good luck jhughes@1139ocean.com - by jhughes |
| Thinkpad CMOS or HDD Passwords – simple and easy to remove (11:40am EST Wed Oct 31 2001) I just cleared the password on one, it took about 1 minute 30 seconds from start to finish. I cannot believe people are considering replacing motherboards or paying hundreds to have the password cleared. Remove one screw. ********* Hard drive password, that would take 4 minutes from start to finsh. Remove drive, get a $5 adapter so it'll work on a PC. Plug it in to a PC as a secondary HDD, and then either find and delete the password file, or just wipe the drive. If you still can't do it after reading these instructions, I'll do it for our minimum $50 bench fee- you pay the shipping. admin@dvsupply.com - by Dv Supply |
| Thinkpad CMOS or HDD Passwords – simple and easy to remove (10:58am EST Thu Nov 01 2001) Dear DV Supply I am encouraged by your email. Unfortunately I left the CMOS and battrey pack out for an entire evening. Was it a Thinkpad you had ? I have 390X Thinkpads. The password is a Power-On and thus I cannot use a software solution. The BIOS is set to HDD only, thus I cannot boot to floppy. I have attempted a “brute force” method of trying to short out EEPROM to no avail. The laptop aks for the POP even WITHOUT the HDD. The Library in which I work might happily pay you $50 if you can assure me I will be able to boot to floppy and reformat the HDD. What have I overlooked ? Thank you for you time and expertise. julia.grover@marist.edu - by Julia |
| Can't even access the HDD when mounted as a slave in D/T (8:05am EST Fri Nov 02 2001) DV Supply, have you actually tried mounting a password protected HDD in a desktop and fdisking it? The password protection is part of the ATA3 specification. The controller won't allow any access to the drive while it's locked, other than to remove the password. MS-DOS, Win98 and Win2K won't even recognise the drive. VxWorks recognises and mounts the drive, but won't allow any access to it. I'll try Linux next, but without much hope of success. I have a spare controller from an identical drive, but it looks like it's not even worth my while trying to swap that over. Short of swapping or degaussing the platters, I have no idea where to go with this, other than sacrificing a chicken and praying to the Dark Gods. I suspect Nick Allsop above might have an idea though. Nick? Help us Obi Wan Allsop, you're our only hope. - by Colin MacDonald |
| HDD password lock (12:30pm EST Sat Nov 03 2001) Hi Colin As you will probably understand it is not possible for me to give the 'official' method of cracking the HDD password and this in any case requires a small amount of hardware. However I can tell you that the drive controller checks for the password protection only once at startup. Also that the data on a 'locked' drive is not encrypted. Therefore after successful calibration on an unlocked drive, the drive controller is in a condition where it can read data from the disk platters and no subsequent check for password is made until the drive is powered down or is put into sleep mode (using the appropriate ATA command). So you will probably have guessed what you could try should you have a second unlocked 'donor' drive of the same model & firmware revision. This method if done properly will allow one to bypass the password lock to gain access to data but will not reveal what the original password was. To do that you must use the 'official' method, which on a drive from a DELL or IBM Thinkpad machine reveals what the original password was, in plain text (or in encrypted form if from another type of laptop). Please note that the two controllers must have an IDENTICAL firmware level otherwise corruption of the data (due to sector mapping errors) may occur. The firmware level is available as an ASCII field in the IDENTIFY information returned by issuing the IDENTIFY DEVICE ATA command (0xEC). This will work on a locked or unlocked drive. Also please note that the above 'bypass' procedure could damage one or both controllers if not performed properly – you have been warned! Hope this is of some help… |
| Cheers Nick (8:17am EST Mon Nov 05 2001) Thanks for the reply Nick. Unfortunately, it's not the data I'm after, it's a functioning drive.
I'm not entirely sure what you're suggesting. I've already tried swapping the controller from an identical drive (that's dead and grinding) are you suggesting that I whip the controller off of the other drive while it's powered up? That the controller only resets its state if it sees a bona fide ATA command? But I thought the controllers didn't have any non-volatile storage on them? Sorry, am I being dense here? If this does work, I suspect I still won't be able to wipe the password off the platter, unless it's stored somewhere that one of the utilities on can get at it. By the way, I'm pressing on with this as a personal project, not because of economics. It irks me that a drive can be paperweighted so easily. My next avenue is to snoop on what's actually going on in the pins under the label on the logic controller (near the connector). I've already accepted that the drive is defunct, so I don't mind wrecking it further. Thanks again for your help, - by Colin MacDonald |
| HDD password lock (6:42pm EST Tue Nov 06 2001) Hi Colin The method I described does involve swapping the controller PCB whilst the drive is powered up. Because the controller powered up on a non-password protected drive will, upon completion of the initial calibration sequence, be in a condition where it will be able to read the data from the disk platters of the 'locked' drive, thus bypassing the password lock. However, there is a risk of damage to the controller or disk assembly. The drive controller contains both volatile and non-volatile memory, but the non-volatile memory does not contain any information relating to the password lock – this is stored on the disk platters. Unfortunately this does not give you a way of removing the password protection from the drive completely. However I may be able to help, please advise exactly what the model of the (functioning) drive you wish to unlock is. BTW, the pins you mention carry the head signals to and from the read/write amplifier (a chip mounted inside the disk assembly), the voice coil motor drive signals (voice coil motor moves the headstack) and the head select control signal. Regards - by Nick Allsop |
| Drive details (10:24am EST Thu Nov 08 2001) Nick, the drive model is DBCA-206480, 6.49Gb, manufactured October 1999 (yes, I'm that cheap). I'm genuinely surprised that hot swapping controllers works I'd expect the controller to hold its current state in volatile memory, and to reset to a state where it will check the password if it is hot swapped. Still, stranger things happen at sea. -) I had a look at the pins – or to be more accurate, my workmate (hi Russell) had a look at them – but couldn't make out anything sensible on an oscilliscope. Fun though this is, I don't think we can justify rigging up a custom harness and poking at it with one of our workplace logic analysers. -) By the way, thanks for taking an interest in this Nick, I really appreciate your time. If you don't want to post anything compromising in a public forum, I can be reached at mailto:HDD@colinmacdonald.REMOVETHI |
| One year plus, still no answer.. (12:07am EST Fri Nov 09 2001) Over a year on this topic.. Still no reliable way to: a) Hit the freaking little 8pin chip on TP motherboards with (your suggestion here) to make the password go bye bye b) depassword a TP hard drive so it can be used again.. (Is the PW stored on the CE cyl? Confirmation? How 2 read it?) My little headache is a TP 365X, supervisor p/w set, HD p/w'd. No $ for Nortek. BTW: A degausser will probably induce stray currents in the HD circuit board and fry the HD, if it dont SHAKE the heads off the arm first.. I have an old radio station reel2reel demagger and it did some fine damage to older regular IDE drives that I got frustrated with in the past.. doperobot@hotmail - by d'robot |
| One More thing (12:33am EST Fri Nov 09 2001) People who used a cmos p/w clearing device now may be completely unable to boot at all, even from a floppy… Try refstamp… It will change the first few bytes of a bootdisk to fake an IBM utility disk… Heres the contact info from the zip file: Bob Eager Now can someone DO anything with this? |
| Travelstar Password removal (9:12am EST Tue Nov 13 2001) Hi! I bought a used Travelstar Drive Is there no way to remove it? - by Nicolas |
| Thinkpad 600E (6:56am EST Wed Nov 14 2001) Well, I gave it a shot. I had what I thought was a Power Up password, so, having failed with shorting the cmos, I removed the CMOS power lead for only 1 minute. Now when I power up, I get the 161 and 163 error messages described earlier. Have I now completely messed up my laptop? What should I try to do now? - by Zico |
| HDD Password Removal (7:33pm EST Wed Nov 14 2001) Hi Nicholas If you are in the UK I can help unlock your password protected drive. If the drive was locked in a DELL laptop or IBM Thinkpad I can also give you the original password used – without needing the laptop itself, just the drive. If you are interested send email with details of the drive to: nick_allsop@hotmail.com regards |
| HDD Password (6:31pm EST Thu Nov 15 2001) Hi Nick I have a IBM Travelstar HDD whick was locked in an IBM Thinkpad, can you tell me how to unlock the drive? Please email me : simanhe@hotmail.com Thanks |
| shorting T2* power-on password ? (4:06am EST Fri Nov 16 2001) I kept hearing this solution to reset the thinkpad power-on password by shorting a jumper, but which one? can somebody help? thx E4s3721@aol.com * i got a T20. - by Jay |
| Thinkpad 760ED Supervisor Passwords (12:29pm EST Sun Nov 18 2001) I have just read the contents of U31 on a 760ED and obtained the supervisor and hard drive passwords from it The passwords reside at H38-H3F and H40-H47 They are encoded as keyboard scan codes (7 Bytes + checksum) Procedure:- Disassemble computer to sytem board level, Locate U31 and de-solder Iused a Dataman S4 + Serial adapter to read the eeprom (93C46) Convert the keyboard scan codes to key symbols. Resolder U31 and re-assemble computer Hold down F1 until easy setup appears and enter your just found password. I have used this method and unlocked my 2nd user 760 with full HDD data recovery. I may offer this service (UK only) for a very small fee. - by Stella Artois |
| I have a thinkpad 770 (11:47pm EST Mon Nov 19 2001) Can you tell me what chip contains the supervisor password on the THinkpad 770? I dont see a U31 that is described for the 660. - by node808 |
| Nick is the MAN (2:53pm EST Sat Nov 24 2001) I sent my IBM DARA-212000 to Nick and not only did he unlock it, he got the password that unlocked my tp 390x. Thanks Nick. |
| ThnkPad 600x (6:49pm EST Fri Nov 30 2001) Same problems – I haven't got a password to enter after powering on. Also get the 161, 163 error message. I'm not a tecnho-geek! Can anybody help me? carterdmc@free.net.nz - by Ed-chog |
| Nick is the Man (4:06am EST Sat Dec 01 2001) So paul, post the password and perhaps it will work for others! - by 390e in waiting |
| ThinkPad X20 (10:24am EST Sat Dec 08 2001) Same problem, supervisor password, I am in Australia and I don't want to send my laptop anywhere, I am not rich either, this stuff with IBM is ridiculous, they want $1500 +$95 for a quote plus or minus $100, they cant be accurate till the job is done. I can't see the sense of throwing a complte system board in the bin, I also can't see why an IBM system board costs so much in this day and age. From what I have read here, it appears that the solution is to read the HD drive on a pc with a converter cable to obtain the password. any info help would be very much appreciated I can be contacted at tpx20@ja.olm.net - by Joe in Australia |
| Thinkpad X20 Fiasco/security (6:09am EST Sun Dec 09 2001) Further To be blunt I am NOT impressed by all this NONSENSE masquerading as security in the interest of the customer, how good are sales of system boards and hard drives at IBM these days?. What god given right does IBM have to make my drive non functional without In this litigious world I am surprised that no one has sued IBM yet, I hope I am not Here in Australia we have the Trade Practices Act, which is rather tough on And isn't this all misleading and deceptive? 1. There is a separate password for HDD in the x20 bios. Yet if the supervisor |
| Nick is the Man (4:32am EST Mon Dec 10 2001) To by 390e in waiting The password on my harddrive is not the same as yours. You have to send the drive off to be unlocked. You'll receive the password by mail. You can then unlock your laptop with that password and remove all passwords from the bios. Once you have paid using PayPall, you'll get your harddrive back. Plug it in, format it (if needed) and reinstall the laptop. Worked fine for me. I have another problem concerning an X20. I knew the drive in this machine was not the original drive. Nick unlocked it and gave me the password. Since it wasn't the original drive, the password did not work in this X20. |
| Dell Latitude power on password (10:15pm EST Tue Dec 11 2001) i need to know how to get around the power on password.. i need the admin code if any one has any info i could really use the help - by sam |
| Just a thought (8:55am EST Wed Dec 12 2001) Has anyone tried to attack this problem from the BRAIN down, ie the BIOS itself, after all that is what controls all this at the time we are denied access ie BOOT UP. The BIOS is there in full view in any of the FLASH BIOS UPDATES. On examination there are some very interesting comments like CRC bad password reset. Anyone have better ideas contact me tpx20@ja.olm.net By the way my X20 had the supervisor password set ONLY, not the HDD password, and the hard drive is not locked, I am able to gain full access to the drive. The HDD password is a function of the HD in accordance with ATA-5 specs. - by Joe in Australia |
| pw (9:16am EST Fri Dec 14 2001) The password protection on IBM laptops is made to stop theft. This is because theft of Laptops is a huge industry. I know a few people who deal in stolen laptops & say they will not touch IBM laptops because of their password protection. All the people here should learn from this and put a password in place so NO-ONE can accidently change it! Good on IBM for making it hard. But they should have a cheap easy solution for genuine brought laptops. - by john |
| Thinkpad Errors 161,163 (4:35pm EST Fri Dec 14 2001) I have a Thinkpad 600e and when it boots up it goes to a green and white screen that says error 161 and 163, then when you click ok, it lets you reset the the time and date, then when you click ok it reboots, then goes to a green and white screen that says power on, power off and there are no options, it just freezes there? - by HELP ME |
| pw (8:50am EST Sat Dec 15 2001) I agree with John, however IBM does NOT have a cheap solution for genuine owners accidentally caught up in this fiasco, IBM's response is to replace the system board for $1500 Australian plus or minus $200 depending on labour and it takes over a week. IBM also say they do not repair boards to a component level. If you examine a system board as I have, (took less than 5 minutes to remove first time) there are a lot of very minor components which can and will fail, this is ridiculous, I am sorry I purchased this second hand thinkpad, however I will not give up till I solve it and publish my results on the Internet, that should put an end to all the firms who want to make you jump through hoops, charge an arm and a leg, saying they use sepcially developed software and firmware. the super duper secret password(s) are in a serial eeprom Xicor X24C08 marked as 24RF08CN, it is near the line input socket under the system board, more to follow. - by Joe in Australia |
| pw (8:55am EST Sat Dec 15 2001) Just to clarify, my thinkpad is an X20 2662-36M, the serial eeprom uses an I2c interface, I am qualified to do this type of work, I could unsolder the soic chip however instead I will monitor the sda and scl lines and develop something that can be replicated and used by all. - by Joe in Australia |
| pwa21m (5:49pm EST Mon Dec 17 2001) does someone has a solution for supervisor pwd, bios pwd ( phoenix) or hard disk pwd ( france ) - by dark |
| access for 560x pap/pop protected (3:12am EST Tue Dec 18 2001) I found a (little) solution to get access to a pop/pap protected 560x, even if this machine is not completely back to life. If you did not remove the backup battery, leave it where it is. Removing it does not solve any pop/pap prob but causes some new. For most tps there are detailed descriptions available in the hardware maintenance manual, how to remove the pop. You will find a link on (thanks to Bob Eager for this). It is called refstamp and allows you to boot into your machine even if there are errors (specially the 601/603). The hardware maintenance floppy (and some others from IBM) have a special stamp at the very beginning of the floppy. This tool creates this stamp. If you did disassemble your machine (to short the jumper for removing pop), remove the harddisk too. Create a dos start floppy and prepare it with refstamp. You will be able too boot from this disk. What comes now sounds destructive, but it works. Into the running machine hot plug the hard drive. You have to do it in the correct direction. The connector of the hard drive do have a 40 and a 4 pin block. Start to attach the 40 pin block from the side, where the 4 pin block is located. This is important. The last 4 pins of the 40 pin block are the power connectors. These have to be attached last. This will let you get access to the machine and the hard drive. Pleas be carefull, you might destroy your hardware. I did this action with a fujitsu (which was the one originally attached and pw protected in my machine) and a new IBM harddisk, both works fine with this. I prepared the IBM harddisk with refstamp too, but it won't let me boot. You will need a floppy for that. So now you have some kind of access to your machine. Until now, I have no solution, how to bypass the errors without a floppy, but working on this and will let you know. - by hijob |
| again access for 560x pap/pop protected (5:39am EST Tue Dec 18 2001) Sorry, forgotten something: If you plugged a new harddisk into the mashine and have to work with this, do not shut off the mashine, only do a soft reboot (ctrl alt del). A hard reboot will cause the 158/159 errors, which can't by bypassed (afain) if you don't know the pap. - by hijob |
| Nick is the man (8:59am EST Tue Dec 18 2001) Hi, because I'm not sure if Nick's e-mail So here ist goes: The TP booted sunday morning, showing error 163 and 173 So no major problem I thought, trying to reboot But this doesn't give me the ability to change So it seems the system somehow is using a The major problem is that, as you might already know, To make it clear, once I've set up a PowerOnPasssword Now my questions: As Nick already did some successful HD pw recovery I'm living in Germany, Nick, I guess you are living in the UK, Would it be possible that I might ship you the drive? Would the drive be damaged during your pw-recovery? What would be the costs for your work? Thanks a lot in advance for your help Have a nice day. Norbert Roth |
| Re: Nick is the man (9:02am EST Tue Dec 18 2001) Excuses for my very bad formatted posting, must have gone somtehing wrong. I'm sorry. Norbert Roth |
| Travelstar (11:23pm EST Sat Dec 22 2001) I am looking for the actual manufacturer and part number of the eeprom located on all travelstar HDD controllers. The actual chip has this marking. C46C1 – ST 39AD (4-DIP) But i think that is just an IBM number and not the Manufacturere PN. Dont worry, ill share the results of my reaserch. Once i can identify the component i can get a datasheet and go to town. - by HardWire |
| Supervisor password locked x20 (2:59am EST Mon Dec 24 2001) The eeprom on the x20 is an Atmel AT24RF08CN Asset identification eeprom, (data sheet on internet at Atmel in Russia strange not the USA!!!) the i2c lines that are used to communicate with it are accesible via the docking station socket (only 3 pims needed GND,SDA,SCL it operates at a slow 19kHZ and 3.3V) without any need to solder unsolder eeprom, I have read the contents ot the eeprom, the access page and the id page, 2 choices work out what all this means or get a copy of the eeprom from an umlocked x20, does anyone out there have any knowledge they can share re what the contents mean or how the password is encripted, or a copy of the contents of an unlocked x20 eeprom. Please feel free to contact me tpx20@ja.olm.net - by Joe in Australia |
| Tp Passwords …..TP750 (5:07am EST Wed Dec 26 2001) Does anyone have an Idea how to fix this problem ..As I have 2 TP750's and both have the same problem … Only boots to error 161 & 163 then padlock ????? Please email me matt68@ozemail.com.au - by Matt68 In OZ |
| The Same Old Story (5:32pm EST Wed Dec 26 2001) TP 600x 161 163 and then padlock, im in the Uk, anyone with ideas please, please can you help, many thanks in advance. tony_t15@hotmail.com - by tony t |
| eeprom (6:16am EST Thu Dec 27 2001) I am going to catalog the data at each address location on the prom. then stick a password on it. catalog again. make a comparison. hopefully i should be able find the difference, which will reveal, the address location of the password. Thanks for the eeprom info joe. - by HardWire |
| Encryption (6:23am EST Thu Dec 27 2001) I believe that if there is a hash, and we keep changing known passwords via bios, it will only be a matter of time before the cypher is revealed. we probably wont be so lucky, but it will be fun anyway. - by HardWire |
| TP X20 (11:06am EST Thu Dec 27 2001) Thanks to help from a kind person who examined my eeprom dump, I now have an unlocked x20, and after playing around for few minutes changing passwords, I found it it is in IBM keyboard scan codes followed by a sum of all 7 preceding bytes, I havnet worked out how upper lower case are handled, but that shouldnt be too hard. So much for IBM KNOWS NO WAY THIS CNA BE FIXED REPLACE SYTEM BOARD FOR A SCHEDULED FEE. By the way the connections to the eeprom are available at the docking socket so there is NO NEED TO OPEN THE CASE and void the precious IBM warranty, if you'd like a jpg of the connections email me tpx20@ja.olm.net this is a lot simpler than hotswapping hard drives, isn't it? - by Joe in Australia |
| TP X20 (11:08am EST Thu Dec 27 2001) Thank God for the Internet - by Joe in Australia |
| Think pad passwords (6:38am EST Sat Dec 29 2001) A pattern emerges, passwords are stored in eeprom in Tpx20 and tp380 possibly others, as 7 bytes in IBM MF1 scan codes followed by an 8 bit sum of the preceeding seven bytes, simple way to find is to read eeprom, scan till the 8 bit sum of last seven bytes equals current byte go back seven bytes decode using MF1 scan codes, there is your password, it is NOT case sensitive, so type it in either upper or lower case. Also at least in TPx20 they are turned into 0FFh's as the TP boots so no use to try and find once TP has booted either in DOS or Windows. And IBM knows no way to do this, Oh Yeah Sure!! - by Joe in Australia |
| Suing IBM (6:56am EST Sat Dec 29 2001) Anyone in Australia who spent $1500 ++ with IBM to have a system board replaced to recover from a lost password situation and is NOW interested in suing IBM in the Federal Court for a Corporation engaging in Misleading and Deceptive Conduct pursuant to the Trade Practices Act, I am available FREE of any charge to give evidence in court, tpx20@ja.olm.net - by Joe in Australia |
| PW chip TP600E (8:08am EST Sat Dec 29 2001) The passwordchip on a TP600E is definately the Atmel AT24Rf08CN this chip also contains a receiver/transmitter so there is a way to monitor the laptop wich some sort of receiver .I mean when the person with the laptop is leaving or entering the office he walks through a sort of receiver port and that data is “usefull”for the company. Atmel datasheet says that 24rf08 is compatibel with the normal 24co8 chip without the receive transmit part, but the 24rf08 has 14 pins and the 24c08 has 8 pins. Maybe someone can help with the pinout of both chips. the 24c08 is cheap and easy to buy but the 24rf08 they won't sell in the netherlands. Any suggestions/help wil be most welkom. sorry for bad english regards René. - by René |
| Supervisor PW on a ThinkPad T20 (5:47pm EST Sat Dec 29 2001) Hi! I've seen that some people can get the supervisor pw from the hard drive. So, who can tell me how i can get the pw from my hard drive ? Or what is the way to do it with a dock station. Thanks Leon - by Leon |
| Defeat supervisor password (10:17am EST Sun Dec 30 2001) I bought a used TP 755C that has an unknown supervisor password. I replaced the harddrive so changing its password is not a problem. Is there any company or an individual close to Seattle that can defeat for less $50 plus shipping? If so, contact me at brim@nocharge.com. - by Neil Brimacombe |
| HD Password Removal (8:04am EST Mon Dec 31 2001) Anyone tried booting from a floppy disk (DOS or Win9X) and then from the DOS prompt typing: a:fdisk /mbr The /mbr is a hidden and undocumented option in the fdisk command. It will remove all data in the boot sector of the HDD, including the Hard disk Password if one is set. It worked for me on a Thinkpad 600x. - by /mbr |
| RFID on X20 and others (12:59pm EST Mon Dec 31 2001) Has anyone contemplated SEROIUS implications of RFID as on TPX20 and others using AT24RF08CN, the RFID transmitter has full access to read and write the entire eeprom including changing your supervisor password with no power applied, so I walk into an office full of x20 and change all the passwords F..KIBM. Yes the security bits are there but at times, for example when the lock symbol is displayed, all security bits are off, FULL ACCESS to RFID, I know this from reading 16 bytes at B8 Access protection page on serial i2c bus with TPx20 functioning. I Suppose this gets around, NO ONE AT IBM FORCED YOU TO ENTER A PASSWORD SO PAY FOR A NEW SYSTEM BOARD. - by Joe in Australia |
| X20 Access protection page (2:28pm EST Mon Dec 31 2001) this is what the access protection page is set to int the AT24RF08CN when a ThinkPad x20 is displaying the padlock waiting for a password B8 = FF, FF, FF, FF, FF, FF, FF, FF, FF, FF, 7E, FF, FF, FF, FF, 49 That means that full access via rfid for reads and writes is on, I can read the password using rfid and enetr it its that simple, THIS IS SECURITY? Why are we zapping eeprom when it can be done by swiping the x20 near a reader. And IBM still dont know how to unlock an x20 without replacing the system board for highway robbery prices, misleading and deceptive may be far too kind a description in this case. - by Joe in Australia |
| Sharing x20 experiences etc (6:10pm EST Tue Jan 01 2002) I have set up a web site (under construction) to share my success with x20 and to provide a forum to exchange ways to accomplish same with all different models , it is up and forum open, not much there at present, with lots of data on x20 to follow during next few days as work permits. - by Joe in Australia |
| 660X (7:34am EST Fri Jan 04 2002) Does anyone know the “overall reset” for the 600x. Current machine has the 161, 163, password. There must be a back door? tony_t15@hotmail.com - by Tony T |
| Just a question (7:55am EST Sat Jan 05 2002) I have a IBM ThinkPad 760XL, lost HDD password. I can run in it by floppy disk when I press many key at same time when it booting. but Can't clear HDD password by DEBUG? Would u answer me : where the HDD password stored in IBM ThinkPad 760XL? - by John |
| Question? (8:10am EST Sat Jan 05 2002) If the HDD password is store in a security chip, It is impossiable to use low formatting to clear password, perhaps, . PC bios access HDD use INT 13 function, below that, use I/O port, can we use the I/O port operating the HDD as boot with floppy disk? - by John |
| Help me?! (8:12am EST Sat Jan 05 2002) Who can tell me the most detail about ThinkPad IBM 760XL 's HDD password storing struct? Thinks! - by John |
| hdd passwd travelstar (3:50pm EST Mon Jan 07 2002) All right guys..I can see you have been talking about the travelstar hd passwd problem. Has anyone tried adding these passwd protected drives to a linux machine and then running the linux fdisk utility on it? The cableage required is at a minimal cost and linux is free. - by clintb123 |
| Password chip for TP755C? (3:28am EST Wed Jan 09 2002) Anybody who knows the password chip of a TP755C? From the comments on this forum, I am inspired to try to revive one from two impressive Thinkpad paperweights by replacing the chip on the supervisor password-locked unit with the chip from the other unit with a dead motherboard (assuming, of course, the latter is not password-set). Thanks. - by Rick |
| Help!!! (5:27am EST Wed Jan 09 2002) I have a Thinkpad 770 and when it boots up it says error 161 and 163, then when you click ok it stops at all. What to do? Where can I remove the supervisor password??? - by bla |
| Help!!! (2) (5:28am EST Wed Jan 09 2002) If you have some idea for the password remove please send a mail to flm@bigfoot.de - by bla |
| request (4:50pm EST Wed Jan 09 2002) Hello, my name is Yakov and I own a IBM Thinkpad 535 TYPE 2606-MF9. My children played with the comuter and by excident locked the harddisk by the supervisior password witch I forgot and now I can't change setting in BIOS and open the harddisk. All I know is that the harddisk and supervisor password are the same. I wanted to ask you if there is any way to find out what is the password? Thankyou, - by Yakov |
| Re: request (9:25am EST Sat Jan 12 2002) Hi Yakov I can unlock your HDD and recover the password in plain text, so you can unlock your laptop. The procedure is non-invasive, does not delete or change the stored data and does not damage the drive. You will need to send just the drive to me in the UK. If you are interested, please send me email. nick_allsop@hotmail.com regards |
| Solution to the biggest Problem (8:40pm EST Sat Jan 12 2002) I think i may have found the answer. Be patient!! i only have to convince one more ibm employee. I have promissed them a $1000.00 each($3000.00 total). All of you will have to help in the expense if this works. - by SULAQ |
| Solution to the biggest problem (6:15am EST Thu Jan 17 2002) Hello Sulaq, what problem? reading an eeprom is easy, decoding not difficult either, when IBM in a pitiful effort to bolster its illusion of a secure password system, offered no policy to assist their clients, their bread and butter to recover from what is a normal foreseable event/accident, they forced their now EX-customers to find a way to ridicule IBM and prove that their so called security is a pathetic sick cruel hoax, you dont need to be Einstein to figure out that the IBM password thingo super dopey gizmo can be defeated. There is ample evidence to that effect here. IBM's solution is misleading, deceptive and their conduct is reprehensible. Save your money and ours, let them bribe YOU for your silence and share the loot with US. - by Joe in Australia |
| Solution to the biggest problem (10:37am EST Thu Jan 17 2002) if “reading an eeprom is easy, decoding not difficult either” How can I find the eeprom (Thinkpad 770), totally dismantled in the moment? How can I decode it? Please send an email to flm@bigfoot.de Thanks! - by bla |
| Think Pad 600x (12:52am EST Sat Jan 19 2002) Before I start Sam I saw you problem on your dell latitude I believe I can help you. Ok now my problem yep a TP600x I bought this laptop from an amateur radio rally I don’t give a monkey about the HD I just would like to get into the bios. I have tried unplugging the batters and just where the ram goes putting a piece of wire across the two holes as describe from a web site (I can not remember) to reset the dam thing. As you can tell I have had no susses. I would be grateful if any body would help me aim willing to do a deal. pls reply to nitramtrebor@hotmail.com - by Robert |
| ibm tp 560z (7:51pm EST Sun Jan 20 2002) is removing the hdd/supervisor password for the tp 560z the same for removing the user/supervisor for the tp 365c/cs/cd/csd/e/ed? - by tango |
| IBM TP 560Z (8:58pm EST Sun Jan 20 2002) HAS ANYONE EVER HEARD OF BYPASSING THE HDP AND PAP BY A PASSWORD REPLACEMENT CHIP? ITS A SECURITY CHIP THAT HAS NO PASSWORD SET AND CAN BE USED TO REPLACE A CHIP WITH AN UNKNOWN/LOST PASSWORD, WHICH THEN OF COURSE MAKES THE MACHINE USABLE. - by TANGO |
| IBM T 20 (7:39am EST Mon Jan 21 2002) if anyone can help me unlock my thinkpad T20 hard disk please let me know. i have read the whole forum from top to bottom but i cant seem to find a clear and definite answer. JOE im in sydney australia , if you can guide me in some direction please help out a fellow auzzie. - by Peter |
| IBM 760xl (9:08pm EST Mon Jan 21 2002) I know the supervisor password for my Thinkpad 760xl and can use it to enter Easy-Setup of bios but when following IBM instructions for removal of supervisor password “type current password and press the Spacebar. Press Enter at the blank box. Press Enter again at the verification screen” I can not get beyond the so-called blank box (I get two beeps then return to original password blank box) After 3 tries I have to shutdown for at least 5 seconds and try again. Has anyone been unable to remove a KNOWN Supervisor password and is there a fix for this? Thanks much. - by kirby |
| Solution to the biggest problem (9:32am EST Tue Jan 22 2002) If you've got it all dismantled, look for an eeprom, it will most likley be an 8 pin chip but could be 14 pin chip. You are looking for a part number AT24RF08CN or similar, or 24C01 or 24C02 or 24C04 or 24C08 or ohters that I have not come accros yet. If you have no knowledge of electronics, find someone who has, a hobbyist or some one at college or uni. Tell them you have an i2c (I square C) eeprom you need to read. Before unsoldering, note the orientation of the chip on the board. They, you will need to unsolder it to be able to read it, this requires very good soldering skills, or you risk damaging the board. Have them read it. Then it will have to soldered back in, there is no need to obtain a replacement. I will look at and decode decode the listing and tell you by return e-mail what your password is (FREE) Cheers |
| Know the password but it doesnt work! (9:43am EST Tue Jan 22 2002) If you know the password, that is you have read the eeprom and have converted from scan codes to ascci. If your password has NUMERALS (numbers ZERO to NINE) as part of the password like for example “JOE4985″ and it won't work. I can help, email me tpx20@ja.olm.net - by Joe in Australia |
| TP600 2645 51U (9:59pm EST Wed Jan 23 2002) I seem to have the same problem that everyone else with a TP600 has. The notebook worked fine until I disconnected the lithium battery located in the memory compartment. Now I get errors 161, 163 at boot and can't get into setup. Previous to this everything was fine, but I could never change the boot devices which annoyed me. Now this is worse, no laptop at all. What do I need to do? Remove the flash rom located very close to the memory slots and have it read? ANY HELP would be VERY VERY awesome. (I have all my course materials on it…) Thanks-William Email: (address removed – all set now!) - by William |
| Re: Know the password but it doesnt work! by kirby (10:20pm EST Thu Jan 24 2002) Joe in Australia I don't have any numerals in the password just lower case letters. I set the supervisor password myself and am able to enter bios setup as I explained but have been quite unsuccessful at removing the password. Ever heard of this? - by kirby |
| Know the password but it doesnt work! by kirby (6:50am EST Sat Jan 26 2002) Kirby, the only thing I can think of is if you had previously unsoldered the eeprom and did not solder it back correctly, or the SDA pin has lifted for whatever reason. Specifically on some models if SDA is left disconnected, the thinkpad will behave as if no supervisor password is not set (doesn't work on all models only some and I don't remeber which, only seen it once) in that case the password cannot be reset because you cannot ever write to the eeprom, ensure SDA pin on eeprom is soldered back. - by Joe in Australia |
| Know the password but it doesnt work! by kirby (6:57am EST Sat Jan 26 2002) Are you following the user manual to the letter, I think it was on a 600, I encountered something similar, and it took me a while to disable password, you have to do exactly what the manual says, and the on screen prompts (THERE ARENT ANY) are not helpful, you could say hopeless in fact. tpx20@ja.olm.net - by Joe in Australia |
| X20 T20 and others easily unlocked (8:25am EST Mon Jan 28 2002) The X20 and T20 lend themselves to being easily and neatly unlocked without dismantling the ThinkPad, see full details at or email Joe tpx20@ja.olm.net - by Joe in Australia |
| trying to unlock 755c (3:24pm EST Mon Jan 28 2002) hi joe, i am trying to unlock a 755c, the only eprom device i can see on the system board is an intel n28f020 flash device does this sound promising? - by GEE |
| ibm tp 560z (9:33pm EST Mon Jan 28 2002) hi joe in australia, any response to tp 560z issues? - by tango |
| trying to unlock 755c (2:36am EST Fri Feb 01 2002) Hi GEE, I don't visit here often, you should e-mail me direct, to asnwer your question, No, you are looking for an 8 pin chip small SOIC surface mounted, amongst the writing on it you might see 24Cxx, where 'xx' could be 01,02,04,08 or look for an ATMEL AT24RF08CN or a 14 Pin surface mounted small TSSOP with writing on it like ATMEL 24RF08CN or C something, if you find both a 24cxx and a 24RF08 something, then it's most likely that the password is in the 24RF08 something, if you only find a 24Cxx then the password is in that. tpx20@ja.olm.net - by Joe in Australia |
| Bypassing the Supervisors password on the 390E TP (10:15am EST Sat Feb 02 2002) Step one press F1 to enter the bios Step Two When it says 'entering bios' rip out the hard drive. That will send the bios in to a panic and hey presto your in the bios. One thing though timing is everything. For the HDD well damm it im still working on that. - by Bobby |
| ps (10:27am EST Sat Feb 02 2002) thanks to for giving me the info. - by Bobby |
| IBM Thinkpad I Series 1400 (9:59pm EST Tue Feb 05 2002) You guys are trying to hard to break security,i say screw it and move on, but for now i am stuck with a wierd error on this notebook, i go to format the drive and it stops at about 9% and says “not ready”… “Format terminated” and to me that is bazaar, i am getting ready to try and low level format and hope it will work - by Grant_pc@hotmail.com |
| Screw it and move on ! ? (12:39pm EST Sat Feb 09 2002) Hello grant, “trying hard to break security” well aren't you in trouble as well with your notebook, has IBM helped you? I guess not without having a corporate account or parting with big bucks. A lot of this IBM kid stuff masquerading as security is only there to annoy the likes of you and me, and fill IBM's pockets. It also looks good for all the IT managers who must convince their bosses that this stuff SECURITY PASSWORDS really works. By the way, without TRYING all that HARD I am succeeding, see by the way your hard drive problem, it may be locked? Cheers - by Joe in Australia |
| Need help and directions (7:33pm EST Sat Feb 09 2002) Hi all, I recently bought a 2'nd hand T22, the problem is (of course) super lockin (and hd locking). So my question is. Which is the most simple/cheapest (he!) way for me to use/access this computer. I've seen that the password could be retrieved through the HD, is it always true? or do I have to open the computer and fix some EEPROM's? Anyone out there with some answer please contact me: pinina53@hotmail.com - by Daniel (sweden) |
| Passwordz (7:22pm EST Thu Feb 14 2002) 1. Retriving 6 chars password from modern(fast) harddrive takes about month (Tested) from old and slow – forget it 2. password stored in 24RFXX is not encrypted tested with very expensive (the one and only) commercial reader capable to read/write 24RFXX 3. Y don`t need “Joe's Monster Reader” to read other eeproms, check (Easy I2C) 4. I can decrypt passwords from IBM eeproms for free at this time. Greetz from Germany (also removing passwords from HP,Dell, - by memyselfi@hotbox.ru |
| Passwordz (1:56am EST Fri Feb 15 2002) “Y don't need “Joes Monster Reader”" interesting, and the only eeprom reader that you could test read an 24RF08 was “very expensive (the one and only) commercial reader capable to read/write 24RFXX”. My reader has 2 IC's and according to you it's a monster! how smaller or simpler was this very expensive commercial reader? Password not encrypted in 24RFXX, so you are saying we can read with PonyProg and see results in ASCII on right bar? I didn't want to design yet another eeprom reader. I have sent lots of email to both PonyProg and IC-Prog explaining exactly how to read 24RF08 and C source code, response to date NO RESPONSE AT ALL. tpx20@ja.olm.net |
| Passwordz (5:38pm EST Sat Feb 16 2002) Further to Joe's email – sorry memyselfi@hotbox.ru but you are also incorrect about the time taken to unlock a password protected HDD. Depending on drive model, firmware rev. and length of password, most drives can be unlocked in 12 hours, certainly NOT 1 month! regards nick_allsop@hotmail.com - by Nick Allsop |
| Passwordz (7:02pm EST Sat Feb 16 2002) I have not written that my soft is the best. It checks 94931877133 possible combinations.I think u got some how to to read drive internal memory where passwords are in clear text, but i am still in study of “BEF89IJUFXXXXXX like” master passwords. - by memyselfi@hotbox.ru |
| IBM Passwords (1:18pm EST Mon Feb 18 2002) Surely there's a Ctrl Fsomething combination to free me ibm 506x from this bios password hell son of a bitch. …and these mothers aint cheap ^ all da best from UK |
| HELP on ibm thinkpad password (1:22am EST Tue Feb 19 2002) i have a IBM thinkpad T21 and it has a it power on password set. can any body help me break this send your solutions at gtbhai@rediffmail.com |
| 24rf08 (1:10pm EST Sat Feb 23 2002) i have ibm thinkpad and it has password on it i have reader to read eeprom but where do wires go to as its 14 pin chip also anyone know good software to read and see password plain txt - by jme |
| IBM Passwords (5:36pm EST Sun Feb 24 2002) Hi Guy UK I am in the UK and can unlock almost any model of hard drive, plus give you the password that was used (if drive was locked in IBM TP or DELL machine). This password is the same as the BIOS password in almost all cases and should allow you to unlock your laptop. All I need is the HDD, I only charge a little cost for my time or nothing if you don't want the HDD back. In any case you don't send any payment until I've sent you the password by email (usually same day I receive HDD). The procedure does not damage the drive or delete the data on it. If you are interested, please contact me via email. regards nick_allsop@hotmail.com - by Nick Allsop |
| IBM password when drive is not locked (10:27am EST Tue Feb 26 2002)
Nick is the man. - by Geoalfa |
| Hard drive password (1:58pm EST Tue Mar 05 2002) There's no way at all the drive password can be removed if you don't know it. It's just not possible according to IBM – not even THEY can do it. None of the ATA read/write commands will work when the drive is locked and – according to them – the password is encrypted and stored with the firmware on an inaccessible area of the drive anyway. Other manufacturers like Toshiba and Hitachi probably use the exact same method. Also according to my info from IBM, there's something called a 'master password' that they can use to erase the drive, but that it's different for every individual drive (can this really be true!?) They must have some rather long password lists at IBM… - by wish it weren't true |
| You can read about hdd's security on my page (5:36pm EST Sat Mar 09 2002) - by memyselfi@hotbox.ru |
| H/D Password (2:14pm EST Sun Mar 10 2002) I have read a lot of the posts here about hard drives with a password, if you can access the floppy drive, you can quite easily remove the hard drive password. - by ardec1 |
| H/D Password (7:19am EST Tue Mar 12 2002) Ardec that's the problem, you cannot access the floppy drive! - by Geoalfa |
| t20 password (7:03pm EST Tue Mar 12 2002) make a windows boot disk, then use the refstamp utility to stamp it. boot machine. if this doesn't work then boot and press f12 to access other boot devices. good luck. - by camo |
| h/d pass (1:51pm EST Thu Mar 14 2002) who could tell me how to remove hard disk password if I do have access to floppy drive? - by manor |
| 390X (3:22pm EST Thu Mar 14 2002) I have problem with steaupid password.If anyboby can help me I will be very gratefuly because I don't know what to do in Macedonia because I don,t know did somebody here can do.I have lock BIOS password and I can't start my computer at all.Thank's in advance. - by Goranco Stojanov |
| IBM 390X (3:26pm EST Thu Mar 14 2002) I have problem with steaupid password.If anyboby can help me I will be very gratefuly because I don't know what to do in Macedonia because I don,t know did somebody here can do.I have lock BIOS password and I can't start my computer at all.Thank's in advance. My Email. sgoranco@hotmail.com - by Goranco stojanov |
| IBM Thinkpad 600E (4:11am EST Fri Mar 15 2002) Just like everyone else I've got the error codes 161, 173. If anyone knows how to fix the prob please email me: naednet@hotmail.com - by *sigh* |
| Hard drive password (11:55am EST Sun Mar 17 2002) Whether you have access to the floppy drive or not doesn't matter. Remove the hard drive, use one of the many adapters that allows you to connect the 2.5 inch hard drive to a regular PC. Using a special boot disk, you will then be able to override the password on the hard drive, thereby gaining access to all of the information on the drive. - by ardec1 |
| Hard drive password (2:04pm EST Mon Mar 18 2002) What kind of 'special boot disk' might that be? - by wish it were true |
| Hard drive password (4:47pm EST Mon Mar 18 2002) oh look everyone, ardec1 has a magical solution to the password problem yes lets hear about this 'special boot disk' that gets into a locked drive im sure we will be amazed with what he/she can come up with - by get the facts |
| ThinkPad Supervisor Password (10:38am EST Tue Mar 19 2002) ThinkPad supervisor password removal information is available at the web site listed below. Feel free to email me for additional details AFTER YOU HAVE READ ALL RELEVANT INFORMATION ON THE SITE. like 'get the facts' I too am very interested in the so called ardec1 'special boot disk' from vapourware theory Inc no doubt! tpx20@ja.olm.net |
| ThinkPad supervisor password (7:12am EST Wed Mar 20 2002) This msg is for all users of ThinkPad notebooks who have problems with mentioned password. I also had such problem and the only good solution was to read Joes web page and follow the instructions carefully. It works, tried it on my own and if you need help just ask. baklava@email.si |
| TP password (8:19am EST Wed Mar 20 2002) Hello to Joe in Australia – thanks for the info on your site – very interesting however we have about 75 various models of ibm laptops here with unknown passwords. although i have read your website we just cant take them all apart to get at the security chip as this is not practical what other suggestions do you have? - by Unhappy in IT |
| HD Password (9:01am EST Wed Mar 20 2002) I have recently bought a thinkpad 560x for my sister and decided to experiment with the protection mechanisms a bit. I can boot the notebook from floppy to either DOS or Linux as long as the disk is refstamped. To my surprise, I was able to access the HD from Linux while it is not detected from DOS. Does this mean that the HD lock mechanism can be dodged by using another OS? Which password combinations do I have to set in order to protect my data? micheland@hotmail.com |
| TP and HD Password (5:59pm EST Thu Mar 21 2002) To Unhappy in it, I don't know of any other solution, you have to gain access to the eeprom, there is no easier way, on some models it is very easy, on others it's a complete strip down @#$*&, that's life. To Mike, booting from a refstamped floppy, OK, But was your HD password locked? are able to access HD by simply booting from the refstamped floppy? I doubt it. As regards safer password combinations, ensure you have a mix of alpha and numerals. |
| Found Way Around Hard Disk Password Protection (1:21am EST Sat Mar 23 2002) The way around this is not mentionable on the forum, but if you e-mail me at emudave2002@yahoo.com i will gladly tell you how to get around the password protection. - by David Williams |
| Way around HDD Password (7:45pm EST Tue Mar 26 2002) Currently I am in the process of trying to recreate the steps I took to bypass the HDD password on my IBM Thinkpad 760XL in my spare time. I will keep you posted on the progress as the solution is recreated. Thanks - by David Williams |
| i need ibm ThinkPad r30 power on password (2:07pm EST Thu Mar 28 2002) anyone thats have that password and can help me so do.. - by Assaf Kachli |
| Nick's the man (1:16pm EST Mon Apr 01 2002) I recently sent my locked HDD to Nick in the uk and he unlocked it for me. I bought my HDD on ebay and it was locked when I got it, but now I can use it ok. Thanks Nick. I recommend you to others who have locked HDD (or laptop and don't want to take the laptop apart to get at the chip memory) Pete - by Peter Lambourn |
| IBM Thinkpad password recovery (2:35pm EST Wed Apr 03 2002) First, I will ignore the stupid remark about a “Magic Disk” that can be used to remove the password from a hard drive. Yes, in many cases it is possible to install a password protected hard drive in another Thinkpad, boot up on a floppy disk that we do have and remove the password. Enough said about that. We have developed a tool that allows for the recovery of the information stored in several of the EEPROMs, namely the following: 2401, 2402, 2404, 2408, 2416, 2432, 2464, 24128, 24256, 9346, 9356, 9366, 9376 and 9386. Most of the time we only have to desolder 1 pin on the chip in order to recover the file, in other cases we have to remove the chip completely. We are planning on making this tool available to any competent repair facility, once we complete the development. Regards, |
| TP 600e (9:40am EST Fri Apr 05 2002) PLS can any one provide a Atmel reader & source of program?? Which of eeprom to read?? is there a way to erase the data in them?? is it possible to read eeprom from motherboard?? by Vit_GM vit_gm@hotmail.com - by Vit_GM from AUS/SA |
| TP 600e (11:41am EST Fri Apr 05 2002) The chip you want to read is the 24xxx chip. We have not yet finished the tool we are working on, but at this point in time we can read the content of the chip through an interface that we have developed. On some units the chip has to be removed completely, on other units we only de-solder 1 pin. Currently we can read the 24xxx and 93xxx series EEPROMs - by ardec1 |
| TP 600e (12:51pm EST Fri Apr 05 2002) There's no need to go spending money on some tool or other. Just go & see Joe's website: Where you can find all the information you need to unlock your laptop very quickly & cheaply. I have used it on five TPs in all, no problems. - by Micky |
| TP 600e (9:26am EST Sun Apr 07 2002) Thanks guys for quick responce. upparently there are 2 24XXX atmel eeproms on motherboard one is 8 pins , the other is 14 pins, which one to read from?? then i found the daallas eeprom staring like 17XXX. once again thanks a lot, at least i am on the right track. - by Vit_GM |
| TP 600e (11:17am EST Sun Apr 07 2002) The EEPROM you are looking for is the one located on the back side of the board, it is located very close the a large chip that has got PCIbus written on it. Turning the board upside down, with the prots facing you, it is located on the right side of the board fairly close the the ports. We are NOT selling any tool, nor are we planning on selling it to the general public, we can however retrieve the passwords from most of the chips at this point in time. In many cases without un-soldering the chip from the board. - by ardec1 |
| IBM Thinkpad password recovery (2:07pm EST Mon Apr 08 2002) How do you get this boot disk, and what do you do after you boot????? how can you remove the password from the drive. I don't care about the data. This is a 365x with a travelstar 4.8 HDD added later. - by stranded |
| TP600e (11:15pm EST Mon Apr 08 2002) Cooments to Joe in Aus, or other that can help… Q1 on 24C01A eeprom my TP use only one address which is (000) teh Joe's reader reads from (001) should i do modification?? Q2 What kind of equipment should i use to read eeprom without taking it off of motherboard? Q3 how many data bits in one address lacation in 24C01A eeprom? thanks - by by Vit_GM |
| TP600e (10:53am EST Tue Apr 09 2002) As to Q1, I will let Joe in Aus answer that, he has had good success retrieving passwords from the various Thinkpads that he has worked with. Q2: We are working on a tool that allows for the content of the EEPROM (24xxx) to be read in to a file, currently we do have to un-solder at least 1 pin. The tool is NOT available and will NOT be made available to the general public. Q3: Download the datasheet for the 24C01A EEPROM from - by ardec1 |
| TP600e (7:20pm EST Tue Apr 09 2002) just to make sure is eeprom we talking about U98on motherboard or U99??? this Q to Joe in Aus, referring to your schematic diagram, you tieing WP(pin) to Vcc, but (refer to datasheet of 24C01A) it has to be tied up to Gnd for normal R/W operations?? could you please help me with that?? Huge appreciation to ardec1 for his help. |
| X20 (3:21pm EST Wed Apr 10 2002) Please hlp me unlock this….anything i can try email is star@rogers.com joes theory is way to complicated….the hardware looks hard….plz plz hlp!! ill pay if u live in ontario - by starbai |
| Hard Drive Password (2:25pm EST Thu Apr 11 2002) I have read quite a few comments about the utility disk that we use to unlock the IBm laptop hard drives with. This is NOT a utility disk that we developed, it is an older UNIX/LINUX utility that we have around. If anybody would like to give it a try, email me at: pnielsen@starband.net and I will email you the two files that are used to create the disk. You are going to need one formatted 1.44Mb. floppy disk, and if you are not familiar with RAWRITE, you are going to have to either send me an email or give me a call so I can walk you through the procedure for creating the disk and using it. Don't expect an instant response, I do have to work for a living too.:o) Preben Nielsen - by ardec1 |
| TP600e (9:16pm EST Thu Apr 11 2002) just to make sure is eeprom we talking about U98on motherboard or U99??? this Q to Joe in Aus, referring to your schematic diagram, you tieing WP(pin) to Vcc, but (refer to datasheet of 24C01A) it has to be tied up to Gnd for normal R/W operations?? could you please help me with that?? Huge appreciation to ardec1 for his help. |
| IBM sucks.. (6:30am EST Fri Apr 12 2002) This is from IBM forum: Topic: Can't install 'IBM Client security software' (4 of 5), Read 20 times Hi Hynek! >A) No one can turn on my ThinkPad without this >password ? Correct. The power-on password will stop them dead in their tracks. >B) If somebody would remove my hard drive and put >it into an other computer. Could he read my data >or would he still need the “Hard disk”-password ? That person would need to know the hard drive password even if the hard drive was was in another ThinkPad. Just NEVER FORGET YOUR PASSWORDS!! You'll need a new hard drive and system board if you do. Hope this helps. Thank you for using the IBM Discussion Forums. Adam Barichello |
| RE: IBM sucks! by capu (11:30am EST Fri Apr 12 2002) As far as the hard drive goes, what IBM is saying is not exactly true. I purchased an IBM 770 on eBay that had all the passwords set. Plugging the drive in another Thinkpad and running the utility that we have on the drive allowed me to reset the password for the drive and read the content of the drive. I wiped the drive clean and after getting irritated enough at IBM, we developed a little tool that we can use to read the content of the EEPROM, after that it was pretty much downhill all the way. We can now read the content of nearly all the EEPROM chips, at least the 24xxx and 93xxx series chips. - by ardec1 |
| Free Soloution to Passwords (12:56am EST Sun Apr 14 2002) Aftre reading all this I was a little dismayed. However we found inside our 760c Thinkpad a little connector which you can add a jumper to which clears the password First you have to open the computer and pop up the keyboad |
| ardec1 (11:43pm EST Sun Apr 14 2002) Yo ardec1 dude, if you can really do this, email me and we can talk (phamtan@hotmail.com). I really could use your help. - by kevin |
| TP 600X (5:46am EST Mon Apr 15 2002) I have a TP 600X with HDD password, I tried the cmos bat. removal, but that nothing as expected. Can anyone help - by sparx |
| Sending files by email (10:29am EST Mon Apr 15 2002) I don't mind sending the files I referred to in my earlier post to anybody who ask for them, however, if you have an email address where emails over a certain size are rejected, I am NOT going to vaste my time trying to send the files again. Before asking me to email those files to you, make sure that you can receive files over 1Mb. So, if you have sent me an email with a request and you have not gotten a response back, the problem lies with your email server. - by ardec1 |
| TP600e (10:22pm EST Mon Apr 15 2002) Ardec can u send me a schematic diagram of eeprom reader?, coz Joes in Aus diagram isnt correct for my TP. vit_gm@eudoramail.com - by by Vit_GM |
| TP600e (10:05am EST Wed Apr 17 2002) The schematic for the EEPROM reader and associated hardware/software we have developed will NOT be made available. Sorry. - by ardec1 |
| ARDEC1 (5:13am EST Thu Apr 18 2002) Regarding your utility disk used to unlock the IBM laptop hard drives with. I am not familiar with RAWRITE, and I sent you an email. However does this utility disk retrieve the password in plain text or just delete it ??? THANX - by sparx |
| sparx (10:13pm EST Thu Apr 18 2002) I can't remember if you can see the password or not, it has been a while since I last used it. If anybody with an email account on Hotmail, or for that matter any of the other free email services, ask me to send them these files, I am not going to waste my time trying, Hotmail will not accept large attachments. - by ardec1 |
| ARDEC1 (2:51am EST Fri Apr 19 2002) I'm really need you programm, if you can really help me, please send (media@elkor.lv). I really need you help. Thanks - by Anry1 |
| ARDEC1 (5:17pm EST Sat Apr 20 2002) could you send me the files please. bbryant@nf.sympatico.ca - by bill |
| Sparx (8:26pm EST Sat Apr 20 2002) Has anyone had any success with “Hard Drive Password” problem. Please e-mail mail2meca@yahoo.ca Thanks |
| Tying WP high on 24c01 (12:51am EST Sun Apr 21 2002) TO Vit_GM My schematic is for READING an unsoldered 24C01, I do not want to WRITE to it, not even accidentally. Connecting WP to high logic level (VCC) IS CORRECT, that disables writing yet ALLOWS READING EEPROM. We only need to read eeprom to recover password. If by any mishap a byte is altered in the eeprom, then the TP will return CRC errors etc, then you have to guess which byte to correct, a tall order. Coonecting WP high avoids all that drama. To guy in Canada with X20, I have a new interface on my web site below, that uses only 1 IC a 74LS05 and some resistors, powered by 3 penlight batteries and connected to PC serial port via DB9 can't get easier than on an X20 which doesn't have to be dismatled. Also on the site hi res picture of prototyping board showing how to build the interface with very little soldering. - by Joe in Autralia |
| Dump of eeprom (2:04pm EST Sun Apr 21 2002) Could someone send me a dump of their eeprom.I figure if you dumped an image off a thinkpad with no passwords, and wrote it to the eeprom of a password protected thinkpad, it would work for getting rid the passwords. I also made an I2C eeprom reader just using resisters and the parallel port, It gets it's power from the port also. Very easy to do with no 74LS05.I also have a program to wipe the password off the harddrive. Gimme a few days, and i'll do up a zip file of my work and post it on ftp. - by Bill |
| Dump of eeprom (6:39pm EST Sun Apr 21 2002) It is easy to use Parallel port, no argument, BUT it is also very easy to damage integrated parallel port on motherboard. Drivers are required with Windows 2000, NT XP to access LPT port, drivers are messy to install and can interfere with other programs and drivers already installed. Very difficult if not near impossible to damage RS232 serial port, using serial port and one 74LS05 to avoid all these hassles is a SMALL PRICE TO PAY. Drawing power form LPT port is a hit and miss affair, 3 penlight batteries are not expensive, the circuit will only be used for a few seconds to read one eeprom. Program to wipe password from hard drive, I cannot see how you are going to do that. The ATA IDE interface ignores all commands (other than unlock followed by correct password) how does your software get past that without supplying the correct password. If you do have a solution to hd password that everyone else including me has overlooked, please email me when you ahve posted your solution tpx20@ja.olm.net - by Joe in Australia |
| Dump of eeprom (6:45pm EST Sun Apr 21 2002) I forgot to mention, copying an unlocked eeprom to a locked eeprom will unlock it, tried it, it works. BUT, it will also change the serial number UUID MAC etc, it may create problems down the track. Also (and this not a nice side effect) if the hard drive password is stored in eeprom it will overwrite that and you will never know what it was. - by Joe in Australia |
| dump of eeprom for Joe (8:38pm EST Mon Apr 22 2002) Joe, you told on your page, that eeprom has special info about exactly this notebook. How it´s possible to copy dump from unlocked eeprom from another noteb. to a locked one and it works? And how all that “security chips” sellers sell common “security” chip for IBM TP? I have got ulocked eeprom dump for IBM TP R30, can share. Need unlocked dump for TP A20 ( RFID serialisation error, CRC2 error). When I copy unlocked dump of R30 into locked A20 it doesn´t work (CRC1 error, stop POST). R30 has 24rf08, 8 legs (be careful, R30 has also AT93Cxxx, you don´t need that), HD password doesn´t stored in eeprom. fell free mail The-Harp@t-online.de - by Frank from Germany |
| dump of eeprom for Joe (8:47am EST Tue Apr 23 2002) Frank, you have to copy a dump from the same model: a20 unlocked to a20 locked. You could probably edit the dump of the r30 if you knew exactly what to edit - by bill |
| dump of eeprom for Joe (9:05am EST Tue Apr 23 2002) What to edit? Dump has a few areas or parts. Area for power-on password, supervisor password (R30 eeprom has 2 copys of SV password – why? ), area with serial info of laptop. What to edit? fell free mail The-Harp@t-online.de - by Frank from Germany |
| Dump of eeprom for Frank (11:20am EST Tue Apr 23 2002) Each TP model has slightly different layout for eeprom contents and where CRC and checksums are stored (don't ask me how to edit these, I only read and recover passwords)I don't write to eeprom. Each individual TP has different serial numbers UUID, MAC, bios settings etc stored in eeprom, when you copy the eeprom from one TP into another you are also copying the serial numbers etc, you end up with 2 TP's with same serial numbers UUID etc this may be a problem if you use both TP's with same MAC on a network for example. I don't know what security chip sellers do, I Imagine they sell an eeprom with blanked out serial numbers, I am only guessing. - by Joe in Australia |
| ARDEC (2:21pm EST Tue Apr 23 2002) please send the info on the IBM BIOS passord recovery .. I'm running a IBM T20.. and this is driving me nuts.. ohjay@telusplanet.net.. thanx - by Confused |
| The solutions (7:06pm EST Sat May 13 2006) there is one - by bye |
| solution (7:08pm EST Sat May 13 2006) allservice.ro - by bye |
| that's it (7:15pm EST Sat May 13 2006) R24RF08 2.0b to read eeprom W24RF08 2.1a to program it. IBMpass 2.0 to see the password. two of them are free. Enjoy! - by chuk |
| re: lost password for think pad x41 (7:22pm EST Sat May 13 2006) can any one help me on the thinkpad x41 tablet? I lost my password, I've tried and read, seem no 1 have a selution for this? please help Dan Nguyen - by Dan Nguyen in USA |
| IBM Laptop (6:44pm EST Sat May 27 2006) Thank you everyone! I was going to purchase a use IBM laptop from the police auction and now after reading everyone's email I won't. I won't be purchasing any of the laptops mention in this website. It is too much trouble to figure out the supervisors' password. Thank you - by Misaac |
| Joe in Australia (1:42pm EST Mon May 29 2006) You have never once mentioned where we can find your website… or I missed it wading through every single one of these postings… - by frustrated |
| security (2:09am EST Tue Jun 06 2006) its good the only the IBM hard disks have password that no one can see the data its a plus point for user, if that user used that think pad for 4 to 5 yrs & sell to someonelse, the second person wants to format the drive or take the data backup there the problem occur that type of problem am facing what could can i do to get data from my drive please suggest me how i can get the data from my drive which password has been locked i dont know the password - by Mahesh.bp |
| WTF? (8:40am EST Fri Jun 09 2006) Here is the problem though. I am an IT support pro and dual role as a Windows Sys Admin and I have had three of these laptops in the HP nc6220 series turn itself on. Crazy right? The user has to be lying right? I thought so too until the 3rd one did it right in front of me while it was on the bench. After running some WinPE checkdisk action on the drive I popped out the CD and rebooted. I then logged in and did some other program maintenance (removing Outlook Express, etc.) and then rebooted and then it said Drivelock Multibay Password. Problem is I didn't enable this “feature”. Now I know some users on this forum have said their respective users turned it on but I think perhaps some of them actually had this happen as well. There is a company in Canada that can unlock the drive for around $200 or so and recover data. - by fireBAD |
| I want to Cry!!! (4:54pm EST Wed Jun 21 2006) My girlfriend asked me to clean her aunts thinkpad because there was some media files(I won't say of which variety) on there, I started it up and it was in a loop, it began loading windows then started again, I've been able to set the time and Date in the Bios, now I get the 'windows had a problem starting which mode would you like to start in' twaddle, yet any I select still put me in this loop!!! Any ideas guys, girlfriend is starting to get angry!! - by Mark |
| ibm r40e bios password (6:07am EST Tue Jun 27 2006) my laptop's bios is locked, Is anybody knows a back door password? in case i would replace the EEPROM with a new one “24RF08CN, should i write the bios before i solder it back? ilanru@bezeqint.net - by Ilan R |
| IBM r52 & t43 (4:42pm EST Thu Jul 06 2006) anyone has any idea how to take of the bios pw on T43&R52. i can do all others. - by GIZA |
| ibm A20m password lockout (10:01am EST Sun Jul 09 2006) Here's the history, set bios password so the laptop could still be used then a year later could not remember password so downloaded one of the bios password utilities onto floppy disk and guess what – this locked me out altogether. dont know how to get into motherboard to reset the bios or even if it is a bios password now. I know the laptop is quite old but was a great laptop. Any help please ???? - by Alison |
| IBM A20m Tupe 2633 (6:55pm EST Sat Jul 22 2006) My notebook reboot, and set password to the Bios (maybe standart). I remove battery CMOS from Notebuk, but password not removed. Please HELP ME!!!! What I can do? |
| R52 and T43 for Giza (4:51pm EST Mon Jul 24 2006) This is for GIZA Thinkpad T43 and R52 use PC8394T-VJG. |
| IBM R30 recovery supervisior pass (8:01am EST Thu Jul 27 2006) I lost my important supervisior password. Giv me a way to disaster recovery. Haw to change pass? Best regards…. - by New from PL |
| password hard drive FOR ARDEC1 (7:58pm EST Thu Sep 07 2006) FOR ARDEC1 , your utility disk used to unlock the IBM laptop hard drives , please send file to giglioricodue@email.it very thanks Rico - by rico |
| Joe's a diamond (5:24pm EST Sun Sep 24 2006) Joes System worked for my T30 both h/d and supivisor lock recovered. for those that doubt all i can say is what have you got to lose. if i can follow Joes instructions on his site so can you give it ago. - by non tech |
| Joe's site address (1:17am EST Sat Sep 30 2006) And just where is Joe's site? In earlier posts that refer to his site, there is nothing but a blank space where it should be. Joe??….. Anyway, would really like to see his instructions on supervisor password removal…if I could just get an address….. - by Tono |
| Joe's site address (1:19am EST Sat Sep 30 2006) And just where is Joe's site? In earlier posts that refer to his site, there is nothing but a blank space where it should be. Joe??….. Anyway, would really like to see his instructions on supervisor password removal… - by Tono |
| for non tech (3:49am EST Mon Oct 09 2006) Don't try spam here, sucker! allservice.ro provide free software and method to unlock any TP, no need to pay crocks like Joe. - by Uncle Tom's cabin |
| ibm t43 (7:02pm EST Tue Oct 10 2006) carnt remember wot passwords i put where so can only asume that i put 1 on all 3 hdd,bios & boot up. only i seemed to have forgotten all 3, my qustion is how to unlock them and the name of the software (if any). the modal is an ibm t43………can anyone help!!!!!!!! - by bones-zee |
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2 Comments
Aslam
Dec. 31, 2008 (10:52 pm)
Why r you guys trying to hack the password, why don’t you just buy a new hard-disk and use the system ? I guess most of the guys are not serious about retrieving their data, but more about getting around the password….
bolo
Feb. 1, 2009 (8:17 pm)
I had an i1400 and same problem. There are 3 passwords: to enter bios, to enter system, to boot from hd. what i did, was to open the computer up, take the hd out, take the cmos battery out, start the system. It will say your battery is bad, enter bios, it shouldn’t ask for a password. Once there, with the computer on, PUT THE CMOS BATTERY BACK IN and then change all three passwords to something you want and save before exiting the bios. Worked for me.