NEWS
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 794 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 IBM.com 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 knowledge is free - by profix

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 - by niel

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 - by Assimilated

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 sitehttp://www.sans.org/infosecFAQ/travel/sec_info.htm 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. http://www.nortek.on.ca/nortek/ If the ThinkPad continues to prompt the user for a password after Power On password removal is attempted, the ThinkPad most likely has a Supervisor password set. There is no way a user can remove or bypass an unknown ThinkPad Supervisor password. Under normal circumstances, the Supervisor password automatically activates the Hard Disk password access to the HDD and stored drive data is impossible (from any system) if the password is unknown. Proprietary software and hardware was developed that is capable of removing unknown ThinkPad Supervisor and notebook Hard Disk passwords with the option of full HDD data recovery, without replacing any hardware components. Visit the web site below for full password removal details. http://www.nortek.on.ca/nortek/ Marty Wanner Nortek Computers Ltd. nortek@onlink.net - by MW

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 www.ultratec.co.uk 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 http://www.esiea.fr/public_html/Christophe.GRENIER/cmospwd.txt - 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 - by darryl

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? Is the battery sordered on to the board? Can I reset using jumpers??? etc... - 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) this utility worked at the partition level, and you had no way around it unless putting the disk as slave (you could not boot to floppy since partition info is read first and that one disabled the floppies before boot). 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. Cheers - by Jabir

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 AND TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD DO. - by Justin

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. One of the chips was swapped in a SUPERVISOR set 760ED and the thinkpad lost the password immediately but failed to release the original hard drive as this has embedded coding but it did work on a clean formatted one. (will work with various different thinkpad models as well). As for the hard drive...... If the original chip is removed carefully and read subsequently then the hard drive can be unlocked following the successful supervisor removal but this has not yet been done by me as I really could do with some free time and a copier/reader or maybe some trustworthy soul would like to attempt a copy and return of the second chip ( UK please ). Vsm28a@hotmail.com - 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 - by Muthu Sel van

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) http://www.skratchnspin.com/ http://www.fadestyle.com/ or http://www.audiokingdom.com/html/artist_signup.pl/RCL - 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 http://www.pwcrack.com, 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. I don't wish to replace the system board, shell out hundreds of dollars, or ship my computer out of the U.S. Please someone help with this. I'm not asking for someone to hold my hand or anything, just point me on the CORRECT path to solving this. Any help from persons in the know would be greatly appreciated. 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.. ERROR 00161 00163 then i cant do anything it just has the error page and i have to restart the computer.. can anyone tell me how I can fix this problem... you can email me iysin69@hotmail.com thanx - by ice

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.. ERROR 00161 00163 then i cant do anything it just has the error page and i have to restart the computer.. can anyone tell me how I can fix this problem... you can email me xattix@yahoo.com thanx - by Martin - by Martin

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. can anyone help please. - by Conic

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. I want pay for him, when it work.. 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... - by flying eagle

crack supervisor password (4:15am EST Thu Oct 04 2001) to crack supervisor password on thinkpad if you still can boot try: http://www.esiea.fr/public_html/Christophe.GRENIER/index.html?cmospwd.html 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... DON'T RESET BIOS IF SUPERVISOR PASSWORD IS SET AND YOU STILL CAN BOOT! - by flying eagle

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... But I don't if the password is encrypted on the eeprom. I think it is... 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). Then it says: "E271 Check time and date settings" and then the icon with password prompt appears on the screen. Any ideas how to fix it? Besides, are there any companies or people who could fix this problem located arround the Netherlands, i.e. Germany, Belgium, France or Lux? Thank you in advance. - by Michael

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 www.vogon-international.com 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 2˝" and 3˝" 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 How much for a RADioSHACK TAPE HEAD DEMAGNITIZER ?? 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: http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/supp ort/zap.txt http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/supp ort/dara12gn/dara12cmd.htm http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/trav el/tr12gn.htm 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. Remove CMOS and Laptop batteries. Unplug Power. Wait 30 seconds. Put both batteries back. Put in screw. Plug power back in. ********* 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... - by Nick Allsop

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 http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/supp ort/download.htm 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 S.org - by Colin MacDonald

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 (which one? where issit? Please refer off the cuff to majik eprom readers/programmers/dilithium crystals) 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 May 2000 rde@tavi.co.uk http://www.tavi.co.uk/ps2pages/ Now can someone DO anything with this? doperobot@hotmail (It was the name of a band was in) - by d'robot

Travelstar Password removal (9:12am EST Tue Nov 13 2001) Hi! I bought a used Travelstar Drive and there's a password on it. Is there no way to remove it? I dont need the data, it's okay if it's empty after the password deletion. - 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 Nick - by Nick Allsop

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 Siman - by Siman

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. I won't have to throw that laptop away now. - by Paul

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 warning me. In this litigious world I am surprised that no one has sued IBM yet, I hope I am not the first or last. Here in Australia we have the Trade Practices Act, which is rather tough on corporations that engage in misleading and deceptive conduct. And isn't this all misleading and deceptive? 1. There is a separate password for HDD in the x20 bios. Yet if the supervisor password is selected it also silently without permission or knowledge of the owner also passwords the HDD. 2. The removal of the backup battery for testing or replacement is a common thing to do without causing a disaster of this magnitude. 3. It is not true that IBM cannot correct all these problems once the customer proves ownership. The same equipment that breathes life into the system board can also revive it. If not then it's a bad design and the design needs to be rectified. 4. As someone else in this forum has correctly pointed out there is very little about this on the IBM website about any of this apparently secret security nonsense. - by Joe in Australia

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. My idea is to do the following: Once the drive is returned, I'll format it on a different machine. I will then stick it back into the locked X20 hoping it will lock the drive with its current password. I'll send the drive back for unlocking and hope the password I'll get then WILL work on this thinkpad. Anybody has any idea if this might work? - by Paul

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 http://www.onlink.net/nortek/hdd_pw .html#Power from where you can select your model. You need another tool available on http://www.tavi.co.uk/ps2pages/ (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 address posted in this forum is still valid, I'm submitting my problem with my TP 760 ED also here. So here ist goes: The TP booted sunday morning, showing error 163 and 173 on boot, indicating a loss of configuration data. It entered the Easy Setup menu, prompting for new time and date. I entered the valid data, the system started up again, booting fine, without asking for a PowerOnPassword, which normally was set. So no major problem I thought, trying to reboot and entering the setup via SuperVisorPassword and that won't work. I can enter the setup by entering nothing, respectively push Enter at pw-prompt. But this doesn't give me the ability to change any advanced setup features (PowerOnPassword, SuperVisorPassword, HD-Password). So it seems the system somehow is using a SuperVisorPassword which I haven't set. The major problem is that, as you might already know, setting the SuperVisorPassword also sets the HD-password and now I can't change HD's (normally using Windows (2,1 GB IBM org. disk) and Linux (Toshiba 6 GB replacement disk)). To make it clear, once I've set up a PowerOnPasssword and a seperate SuperVisorPassword, and now the PowerOnPassword is gone, the SuperVisorPassword must have changed somehow. Now my questions: As Nick already did some successful HD pw recovery would this also be a solution for me, because HD pw and SuperVisorPassword must be the same in my case, or am I wrong? I'm living in Germany, Nick, I guess you are living in the UK, right? 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 and time spent answering my mail. Have a nice day. Norbert Roth Bureau for Civil E - by 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 Bureau for Civil Engineering, Darmstadt, Germany (norbert.roth@roth-norbert.de) - by 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 http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock , 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, Yakov. please send me an answear by e-mail valery2k@walla.com - 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 Nick A. - by Nick Allsop

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. email me the contents of the eeprom, tpx20@ja.olm.net it's only a short list. I will look at and decode decode the listing and tell you by return e-mail what your password is (FREE) Cheers Joe http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock - by Joe in Australia

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 http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock 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 www.computercraft.com/index.html 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 http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock. 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 www.lancos.com (Easy I2C) 4. I can decrypt passwords from IBM eeproms for free at this time. Greetz from Germany (also removing passwords from HP,Dell, Sony(Yep, new Sony's are good protected)) - 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 http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock - by Joe in Australia

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 A. 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. http://www.nortek.on.ca/nortek/ Looks promising (miles away) http://users.powernet.co.uk/sysserv / ...and these mothers aint cheap ^ ...please email me for easy access (pretty please) gynophobia@hotmail.com all da best from UK - by GUY 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 - by gaurav

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 A. nick_allsop@hotmail.com - by Nick Allsop

IBM password when drive is not locked (10:27am EST Tue Feb 26 2002) www.plasma-online.de 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) http://krovatka.freeservers.com - 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. http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock 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 - by Joe in Australia

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 Greetings from Slovenia Uros - by Uros

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 Cheers - by Mike

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. tpx20@ja.olm.net - by Joe in Australia

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, ardec1 pnielsen@starband.net - by ardec1

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: http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock 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 http://www.atmel.com - 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. - by by Vit_GM

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. - by by Vit_GM

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 Conf: ThinkPad T20,T21,T22,T23 From: AdamBarichello@IBM Date: Tuesday, April 02, 2002 01:22 PM 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 IBM US Mobiles Customer Support Specialist - by capu

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 Then remove the HDD and Floppy Look at the left hand side of where the floppy was to find a tiny hole with two connectors inside Put a little paperclip or staple in there to touch the connectors together and leave it there Now put the HDD and FLoppy back and restart the puter. Now when it asks for a password just press enter and there you go , no more password. Hope this helps someone and saves them $1600 NZD :) - by Angry_Angel + Sarace

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 - by G04more

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. http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock/ - 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

EEPROM Dump (5:19pm EST Tue Apr 23 2002) For those who are interested, here is a dump from a locked Thinkpad 600 with the 24xxx Atmel chip. :100000007504268C4D065026F647020174 04B00490 :10001000EB0926F64702027405B002E813 015826E0 :10002000F64702107403E8E2005FC32EC6 066F9124 :100030000050268B070BC0751850535257 2EC70619 :1000400096900900B4FFB003E85BFF5F5A 5B58EB82 :1000500030A9001074122EC70696900000 E88003A5 :100060002E833E9690097519A900087417 2EC706AD :1000700096900000E88E042E833E969009 7502EB60 :00000001FF - by ardec1

Password Recovery (7:52pm EST Tue Apr 23 2002) Why do people continue to say the dumbest things? "I just got my laptop and my friend changed the password". Who cares!!??? Everyone here is here for the same reason. Don't tell us anymore that you lost your password!!! This forum is too long as it is. If there is a fix, spill it! If not, shut up and find someone else to spew your senseless knowledge! - by feed homles 2 hungry

Password Recovery (8:23am EST Wed Apr 24 2002) I totally agree with u mate (feed homles 2 hungry), If we can just stick our heads together and share some fudin knowledge, then we dont have to spend loads of Ł/$ trying to get are machines fixed. First of all, we can build an interface board for a required machine from Joe, and ardec1 has provided us with a eeprom dump, now how are we going 2 interpret it to find our passwords? Ideas anyone? - by Reggie

Password recovery (10:18am EST Wed Apr 24 2002) We have been working on a tool that can be used to read the content of the EEPROMs, at this point in time only the 24xxx and the 93xxx series chips. It connects through the parallel port on pretty much any machine, I am using it with an IBM 560Z laptop. It uses a clip made by 3M that clips on to the EEPROM and it is powered by a Radio Shack 12 volt power supply. That is how I recovered the EEPRO dump that I posted earlier. The file is in Intel .HEX format and part of it can be read using the debug utility. Move the file in to a directory, open a DOS session, change directory to the directory where the file is located, type "DEBUG" at the prompt and type "?" to get the debug commands. I am not a developer, I am relying on some of our developers to come up with a solution, if anybody here are willing to work on this problem, I will be happy to supply all of the information that I have. The main goal here should be to find a way to break IBM's stupid monopoly. - by ardec1

Password recovery (10:44am EST Wed Apr 24 2002) I guess that I should have mentioned that IBM only use letters and numbers for the password, no special characters are used and the password can only be 7 characters long. It is possible to enter more than 7 characters, but the EEPROM only reads the first 7. - by ardec1

Password removal (10:49am EST Wed Apr 24 2002) It is supposedly possible to hit the EEPROM with UV light, that should remove the password from what I have heard, haven't tried it. As for the hard drive, somebody told me that in their production facility they use a "BIG" magnet, they place a large magnet on the drive, that supposedly "Scrambles it" and the drive can then be low-level formatted and used again, haven't tried it either. - by ardec1

And finally a heads-up (12:02pm EST Wed Apr 24 2002) I received an email from some guy in Russia who claimed that he could recover the password on any IBM Thinkpad. That may be a totally legit offer, but on the other hand, I would be somewhat hesitant to send my laptop to him, he said that he needed the laptop in order to recover/remove the password. First of all, the cost involved in shipping the laptop back and forth would be rather high, and unfortunately I am of a somewhat suspecious nature, the laptop may never come back. I would urge anybody who received that same email to be cautious until he provides more information. - by ardec1

Dump of EEPROM (9:27pm EST Wed Apr 24 2002) does anyone have a eeprom dump for an IBM 760XL Laptop. please e-mail it to me at david.williams@emu.edu Thanks, Dave - by CrazyDave2002

760 EEPROM Dump (10:45pm EST Wed Apr 24 2002) Here is a dump from a locked 760. ":100000007504268C4D065026F64702017 404B00490 :10001000EB0926F64702027405B002E813 015826E0 :10002000F64702107403E8E2005FC32EC6 066F9124 :100030000050268B070BC0751850535257 2EC70619 :1000400096900900B4FFB003E85BFF5F5A 5B58EB82 :1000500030A9001074122EC70696900000 E88003A5 :100060002E833E9690097519A900087417 2EC706AD :1000700096900000E88E042E833E969009 7502EB60 :1000800003EB6F90A9008074122EC70696 900000B3 :10009000E82F012E833E9690097557A900 407412EF :1000A0002EC70696900000E8F4002E833E 96900935 :1000B0007540A9000174152EC706969000 00E89CB3 :1000C00005E81F062E833E9690097526A9 00027446 :1000D000122EC70696900000E882052E83 3E969069 :1000E00009750FA90020740A2EC7069690 0000E833 :1000F000E2012E803E6F9101750F2E833E 96900097 :1001000075072EC7069690090058C35056 2E8A04CC :100110000AC0741A3C3A750D2E807C0100 75062EBB :10012000C60400EB09E8E60673014646EB DF5E58BD :10013000C356528AD02E8A04E8D306720C 0AC074C1 :100140000CE80C002E8804EB014646EBE8 5A5EC32F :100150003C80730C3C6172453C7A774124 DFEB3D77 :100160005306578D3E619180FA0474048D 3E5C9174 :100170002E381574175051520E07B4658A C2BBFF52 :10018000FFB90500BAFFFFCD215A59582E 8B5D01EA :100190002E8E450343432C8026D75F075B C3502E2A :1001A000800EA290802E8026A290FD2E8A 043C2BE9 :1001B000740A3C2D75072E800EA2900246 E80200BC :1001C00058C35051525633C933D2532E8A 040AC0F1 :1001D0007442E8F100723932E48BE8D1E2 D1D1E81F :1001E000D200722C8BDA8BC1D1E2D1D1E8 C500727A :1001F0001FD1E2D1D1E8BC00721603D313 C8E8B313 :00000001FF" - by ardec1

For Joe in Australia (11:31pm EST Wed Apr 24 2002) This message is for Joe in Australia and other who want to retrieve the information from the EEPROM on the Thinkpads. For the 390 series, I would recommend using a SOIC clip that can be purchased on-line from Time Motion Tools in San Diego California, it eliminates the need for any soldering of wires on to the chip, it simply clamps on to the leads on the EEPROM (it is made by 3M and they make clips for nearly all the various EEPROMs) the part number I have on my invoice is: BID-923650-08 8 pin SOIC S BID, Time Motion Tool part number: TMT-650-08. The cost of this clip is $13.50 US. - by ardec1

Try this site (10:41am EST Fri Apr 26 2002) http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock/ He seems to have got it sorted. - by Paul

CRC2 error fix (8:17pm EST Fri Apr 26 2002) Everything you need its on http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock/ Thanks Joe for sending me bin's. - by Nikola

EEPROM DUMP (11:16am EST Sat Apr 27 2002) can Any one send me some eeprom dumps of password protected t21s.Send me a few dumps with the password as the file name.I am doing some R&D and i need some help Thanx a lot E mail :scorpions_6in@yahoo.co.uk - by Scorpions

NEED 380Z DUMP (6:05pm EST Sat Apr 27 2002) Hi this don I need a dump of a 380z TP laptop that is not got any password.I have found software that well show and let me edit the eprom rom but my eprom data is bad.I get 161 and 163 error after trying to edit now i get a 173 error as well but i can fix that. donaldle123@earthlink.net - by Don

Thinkpad HD cracked (9:10pm EST Sat Apr 27 2002) By using some free software I found doing a search for "INT 13H" commands I was thinking of using to directly wipe the HD (didn't work BTW) which allows you to view and edit a hard drive directly I used an old compaq lte as a platform to view the drive. I loaded up to a drive which had similar specs (both had 16 heads but they were way off on number of sectors) did a directory of the good hard drive and after I exited through the error reading disk's that came up at this point I removed drive one, loaded drive two and then loaded up the hard drive snooping software. On a page near the end of the drive I found a small patch of text (in the keyboard code format) sitting out in the middle of a bunch of 00's. I decoded this back to characters, put the drive back in the laptop, and voila it worked. one caviat to this is I dont know if I damaged the hard drive data with some of the other things I had tried before had, but it would not load up afterward and I did have to do an F-Disk / format to get it to useable. As for other suggestions on the board, Fdisk /MBR does not fix the problem even if you get through to a DOS prompt. The easiest way after cracking the code is to just let the BIOS software do it for you (at the lock, type in the password hit the space bar and enter and it's gone) So there it is just a little search and destroy is all it takes, please note it probably would have been easier to do if I could have had a hard drive with the same parameters but you might not even need that. It would probably be real easy if you picked up a 2.5 to 3.5 IDE adaptor and just did it all on a main computer but I wanted to do this with stuff on hand. Ohh and please note this information is only intended for people who legaly own their laptop, if not you have other problems - by HDcracked

Thinkpad HD cracked ..... (3:44pm EST Sun Apr 28 2002) To HDcracked: I have bought (legaly) two 2nd hand harddrives. One Hitachi and one IBM, both 12GB. Only the IBM has a password. Can you explain in detail to me what to do and use to get it useable again? I dont need the software on it, i just need the space. I have a adapter to use a 2,5" drive on a normal (3,5") IDE cable. I also tried all kind of "wipe", "zap", "zero fill" and "low level format" utils but none worked. My email is pfhx@hotmail.com - by DJPJ

step by step (4:10pm EST Sun Apr 28 2002) 1 load up your main computer using the hard drive which is workable in the seconadary position 2 in DOS, do a DIR on the hard drive (I saw errors at this point but if you have 2 drives which have the same heads and sectors you might not) 3 the tricky part : hot swap out the protected drive for the normal one 4 using some small disk sector editor (the one mentioned above worked for me, I am not including his web address since I haven't contacted him and I dont know if he wants it associated) locate the password: 5 I was successfull in about 10 minutes after I got to this point, I used some of the commands in the editor to go to the last sector and it provided me a way to see the partition information so I knew I was in the MBR, looking over the information I found a section which had a block of what looked to be keyboard codes (1H to 32H) which were translated out. 6 reinstall the hard drive into the laptop and when asked for the password enter it. I got a little arrow saying it was going on (you can also remove the password in the usual way at this point) - by HDcracked

step by step ... (4:58pm EST Sun Apr 28 2002) hmmm...i dont think this will work for me. I found the program (DDD), but i can not acces the blocked harddisk in any way, my bios does see it but in windows it is not vissible, and fdisk does see it and allows me to change towards it but when i try to do anythink with it it gives me an error. The program you mentioned does show me a lot of 00's (zeros) but i can not find anything else (i will keep on searching as i write). It also says "Error reading LBA sector #" every time i change to the next or previouse sector...??? Any ideas what to do now? TIA - by DJPJ

HDD Password Lock Explained (6:19pm EST Sun Apr 28 2002) There seems to be so much confusion in this forum about hard drives that are locked with a password. Let me clarify a few points to save other people some time. 1) THERE IS NO software solution that can be used to remove a password lock from a hard drive. The password lock is a built-in function of the drive at hardware level. When locked, the drive rejects all attempts to access stored data. Using BIOS to attempt to read sectors on a password protected HDD will usually return an error code such as 'error reading sector' or 'device not responding'. 2) The password used to lock the drive is an 'encrypted' form of the supervisor / user password chosen by the user and typed in at the keyboard of the laptop / host computer. The password takes the form of from 1 to 32 bytes. 3) The password lock has absolutely NOTHING to do with the operating system, Windows passwords, encryption software etc. You can lock and unlock a hard drive regardless of what operating system is installed and even if there is no operating system installed. 4) The password is stored by the hard drive in a 'hidden' cylinder on the actual magnetic disk platters inside the drive. It is NOT stored in any place on the drive electronics so changing the drive PCB will not unlock a locked drive. 5) The good news... It is possible to recover the password and unlock a locked hard drive. However to do this you need specialist hardware to allow you to access and make sense of the appropriate area of the hidden cylinder(s) on the disk platters. I hope this clears things up and stops the nonsense about DOS/Linux/Windows/OS-2 etc..etc... software utilities that can unlock hard drives. Basically if such a utility appears to do this, the drive was NOT in a locked condition in the first place. - by Nigel White

HDD Password Lock Explained ... (6:38pm EST Sun Apr 28 2002) OK anyone know a company in The Netherlands who has the hardware to unlock these password locked drives? - by DJPJ

more stuff on unlocking (9:45pm EST Sun Apr 28 2002) This is a documented case from me, I did in fact use the afore-mentioned software in the manner described to unlock a hard drive which the lock was set up on a 380 series thinkpad laptop. The code used is encrypted but only with standard keyboard scan codes (1 = 02H Q=10H A=1EH etc, the key scan codes are also available online all over the place) One thing I would recomend is to not use Windows, there is much to be said about going through good old fashioned DOS in a case like this. I did constantly have errors as well but it did seem to scan the hard drive correctly. Do not forget to do the directory (DOS DIR command) before changing out the hard drives that seemed to be real critical as well since without doing that it would only bring up 00's. also be sure to go to the end of the drive, there is a simple keystroke in the software I used that would take you to the end. If you are in the right section then (the master boot record) you should be able to view the partition information. once there then start backtracking one page at a time untill you find a section where about 1/4 of the page is 00's with 1-8 characters (Will be in the 01H-32H range) are visable. That should be the password. - by HDcracked

ohh and DJPJ (9:53pm EST Sun Apr 28 2002) By the way your description of what you have seen is very similar to what I saw. if you were going through windows I recomend making a DOS boot disk and booting up to that, I used a DOS boot disk exclusively when I cracked through my locked drive. It is also possible that there was something in the old Compaq LTE 4/33 laptop that I used as my base for the tests that allowed me to sneak my peek at the hardware. The funny thing is all I did was re-create all of the information which was available on this chat board to get in. Well good luck out there. I will say that there are a few others who have posted to this board who now are offering services (one wants $50 and the other $25) of removing these passwords one from the HD side one from the motherboard side. - by HDcracked

re: more stuff on unlocking (6:44pm EST Mon Apr 29 2002) Hi HDcracked The method you describe of hot-swapping disks and using a sector editor under DOS cannot have been on a hardware locked drive. When a drive is in a locked state, no access to the data area of the drive is possible. Your sector editor would have returned an error when attempting to read sectors of data (or maybe just a buffer of zeroes). So being able to read the partition table, MBR or anything at the 'end' of the drive is just not possible. Sorry but I can see no way that this would have worked, unless this was on a drive that does not conform to the latest standards. BTW you are right that there is a guy in the UK who can unlock drives I think he uses special hardware to do this. There is a website by Joe in Australia that explains how to remove the password from TPs. - by Nigel White

To Nigel (7:17pm EST Mon Apr 29 2002) As mentioned this was an older Thinkpad 380 system, that may have made some difference. I used a very old 486 laptop to plug into that may have made a difference. Doing the DIR of the unlocked drive definitly made a difference since all I recieved was 00's on the locked drive if I hot swapped out without doing this (I believe something to this effect was mentioned earlier when the writer Nick in Nov 2001) Admittidly everytime even after loading to unlocked, doing the DIR, hotswapping the drives, and then viewing with the sector editor I did recieve an error from the editor, but it also displayd what it read off the drive. It was at this point I was able to search for the password. And in case you still dont believe it was even locked, when the thinkpad displays a lock w/ a small hard drive at boot up and you cant get past that for anything, the hard drive is locked. - by HDcracked

Need to crack HD pass on 770 (1:42am EST Tue Apr 30 2002) I have a 770 that has a Hard Drive password. No supervisor or Power on were set. I set them to override hard drive but I can still not access hard drive. Also has anyone heard of just getting a EEPROM read programmer and loading a new image on the EEPROM let me know bendrfutrma@aol.com - by Dug

Thinkpad supervisor password (10:19am EST Tue Apr 30 2002) Get the eeprom dump using joe's reader.Send me the bin and I'll send u the password by return mail(FREE). Joe's reader at www.ja.olm.net/unlock/ cheers (scorpions_6in@yahoo.co.uk) - by scorpion

HDD unlock in Denmark? (11:28am EST Tue Apr 30 2002) Anyone know a company in Denmark who has the hardware to unlock these password locked drives? - by sparx

sparx and other (11:56am EST Tue Apr 30 2002) Currently I don't have any locked drives to test one of our solutions on. If any of you out there would like to send me a locked drive, I will be happy to try and run those solutions on them. I don't want to receive drives from everybody, so please, only about 5 need to respond. Send me your email address and I will respond with my shipping address. I will be happy to do this for free, but you pay shipping both ways, so keep in mind that I am in California. To sparx, I would like to help you out, but I don't know anybody in DK anymore, it has been too long since I was home last. - by ardec1

TP600e (2:00am EST Wed May 01 2002) i am confused which of the eeprom to read 24C01 OR 24rf08??? - by Vit_GM

vit_Gm (4:25am EST Wed May 01 2002) Read the 24rf08 Ibm uses this chip to store the password - by scorpion

Ardec1 (1:18pm EST Wed May 01 2002) I have a 4.0 GB Password protected Travelstar that I just got on EBAY. It was in a Hard Drive caddy i bought that wasnt supposed to have a drive. Can you e-mail me your shipping address so I can have you try your method? It would be cool if I got a working Hard drive out of that deal. If you thrash it I dont care. Please send me your shipping address. Thanks Valpocade tommy@nawrocki.com - by Thomas M. Nawrocki

Any New Contacts for Nick Alsop (5:46pm EST Wed May 01 2002) Saw some posting for his service in the UK and have read good things. Does anyone know if he is still around. Thanks - nidalm@cs.com - by Nidal Morrar

Nick Allsop (9:58am EST Thu May 02 2002) Hi Nidal, Yes I am still around, have been away on business but am now back. If you want your HDD unlocked please send me email with details of the drive. nick_allsop@hotmail.com regards - by Nick Allsop

I hate you (11:02am EST Thu May 02 2002) Tom is gay. - by hahaha

Nick... (5:34pm EST Thu May 02 2002) ...you have email.... - by Okidoki :)

To Scorpion (1:12am EST Fri May 03 2002) I have sent you 2 copies of my locked T22 file which I got using Joe's (Joe in Australia http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock/) reader and software as you suggested, you posted earlier in this forum that you would send me my password for FREE, I have received no response from you, has your email address changed? - by Nick

Joe in Australia (12:56pm EST Fri May 03 2002) Thank You very much for your help and persistence in staying with me. I noticed the posting by "Scorpion" and I think it is distasteful for him to use your enterprise and work to do what he is doing. Your service is a fantastic effort and alternative to the other possibilities out there and you deserve the credit and reward. I can praise you for the great work and follow-up with me to find my password. The process did not go as smoothly as origionally thought and the one worry I had through out was the information getting erased, changed or damaging ky TP and leave me with Canada, IBM or an unusable machine as my choice. But through your careful guidance, help, concern and promptness, you succeeded in getting me back into my TP without messing anything up. You are indeed a professional in the field. I can highly recommend you to anyone who needs your service and guidance, and can also say I definately got a lot more than I paid for. - by DSpyder

IBM THINKPAD 380ED TYPE 2635 (8:11am EST Sat May 04 2002) MY LCD DISPLAY MONITOR SCREEN IS SMALL AND TRYING NOT ENLARGE MY SCREEN . HOW CAN I ENLARGE THE SCREEN - by AMULYA CHANDRA DAS

Thinkpad Supervisor password solution (3:19am EST Sun May 05 2002) I can help you all who don't know the supervisor password of there thinkpad.I can decode the password for Us$15 only.I can provide u the reader for Us$10.Anyone interested do mail me at this address :--scorpions_6in@yahoo.co.uk I am based in India.Anyone can send me there eeprom dumps first.If I retreive the password then I'll ask for money.After receiving the payment you 'll get ur password the same day. Scorpions India Scorpions_6in@yahoo.co.uk - by Scorpions

Reply to Nick (8:37am EST Sun May 05 2002) Nick, if you have been using the tools and info from the site of Joe. Then send him the file and pay him. He gives all the information, it would be fair to pay him for it. - by Hawkje

NO Hate No Regrate (8:34am EST Mon May 06 2002) Joe is genius No doubt.Am not cheating anyone - by Scorpion

No Hate no regret. (9:08am EST Mon May 06 2002) Well, this is getting interesting, competition and price wars, wow! I got into this late last year after I was insulted by IBM Australia asking me for $1,700 Australian to replace a system board in an X20 just to recover the supervisor password, the x20 was still under warranty, but IBM said "NO ONE AT IBM FORCED YOU TO ENTER A PASSORD" so it is NOT covere under warranty, they also said that the old system board became their property and they simply dumped them in a bin. I have in my spare time set up a web site http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock/ supplying information on how the passwords can be recovered from ThinkPad's eeproms and some do's and don'ts if you wish to experiment and do it yourself, I am obviously not going to make a mint by asking for $25 US to supply a password, my software tells you if it has detected a valid set password and only then do you have to pay to receive your password, a lot of people from countries that cannot use PayPal have received their passwords on a promise that they would send payment by postal order afterward, out of about 20, 1 has actually paid, anyway I go on providing the service, Good luck Scorpion. - by Joe in Australia

Fast progress Scorpion (6:37pm EST Mon May 06 2002) Scorpion, what fast back flip one day, FREE - use Joe's reader. Next day, buy my reader and I charge to do it. And you did get caught out trying to cheat. How is that tail? - by Nick

When the OFF switch does not work. (5:03am EST Tue May 07 2002) If your TP hangs at any stage and the Power Switch does NOT switch it off. Try this procedure, works on most TP's. While Holding down the power button, press F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6 then back and forth F5, F4, F3, F2, F1, repeat till it switches off. This is safer than removing main battery as removing main battery while TP is hung can corrupt eeprom contents leading to CRC errors and a useless TP. - by Joe in Australia

This for Joe and others (6:25am EST Tue May 07 2002) Hi joe First of all I am sorry to Joe. For others I am no more in this buisness.Please don't send me any dump from joe's reader.Coz I am not gonna help.It's joe's enterprise and he will do it.And beleiveme he is a very helpfull and kind guy.And above all he is a genius. Joe hope u won't wind this.Do u still visit geek.com.Give me some personnal feedback.And hope u won't mind if in future I come with some new idea. Sorry for disturbing u Scorpion - by scorpion

Thinkpads (10:43pm EST Wed May 08 2002) Want to put up a website for making people more familiar with there thinkpads.Don't have enough resources. Help will be appreciated. If u can manage send me the scan images of various parts like the motherboard.Diffrent cards etc.U can also send me the snaps.Should be clear. I hope some kind guy will help scorpions_6in@yahoo.com - by scorpion

Laptop for fix!!! (8:21pm EST Thu May 09 2002) People DO NOT send ur laptos to so called "RUSSIAN", first of all he is a jew, second its bullshit that u'll get ur laptop back, i offered him to send my mother board he refuse to take it, and not willing to help theoreticly - by by RUS-Protector

IBM Thinkpad A20m (12:49pm EST Sun May 12 2002) Has anyone actually found a way to remove supervisor passwords. I think that I've remove the power-on password, stop getting the hard drive password, got to a DOS prompt and tried a few cmos killers but not have work!! Any help!! - by IBMad

IBM Thinkpad A20m (9:01pm EST Sun May 12 2002) how did you get to the dos prompt??? - by IBMSad

IBM Thinkpad A20m (9:02pm EST Sun May 12 2002) Got the pw for HD but cant get the administrator pw. Help any one???? - by IBMSad

Nigel is right - big surprise?? (5:36pm EST Mon May 13 2002) I received ardec1's floppy image and tried it on a password locked harddrive. It did absolutely nothing, except report access errors. So, without the "specialized" equipment (and it would have to be specialized since the drive cannot be accessed by a PC at all), there is really no hope. ardec1, I appreciate your sending me the floppy image. Good luck. - by TriedInVain

Help HD Boot Sector Lock (5:57pm EST Mon May 13 2002) I have a 10gb Toshiba laptop HD locked with Norton For your eyes only boot sector locker. Any ideas how to get this fecking thing off. I noticed this was an IBM forum but it seems like my only promising breakthrough yet. Im not interested in the info. on the drive I just want to get the protection off to use the drive again. Software or working shock treatment or deep freezing ideas would be helpful. Thanks. - by Ripco

HD PASSWORD (8:54pm EST Tue May 14 2002) hi IMBSAD how did u got the HD passwd off?? - by Homer

How Can I Bypass Bios Password For Toshiba 4600 Satelite Pro (9:42am EST Wed May 15 2002) Please Help Me........ - by Helen

To Helen (12:37am EST Thu May 16 2002) Yes, that is a pretty simple procedure. There is several different ways of doing that on a Toshiba. Drop me an email and I will send you the procedure. I have it somewhere in my sent file from a response to another person with the same problem. pnielsen@starband.net - by ardec1

Apologies - HDD unlocking (12:31pm EST Thu May 16 2002) My apologies to all those who have sent me email recently regarding their locked hard drives. I have received nearly 350 emails on this subject in the last week alone! I am unable to respond quickly to everyone. Also unlocking hard drives is something I can only do in my spare time so I cannot cope with a large quantity of drives. Please don't send me repeat emails if I have not responded, I will try & get a reply to you as soon as possible. Regards Nick Allsop (nick_allsop@hotmail.com) - by Nick Allsop

Removing known password (12:40pm EST Thu May 16 2002) I always thought that if you knew a password, you could remove it by changing the password to blanks. If I read my information correctly, you do this by pressing the space bar once, then enter, when prompted for the new password. Only removes the password if you know the password to begin with. - by Xopher

Clearing Passwords Dell Lat. CPi D300XT (9:26pm EST Fri May 17 2002) Computer loads windows 2000 Prof. & log on windows screen appears asking for user name and password. I am able to access the "advanced options menu" with F8 and the Setup with F2 (BIOS Version: A09) I have disabled the Primary & Admin Passwords. I am still not able to access any data. Does the hard disk have a password and if so is there any way of knowing? Any ideas? - by ecymbaluk@aol.com

I need a dump for a 600 (1:11pm EST Sun May 19 2002) I hope that someone could send me a dump for the eeprom on a TP600? The dump by ardec1 doesn´t fit on a 24c01a, does it? Thx! sbe20879@post.netlink.se - by Henke

Archive.org may help (1:30pm EST Mon May 20 2002) If any of you are looking to get your hands on the following info: http://www.esiea.fr/public_html/Chr istophe.GRENIER/cmospwd.txt I was able to go to www.archive.org and pull it up. I was also able to get to this persons site (http://www.esiea.fr/public_html/Ch ristophe.GRENIER/) from there also and download his utility. I will be trying this to see if it work with my IBM TP 760E. Good luck all and I will let you know if it works. - by Wolf.2501

Passwords removed in Holland/Germany (1:48pm EST Mon May 20 2002) If anyone has a locked laptop, I can remove the password for a small fee. Im working in Holland and in Germany. I can unlock any brand/model. I cannot unlock Harddrives. I do NOT explain how to remove it yourself. You can e-mail me for more info: kaya111@hetnet.nl - by Kaya

Maybe IBM should go with making cars (12:17am EST Tue May 21 2002) Maybe if IBM started making cars, and you accidently locked your keys in your car, they could then say 'Sorry! We cant unlock your car for you, you have to buy a new one! Man, think of the amount of money they'd make through car sales! :) Or maybe they could just say, Sorry, you'll need to buy a new engine, computer, gearbox and suspension to fix your locked keys problem. Now do you think people would complain about that? Would the average person say 'Get stuffed, i'd rather buy a Honda!' Would it be legal for a car manufacturer to charge you for all new parts just because they designed them to not be changable to a new set of car keys? Sorry sir, you lost your car keys? You'll have to buy a new car now because we cant make new keys for your car. HAHA! - by Hamish

Wolf.2501 (9:20pm EST Tue May 21 2002) I got an email from a person who had used that utility on the 600 dump that I posted, he suggested that the password may be either "RQEDWW", or "EETQWQ" If he reads this and want to offer his help, everybody may benefit from that. Remember that the IBM password can only be 7 characters long and can only consist of letters and numbers, no special characters. It is NOT case sensitive either, so it does not matter if a password is entered using upper-case letters or not, it will only be read by the system as lower-case. - by ardec1

IBM and cars (9:28pm EST Tue May 21 2002) And if MickeyShaft made cars we would all have a very exciting time every time we had to do a "Maintenance" reboot in rush hour traffic on a busy freeway. - by ardec1

Clearing Passwords Dell Lat. CPi D300XT (9:39pm EST Tue May 21 2002) The utility that I have mentioned before should work on your drive. I tried to email it to you but aol bounced it back. I believe that aol don't accept attachments over a certain size. Here is the names of the two files in question, they should not be hard to find on the web. bd980211.bin file size 1.440Kb rawrite.exe file size 13Kb - by ardec1

TP EEprom/HDD Unlocking (11:19pm EST Tue May 21 2002) I work for a small IT company in Melbourne, and have lots of access to Locked TPs (760,s...560s etc). I also have a bunch of 760's with HDDs that I matched up, with passwords (All the same) labelled "Password A". FUnny that IBM think it is a security issue?? I know where the owner of this one laptop lives.....his phone numbers...his salary...his wife's name...where he was born.....his company's asset details....his 2 child's names..the list goes on....*scratching head at security* Perhaps I should post his information publicly....all over the web??? Wouldn't that be embarr*ass*ing for IBM??? (No I won't, he is innocent, IBM are the guilty ones here) I am willing to try anything with HDDs...hot swapping controllers etc, am also prepared to send someone an eeprom from a locked 760 (unknown Passord), and a locked 760 (Known password), to some people who can remember and use logic better than my old Uni days!! Nick (Alsop), unlike IBM, I tend to think I have some Morals. I was thinking of sending you one of these locked drives, and letting you keep it in exchange for the password, that would enable me to unlock at least 6 more drives, and 5 TP 760 XL/XDs. I think that is kinda deceitful. I have plenty of other locked drives etc here, perhaps we can come to a fair arrangement if/when you have the time. Joe, Thank goodness for someone like you out there. I am thinking of that class action part....(has Family member that is LLb/Bsc (comp Science). But for now...just keep doin what you are doing..*ahhh the internet* Oh finally....can someone give me some suggestions for looking at the area on the HDD that stores the password...ie I will lock a drive with a known password...unlock it, then go perving around in raw sectors etc? ahh this excercise in academics is taking up too much time, I need beer....going back to my pleb work. Any enquiries, suggestions et al yossarian@optushome.com.au - by Adam

Ardec (11:27pm EST Tue May 21 2002) Oops I forgot I am comin to Cali very soon (Within the next 2 weeks)....ahhh those 14 hour plus flights... Lemme know if you need some equipment for your testing. - by Adam

and another (3:59am EST Wed May 22 2002) just pulled out another thinkpad....has password "A" as well... *sigh* - by Adam

Joe's reader (11:17am EST Wed May 22 2002) I made a interface and executed KM. During eeprom reading, LEDs blinks and seems fine. But it humgs up with no response or an error mesg saying "overflow". Does anyone experienced like above? I tested Win98, ME, and NT PC. Any advice is appreciated. - by SSE

The way to do it? (5:43pm EST Wed May 22 2002) I belive the solution should be: Read the context out of the eeprom, easiest way is by removing it. Run the dump you get from the eeprom in the cmospwd utility, which retrieves the password. Re-insert the eeprom, and type in the now known password. If this is not the way it should be done, please correct me. Btw, if anyone has a dump from a TP600, or any other with a 24c01(a), please mail me a copy sbe20879@post.netlink.se Thank you. - by Henke

new question (5:33am EST Fri May 24 2002) I have a 390e with no floppy or CD (I use two batteries. I recently got this laptop and decided to install a 4.8 gig HD with WIN 2K that I have been using in my IBM TP 365x. The drive has been working there with no problem. The 390e will advance just past the IBM screen, then stops with a blinking cursor in the top left corner. I installed a different drive (810 mb) and it booted to dos prompt. I even installed W98 on that drive and it worked OK. I was thinking maybe it has to do with FAT(810mb) vs FAT32(4.8gb) but I'm not sure. If anybody can help email me at christopherrus@msn.com - by stranded.....again

Passwords removed in Holland/Germany (5:49am EST Fri May 24 2002) If anyone has a locked laptop, I can remove the password for a small fee. Im working in Holland and in Germany. I can unlock any brand/model. I can unlock some Harddrives: HP Dell IBM Only if the bios password is still installed. I do NOT explain how to remove it yourself. You can e-mail me for more info: kaya111@hetnet.nl - by Kaya

remove in australia (11:22am EST Sun May 26 2002) can anyone remove the supervisor password in australia melb - by a21m

To a21m (8:42pm EST Mon May 27 2002) please email me: simanhe@hotmail.com - by simanhe

Windows 2000 (4:34am EST Thu May 30 2002) Why on earth would you put a resource hungry POS Windows 2000 on a 390E??? I am assuming that it is a P11/300-366. with 64/128 meg ram? It is like putting Methanol, or Avgas in a 10 year old standard car!!! Besides that.....390's/I series are one of the absolutely worst TPs ever made, Has a few here and OS that are mainboard U/S. Have 3 here with Faulty charge recognition circuits....the list goes on. Just stick with 98...it has all you need. Perhaps there is a bios upgrade for the 390e that may fix it.... - by Adam

sorry (4:37am EST Thu May 30 2002) Try here....for starters http://support.microsoft.com/defaul t.aspx?scid=kb EN-US q140365 and read on - by Adam

T22 password of course (9:46am EST Thu May 30 2002) How to reprogramm 24RF08CT on Thinkpad t22? (Problem of course is password)- only superpassword was set (i think). Before i remove the cmos battery it's works fine, only bios was locked. (i don't know enything about hd password) any ideas? mail: margus13@hot.ee - by Estonia

thinkpad i series 2621 (4:20am EST Fri May 31 2002) my thinkpad wont come out of hibernation - when i switch it on it just stays in standby mode - cant seem to get it to boot to bios at all - any ideas would be gr8 :) - by gem

thinkpad i series 2621 (12:34pm EST Fri May 31 2002) Try changing the hardware configuration. Add or remove memory, remove the backup battery(s), etc., that may just bring up an error and allow you to go in to the setup utility. - by ardec1

NEED TP R30 24RF08NC DUMP (1:39pm EST Fri May 31 2002) Anyone have a dump of a TP R30 witch is not locked i realy need such a file pleace send it to mee rasmuspedersen@teknik.dk - by DOCTOR

DOCTOR (11:46pm EST Fri May 31 2002) Du kan muligvis ogsĺ bruge en dump fra en 390, den har den samme EEPROM. - by ardec1

IBM 770E (11:35am EST Tue Jun 04 2002) Purchased a used ibm770e laptop,want to add bigger HD but the system has a password and won't allow me to.Removed all batteries to see it would clear it(dumb move)and now I can't use it at all(error 161,163)called Ibm with my problem,gave them all information on my model and they tell me I need to replace the system board...Huh what the F@#k... buy an ibm laptop,forget password and I'm screwed???the dam board cost more then what I payed for.If anyone knows a way around this PLEASE email me at shwaha@yahoo.com.Thank you - by Johnny o

Johnny o (2:20pm EST Tue Jun 04 2002) Have you tried to short the two small pads underneath the memory cover, with the batteries installed? - by ardec1

ardec1 (3:00pm EST Tue Jun 04 2002) Thanks for the quick reply...answer,yes I have tried that method and still was not successful.so I removed batteries thinking it would reset everything and now I'm unable to use it period.161,163 ERROR screen comes up and can't go beyond that point to get into bios.Any other suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. - by Johnny o

EEPROM after CMOS reset (1:38am EST Wed Jun 05 2002) Just a quick one for those who know, If the bios has already been reset, i.e. cmos batt. removed and replaced, it is requesting power up pw, can I still go out and buy an EEPROM programmer and read the supervisor password, or has that been erased? - by nevets

Johnny and nevets (8:12pm EST Wed Jun 05 2002) Johnny, Can you get in to the utility screen where you can set the date and time? nevets, No, the password has not been erased, it is permanently stored in the EEPROM, removing the battery does not affect it at all. - by ardec1

Ardec1 (10:10pm EST Wed Jun 05 2002) Before I removed the batteries,I was able to get into the Bios.However two areas in the Bios were password protected and I could not make any changes.thats the ONLY reason I removed all batteries.Thinking it would reset itself and now I can't even get into the Bios.Like I said Dumb Move on my part. - by Johnny o

Have R30 dump, need A20p dump (10:11pm EST Wed Jun 05 2002) I have got unlocked dump of R30, can share. Need urgently A20p dump (even with password, it doesn´t matter). Feel free to mail to The-Harp@T-Online.de - by Frank from Germany

win2000 (2:18pm EST Fri Jun 07 2002) I use win 2k because it makes my home network easier to manage, and in my experience has been a more stable operating system than the others that I have used in the past. I even use it on my 365x (133 w/ 72 megs ram). I don't do a lot of really heavy powered stuff on the laptops anyway, so its mainly for simplicity. Ardec, Thanks for the response. I had already decided to go that route. Got it, wioed the drive, and redid everything on the laptop, and it works great. One of the drives I got happened to be under warranty as well so it looks like they're going to take care of me on it. -carsel (because I'm no longer stranded) - by carsel

Project eproom dump (8:06pm EST Tue Jun 18 2002) could some one plse send some eproom dumps with passwords as subject to thinkpadbios@hotmail.com. anything is welcome.Any info uncovered will be shared.. thanks - by mr eproom

Nick Allsop (10:32am EST Fri Jun 21 2002) I have send you an email 3-4 weeks ago... should i send it again? - by Okidoki :)

Hard Drive Password (1:15pm EST Sun Jun 23 2002) After reading all of the postings here I feel that I'm a little more informed than when I started, thanks everyone. Here's my situation. I have a 380XD Thinkpad that has a supervisor password set that has also locked the HD. OK, what this all does is beyond me, I can still access the drive and the system boots fine. The problem is that the drive is going bad. I can still access the drive but the bad sectors are growing. Since I can access the drive is there any way to access the "hidden" sectors to obtain the password in order to unlock the bios so I can swap out the drive. I have a unlocked drive but when I install it I get a error number indicating that supr password is set and the drives is not and it immediatly prompts for the supr password to get in to BIOS, I'm assuming to make me set the HD password. Any help would be greatly appreciated, you can email me at bmw@mis.net or post suggestions here. I have used ddd to look at the drive but it does not access physical sector 0 where I believe this is held, it only goes to physical sector 1 (LBA sector 0). Thanks in advance, - by Daveman

HD upgrade (8:51am EST Mon Jun 24 2002) I would like to replace my existing HD. Where can I access the correct procedures for backing up existing files, HD installation, replacing backed up files to the new HD. Thanks, ampcs3@chevrontexaco.com - by Brand

Thinkpad with Sup (1:45am EST Fri Jun 28 2002) read flash chip bios (motherboard with out Pass, same model)(disoldering & reading with programmer), copy code on flash chip with password. Use IBM hard disk tools with MINI-IDE adapter for clean password on travelstar (F2 hex command), or use new hard disk. OOPS !!!! Manzana - Buenos Aires ARGENTINA - by Manzana

Manzana (9:56am EST Mon Jul 08 2002) What exactly are you trying to ask or say as I'm having problems understanding you??? - by shwaha

IMHO (7:26am EST Sat Jul 13 2002) commendations to Joe in Australia! and all who actually RTFM and go further. the only downside i found in this forum is the amount of wankers repeating the same questions and asking for a quick fix all i can say is RTFM. what a frucking tediously long forum thanks to the aforementioned lusers. once again Joe Onya mate! - by D4m0nk

help (12:10pm EST Tue Jul 16 2002) I am going to publish an eeprom dump of a locked, and a *locked* 760. One unknown password, and one known password..(1 2 3 4 5 6 7). I hope this will help some of you guys/gals. Ads (yay for Joe...what do you expect from an Aussie) - by Ads

bios locked (2:48pm EST Wed Jul 17 2002) hi all: I am having the bios security problem. my younger brother played with it and somehow he messed it up. Now I cannot log in. In other word, i cannot bypass the bios system. I have tried several methods but still unaffected. Any suggestion that your can give is appreciated. Thanks a lot!!! dato - by dato

password (1:38pm EST Thu Jul 18 2002) Does anyone know how to bypasss the startup password on A22M ibm thinkpad? - by van

Never Buy Thinkpads At Ebay :-( (9:39pm EST Thu Jul 18 2002) *sigh* Has anybody (apart from HDCracked) tried his procedure successfully? Has anybody a clue how ardec1 was able to recover/delete the HD password with his Linux boot disk? Has anybody been able to recover/delete a TP supervisor password without disassembling the device (and unsoldering the EEPROM)? Never, NEVER buy Thinkpads at ebay. *siiiigh* - by NBTAE :-(

thinkpad 1400i 2621 jumpers (4:08am EST Fri Jul 19 2002) I got all the online manuals I could get for 1400i but they dont give the settings for all the jumpers, they show jumpers 3,4,5 for language but dont mention jumpers 1,2 and 6. They also only refer to one of the jumpers next to the processor but not the other - any ideas? - any help would be gr8fully received - by gem

? power-on password IBM 390e (2:48am EST Sun Jul 21 2002) Recently turning my laptop on i have been asked for a PASSWORD, at the power on stage. Having never set a password, this has come as a surprise. I am unable to find any info on how to bypass this. I Live in China i can not find anyone to fix this, without running the risk of them butchering my pc. Any tips or help would be greatlt appreciated. alek_123456@yahoo.com - by alex

Thinkpad supervisor password (6:17am EST Mon Jul 22 2002) ANYONE HAVING DIFFICULTY IN RECOVERING THE SUPERVISOR PASSWORD OF THINKPAD DO CONTACT ME... sORRY I WAS AWAY FOR SOMETIME SCORPIONS_6IN@YAHOO.CO.IN - by SCORP

CORRECTION...sCORP (6:19am EST Mon Jul 22 2002) MY ID IS SCORPIONS_6IN@YAHOO.CO.UK - by SCORP

Bois, Sup, Power Passwords (2:32am EST Thu Jul 25 2002) Everybody is probably dieing to find out how to bypass all passwords, and I believe I have found a way. Give me a couple of days to continue testing. I have already by passed certain passwords, and found the tricks IBM uses. I will tell more later. - by Dragon Wolf

Bois, Sup, Power Passwords (6:23am EST Thu Aug 01 2002) Any news Dragon Wolf?? We are all waiting in anticipation for your findings. - by Bobby

Bois, Sup, Power Passwords (11:09pm EST Thu Aug 01 2002) yeah i realy realy need to know after looking and trying every thing i could find and still nothing works - by gary

Please (11:52pm EST Thu Aug 01 2002) Please stop posting the obvious here "I have a supervisor password, and need it removed yadda yadda yadda" It really doesn't help. - by Ads

Nick Allsop - Hard Drive Unlocking (2:15pm EST Mon Aug 05 2002) Unfortunately I am no longer offering a hard drive unlock service. This is due mainly to lack of available time but also the amount of spam mail and rubbish that I have been receiving since I offered the service. I have now frozen my Hotmail account. A friend of mine may be taking on the HDD unlock hardware that I developed and offering an unlock service but this has not yet been decided for definite. Apologies to those who have sent me IDENTITY.BIN files. The HDDSEC utility is still available on Joe's website as it can tell you if your drive is actually locked or not, but I will no longer be able to process the IDENTITY.BIN files. Good luck! regards - by Nick Allsop

imp 390e thinkpad (10:34am EST Thu Aug 08 2002) i work within I.T and have been handed an IMB thinkpad 390e which contains a startup password. I have been informed that it's been changed but the owner dosent know what to. I have tried taking it appart and removing the batteries but this still hasn't worked. Can anyone else shed some light on this problem - by Uk Guy

Screen Size (10:55am EST Thu Aug 08 2002) For Amulya Chandra. As regards the size of the display on your 380ED. Have you tried adjusting the screen settings to 800x600? My computer, control panel, display, settings, adjust screen area to 800x600. (windows 98). - by Jack

380ED (11:01am EST Thu Aug 08 2002) Has anyone successfully used IBM disk manager to fit a large hard drive to a Thinkpad 380ED? How large a drive will it accept? - by Jack

390e (11:36am EST Thu Aug 08 2002) Update from my previous entry..... I am now able to get into the laptop but I cant access the hard drive. To get past the power up password I hit F1 to access the BIOS then press teh esc button. This started up windows but on teh system i'm working on it asked for another password. Does anyone know how to bi pass this? - by Uk Guy

Clear cmos Thinkpad 760EL (3:44am EST Fri Aug 16 2002) Hot to make a clear cmos (to remove all password) on a Thinkpad 760EL ? Need Help please. - by FrenchRabbit

161 163 (Big) Blues (9:05am EST Wed Aug 21 2002) I seem to have got passed the Poweron P/w by removing batteries, shorting pads etc. The 600e now displays 161 163 error codes and asks for a password. Pressing return gets an "ok" and we move onto a ?bios? screen with "ok" & "cancle" on it. Clicking either results in 161 163 being displayed and a helpfull pointer to a manual. I think I know the supervisor & hdd password but I'm stuck where to go now- Reapply a BIOS update? Replace the system battery? Find a table that wobbles about as much as a TP 600e is thick? Help. Please. - by Joyful & Triumphant.

need 4 help : ibm thinkpad code (8:58pm EST Wed Aug 21 2002) hello friends i have a big problem i have an ibm thinkpad x20 - but the hard disk is locked if u have something for me my adress is gosalass@caramail.com thank u - by salass b

Error Codes 161 and 163 (2:31pm EST Thu Aug 22 2002) A ThinkPad has three user defined levels of password protection: Power On Password, Hard Disk Password, Supervisor Password. Your description indicates that your ThinkPad has an unknown Supervisor password. Error code 161 indicates a dead backup battery error code 163 indicates the system's date and time is not set - clock is not updated. The date and time settings are located in the CMOS memory: error 161 and 163 appear because the systems CMOS memory was cleared (CMOS memory is cleared by removing the backup battery or by shorting Power On password pins/pads). A ThinkPad Power On password also resides in the CMOS memory therefore, if the error codes appear - the CMOS memory was cleared and a possible Power On password was removed. The above mentioned error codes can be easily resolved by resetting the BIOS settings. However, in order to access the BIOS settings (EZSetup), the Supervisor password must be entered. Although leaving the password field blank and simply pressing enter appears to bypass the Supervisor password prompt, the unit proceeds to the green error page with a manual icon because the Supervisor password is incorrect. If the Supervisor password was entered correctly, after selecting OK at the first green error page, the system would automatically access Easy Setup and immediately prompt the user to change the date and time. A ThinkPad Supervisor password cannot be removed by Power On password removal techniques (clearing the CMOS memory). Under normal circumstances, a Supervisor password will automatically activate the Hard Disk password. Proprietary hardware and software was developed that is capable of removing unknown ThinkPad Supervisor and Notebook hard disk passwords. Visit the web site listed below for details. http://www.nortek.on.ca/nortek/ support@nortek.on.ca - by Nortek

Supervisor Passwords (11:11pm EST Thu Aug 22 2002) Is there a way to get a dump of the thinkpad EEPROM's by using a software?. Since i can boot from a floppy i might be able to get that dump and get the password from that! - by Zul007

161 163 (Big) Blues 2 (7:58am EST Fri Aug 23 2002) Thanks Nortek. Have you got a UK reseller? The amusing thing is I set the passwords up to be "aston" for the supervisor and "villa" for the HDD. No-one else has used the machine. Mind you, seeing Villa's line up and how they started the season the machine was doomed from the start. - by Joyful & Triumphant.

EEPROM (9:12am EST Tue Aug 27 2002) Does anyone have eeprom data for an unlocked ibm 390. am building an EEPROM reader writer if this works.. I'll help anyone who needs help.... - by zul007

To Joyful & Triumphant (7:23am EST Fri Aug 30 2002) There is a company in the UK who like Nortel can remove passwords from hard drives. They are in Oxfordshire, website: http://www.vogon-international.com I send my Travelstar to them, they unlocked it OK and it was not too expensive, just say you don't need data recovery just unlocking. Mine came back with all data intact anyway! - by Jayne White

thinkpad 240x (3:28pm EST Fri Aug 30 2002) does anyone know where there are companys in london wich can unlock my thinkpad 240x it has a supervisor password on it. - by master

i can unlock alll series of thinkpad from supervisor password (10:17am EST Sat Aug 31 2002) i can remove supervisor passwords from all series of thinkpad if you want to find out how you do just send me an e-mail and i will tell you how you dont need any special equipment i was a former ibm technichian but it will cost $30 my e-mail is hydro_____@hotmail.com - by hydro

wolf (3:28pm EST Sun Sep 01 2002) hey wolf what happened to you you where going to share somr info with us are still around - by ??????

password removed (5:56am EST Mon Sep 02 2002) just unlocked my ibm... The so very secured password was in fact very simple.. This might be a backdoor to access IBM thinkpads.. give it a go... the password. is .... secure How secure was that?!?! - by zul007

hd password on ibm 600e (10:43pm EST Mon Sep 02 2002) i don't care about the info thats on my hard drive so can i just replace the hd and will that get rid of the hd password? - by Len

Vogon service (9:28am EST Tue Sep 03 2002) I phoned up vogon-international.com and asked them about hard drive password removal and they told me they don't do it! They offered an initial diagnosis at ÂŁ80 and told me they would do a full recovery for no more than ÂŁ500! What exactly did you ask them for Jayne White?? - by Uppy

To Nick Allsop (9:46am EST Tue Sep 03 2002) I mailed you before I read your post. You haven't had a change of heart have you?? If not, did your friend ever offer to take up the service? Getting desperate - so far the companies I've found to unlock the hard drive cost just a few quid less than a new 20gb hard drive! - by Uppy

Sucessfully remove Thinkpad 390x supervisor password (7:41am EST Mon Sep 09 2002) REMOVING THINK PAD SUPERVISOR PASSWORD. I have sucessfully reset the supervisor password and changed it. You don't have to pay any cents for it. It seems not a "scientific way". But it works! To do it, you just need a cable that is connected to ground. The grounded pin is SDA. In 390x, the pin is the most bottom left pin of ATMEL AT24RF08CN. You can connect to the ground through the metal body or the screw of your think pad. They are all grounded. If you have another model of think pad, you can find information about the pin order from http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock/ When you turn on your computer, you need to connect and disconnect the cable several times. When you feel that the thinkpad is freezing, disconnect the cable and connect it again in very short period. It's a little bit tricky. But i believe you can do it. For the first time, i can do it on the second attempt. You can access the harddrive at the first time. I don't know why the think pad didn't check the password of harddrive. But you need to back up all the data right away. When you turn off the computer and turn it on again, the think pad will prompt you the hdd password. And you have to repeat the above process, if you want to be able to access your hd. After the second boot, you can set a new supervisor password (if you want to). For removing the password from the harddrive, i'm still working on it. I'll post it when i got it. From my experience as a computer engineer, this way is safe. Connecting the data pin to the ground for a short time doesn't harm the logic component. But be careful with ESD (Electrostatic Discharge). You can remove ESD from your body by touching the metal of your computer by both hands. You can also use Anti Static spray to the device that you will use. Good Luck. - by Ray of Bandung

Thinkpad 390x Supervisor Password Removal (7:48am EST Mon Sep 09 2002) I forgot to tell you. The EEPROM location can be found on this link : http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock/key_fo r_390x.htm The pin name is SDA. Located at the most bottom left. I am not responsible for the results or for any consequential or incidental damages whatsoever. It is up to you to try this method. - by Ray of Bandung

ray of bandung is a liar (11:50am EST Tue Sep 10 2002) hey ray of bandung i trie your techique and it crashed my laptop you liar your info is useless. go to hell!! f**** b**** - by sniper_wolf

what do you mean by conect it to ground ray of bandung (3:22pm EST Thu Sep 12 2002) i dont understand what do you mean by connect it to ground ray badnung. please could you help me with more detailed info thank you - by ??????

can someone send me there maxim323a chip (4:55pm EST Thu Sep 12 2002) hi ive searched every where but i couldnt find a maxim chip if anyone has one could they please send it to me i want to make a keymaker so i can remove my unknown supervisor password. please send me an e-mail at halilkisa@tiscali.co.uk i am really despret please someone help me. - by Halil

IBM Travelstar DBCA-206480 HDD password (4:50am EST Fri Sep 13 2002) Dear sirs, I have few of these. Most are dead. But one has HDD PASSWORD. I tried to change electronics, but it did not helps. Tried to connect as secondary slave to normal PC through adapter, it does not helps. Just one thing I can understand that password resides not only on electronics itself, but on platters. Is it useless, or I just I have to wait for some good idea of unlocking it in the future, even I have no IBM notebook, just stand alone HDD. Thank You in advancs - by Audrius, Vilnius

Thinkpad 390x Supervisor Password Removal (8:05pm EST Fri Sep 13 2002) It totally worked for me. My machine boots again. YEAH!!!!!!!!!! Sniper_wolf, it could be user error. It's simple to do, but probably shouldn't be done by someone who hasn't soldered before. ??????, if you can't understand the directions. You probably shouldn't be doing it. - by ThankYou

help me someone please (6:26am EST Sat Sep 14 2002) what does ray of badung mean by connect the cable to the ground come on guys one of you help me - by james

Ray of Bandung (4:44pm EST Sat Sep 14 2002) Man, I can’t thank you enough! I have the Think Pad 390X I bought on EBay. When I turned on the laptop the supervisor password would not allow the computer to boot. I tried your technique of shorting out the Atmel and it worked! Anyone with the 390X try these before you pay the $700 for a new system board. It does work and you have nothing to lose at that point anyways. Ray of Bandung Thank you, thank you and THANKYOU!!!! - by Ray Rules

Connect cable to ground (9:30am EST Wed Sep 18 2002) Solder a very long wire to the SDA pin on the Atmel chip. Take the other end of the wire into the garden and dig a big hole. Put the end of the cable into the hole and fill the hole with earth. Then the cable is connected to ground. It's very simple, I can't believe just how many complete lamers there are on this message board. Don't mess with electronics / electricity unless you know what you are doing. Go out and learn electronics theory before posting stupid messages. - by A Qualified Engineer

IBM Password chips (12:00pm EST Wed Sep 18 2002) I have had a lot of success simply removing the locked password chip from the motherboard on IBM Thinkpads and installing an unlocked chip and the password is gone. I've gotten these chips on ebay for 12 bucks. Works great!!! - by David26

how to remove thinkpad password (8:02pm EST Wed Sep 18 2002) hey you can get the thinkpad password removed if you just solder a wire to the top left leg of the eeprom and the bottom left corner of the eeprom and the when you got both wires swithc on the laptop and touch both wires together and the it should reset your password. it works %80 the eeprom must be a 24xxx ok good luck every one - by engineer

HHD password removal using fdisk? (11:35am EST Thu Sep 19 2002) how about just blowing off the partition using fdisk? will that work? - by Chan Moore

Re: HHD password removal using fdisk? (3:50pm EST Thu Sep 19 2002) @Chan Moore neep... it does't work. it's not a partition lock! you can't access to a locked hdd with supervisor pwd. for blowing off a partition you need read and write access for hdd. - by by mza

Couple o Questions... (3:44am EST Tue Sep 24 2002) Guys, Does the SDA pin need to be unsoldered off the Planar board, then grounded/ungrounded etc? Does the method allow you to access the HDD afterwards? Is GW Bush retarded, or did he study to aspire to his current level? Most pressing Questions.... - by Ads

Re: IBM Password chips (6:42am EST Tue Sep 24 2002) Hi David26, Do you happen to know the password chip of a Thinkpad 755c? And where is it located in the mainboard? Thanks. - by Rick

Re: IBM Password chips (7:27pm EST Wed Sep 25 2002) Hey Rick, I'm not to familiar with the 755c thinkpads, but the password chips are usually made by Atmel and its written on the chip. Problem is , if you buy the chip from Atmel, you still need the IBM information for the chip from a good password chip. But anyway, for that old a thinkpad, your probably better off just getting another system board off ebay for like 10 bucks or buy the whole computer for 50 bucks. Good luck. - by David26

To Halil re MAXIM chip (8:04am EST Tue Oct 01 2002) The chip can be bought from a maxim supplier - details from Maxim web site. In the UK I bought three for less than the cost of the post - They are only about Ł1.22 GBP each There are three types, I bought the MAX232A CPE.(haven't built the board yet..) Go via http://www.maxim-ic.com/ Has anyone tried the sparky trick about grounding pins on a TP 600e? (And if so did the fire brigade say the same thing when they arrived?) Up the Harriers. - by Joyfull & Triumphant

building the board (4:01pm EST Wed Oct 02 2002) Well, my 600e is locked too.. Can anybody tell me which gnd and vcc is for the eeprom and which for the batteries? Joe's board sheme is a bit tricky... - by Gustas

Passwords removed in Holland/Germany (4:21pm EST Thu Oct 03 2002) Passwords removed in Holland/Germany If anyone has a locked laptop, I can remove the password for a small fee. Im working in Holland and in Germany. I can unlock any brand/model. I can also unlock some Harddrives if the laptop is still locked and the disc is original. I do NOT explain how to remove it yourself. You can e-mail me for more info: Thruster@zonnet.nl - by Kaya

390x password on fix (2:54am EST Sat Oct 05 2002) remove keyboard, look in upper left hand, you will see a chip with 8 pins 5678 ---- ---- 1234 take a small flat head and short 1-2, while shorting power on lap top, then quickly(but carefully) short 5-5 and press f1 while still shorting. Worked for me, put in Hard drive and screwed me up again. Repeated the shorting process and successfully accessed again, then booted to floppies multiple times, and went into bios multple times. WORKS. Might have to try slight variation with timing but those pins do the job. Now to vent, I could really get bitchy as hell right now. I would like to pay someone back for the pain, however as usual the victory over these pansies always feels better than mere mortal revenge. Now that took 4 hours. I'll get back with you when I get my hard drive unlocked. P.S. Anybody from IBM out there counting pennies, Well, I'm keeping my damn 700.00 And next time I buy a lap top I'll make sure I don't get any proprietary security shit. I've got my own Crypto. LTR :-) - by It doesn't matter.

Whoops to 390x password on fix (2:58am EST Sat Oct 05 2002) quckly (but carefully) short 5-6 not 5-5. That's impossible. P.S. This works on Sups, Pwrons and all. Just make shure you pull the cmos bat, use system bat, and DO NOT put your hard drive in during or after. Peace. - by It doesn't matter

Wake Forest University (3:30pm EST Sat Oct 05 2002) Wake Forest University gives every student their own TP. In North Carolina you can find them all over the place. Rumor has it that they all use the same supervisor password. Has anyone delt with one of these laptops before and if so would you share the password? If not does anyone know of a site with a list of pwd's that might help out? Thanks. - by The White Rabit

TP760/93c46 (6:19am EST Thu Oct 10 2002) here are 2 eeprom dumps from a 93c46 :10000000D9D90000000000000000000000 0000003E :1000100060600000707000009A9A000070 7000002C :1000200000000000626200006C6C000040 400000B4 :100030000000000000000000060600000E 0E000098 :10004000060600000E0E0000FEFE0000FE FE000090 :10005000000000006C6C000072720000AC AC00008C :1000600040400000727200007272000040 400000C8 :1000700000000000000000000000000000 00000080 :00000001FF the password is 1234567. Here is an unknown password.. :1000000087870000000000000000000000 00474754 :1000100066666666707082829A9A404070 706E6EF4 :1000200000000000626272727070404040 404040C8 :10003000000000000000000032323E3E16 163E3E38 :1000400032323E3E16163E3E01010000FE FEFEFE2E :1000500000006A6A6C6C72727272909068 68B4B4D4 :10006000404000006C6C6A6A6E6E404040 40404008 :1000700000000000000000000000000000 00000080 :00000001FF any suggestions? - by Ads

Dump of eeprom (9:11am EST Thu Oct 10 2002) Could someone send me a dump od T20 eeprom with known password or unlocked ? - by slyp

Dump of eeprom (9:12am EST Thu Oct 10 2002) Could someone send me a dump of T20 eeprom unlocked or with known passwords ? thanks peches@zabka.pl - by slyp

Jumper information w/ pictures.. (4:12am EST Fri Oct 11 2002) Here's a link that can help some users.. http://www.plasma-online.de/index.h tml?content=http%3A//www.plasma-onl ine.de/english/help/solutions/bios_ password_ibm.html - by iGor

Shorting SDA to GND (9:51am EST Sat Oct 12 2002) I haven't visited here for a while, I read the 390X method of supervisor password by-pass [I don't believe it actually removes it, it can't, it fools the TP but only till next power cycle or maybe altogether if you corrupt the eeprom badly enough] and I sort of may agree that shorting the SDA pin to GND is harmless, well in the sense that it won't set anything on fire as it is only pulled up to VCC by a resistor and the output of the eeprom takes it close to GND durin normal operation. BUT [don't you just hate it there's always a BUT] it can and chances are IT WILL CORRUPT the data in THE EEPROM. That doesn't matter with a 390X as it does not perform any sort of CRC checks, but a 600E and later Think Pad models DO perform CRC checks, try that rough method on one of those and the next message you will see is BAD CRC1 or BAD CRC2 error, no amount of shorting will remove that error! I was wondering why suddenly I am getting so much e-mail from people with CRC errors, I guess they did try the short SDA to GND method. By the way if you have tried THE 390X METHOD and you are now seeing a BAD CRCx error, I do have a solution costing only $50US that does repair the CRC error and remove the Supervisor Password. http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock/crc_re pair.htm This one is for all those that still believe that there is a UNIVERSAL PASSWORD [and that Elvis is still alive], the Supervisor Password is set by a HUMAN, who is allowed to enter up to 7 letters or numerals, the HUMAN decides what to enter as the password, the Think Pad stores it in the eeprom if he can manage to type the same thing twice. There is NO universal password, it may seem like it when one person sets the same password on a quantity of machines, but not really. - by Joe in Australia

Thinkpad 770 161,163 lockup (4:58pm EST Sat Oct 12 2002) I've read the posts from top to bottom. Is there one sure way i can get into ezsetup? Pressing enter gets me to the 161,163 error screen, then it locks up. Please please offer some HELP!!!! Damn thing keeps on asking for a password.... ARRGGGGHHH - by jasmine_cyan

Reality (9:34am EST Sun Oct 13 2002) Ok for an Atmel 24c... A 600 (not E or x) these results were taken Using a "kitsrus" 151 eeprom reader... please look at the line 100300, after E7 on the 4th line (100300). your password is after E7, in keyboard scancode. for example.... :10003000000082F9605092E71E00000000 00001EE0 the password is "a" :10003000000082F9605092E71E30000000 00004E80 the password is "ab" :10003000000082F9605092E71E302E2012 2100CF7E the password is :abcdef" I externally mounted a 24c atmel chip, and switched between the laptop, and an eeprom reader.I got NO crc errors etc. I just unlocked 5 laptops...It works. will post Atmel 24FR results next, and 93c you can d/l the scancode anywhere I am compiling a small program as I post. - by Ads

As I said... (9:42am EST Sun Oct 13 2002) Read the eeprom, save the file in Intel Hex then look at the 4th line "10003000" it's all there, and no big secret Geez if you can be bothered stripping a laptop down to this extent, you can have this info free!!! any questions.... email me (I have enough porn spam) yossarian@optushome.com.au re routing encryption codes Ads - by Ads

hmmm (9:53am EST Sun Oct 13 2002) Kaya, Suck my sweaty testicles you ass rammer. you are god (you think) Ads ps. watch this space, I have the resources to undertake this in my free time.....and will. People here know I AM correct. You think I wanna strip these TPs? I may be able to strip a TP600 in 12 minutes....I have been timed, but it aint worth it. IBM is guilty Ads - by Ads

seriously... (10:08am EST Sun Oct 13 2002) DO NOT try this with a TP600e/x (24Fxxxx) as it is a propriatory chip. Unlike myself, difference being, I can experiment, I have plenty of busted laptops. there are issues with sending instructions (ie reading, without writing) Oh please also email me if you need replacement Atmels....30 bucks, my arse (ozzie for ass) - by Ads

Password="a" (7:08pm EST Sun Oct 13 2002) :1000000032F9B33630813B8511C6BAE20C 003200BA :100010004E4831383136413637314A2020 36323178 :100020000000000030374C353639342020 202020A5 :10003000000082F9605092E71E00000000 00001EE0 :100040001E0000000000001E00807F7F7E 7F7F7FFB :100050000000323634353531413738484E 42373179 :1000600020201E0031304C313731312020 2020201B :100070005468696E6B5061642036303020 20202037 :00000001FF - by Ads

Password="abcdefg" (7:09pm EST Sun Oct 13 2002) :1000000032F9B33630813B8511C6BAE20C 0025B80F :100010004E4831383136413637314A2020 36323178 :100020000000000030374C353639342020 202020A5 :10003000000082F9605092E71E302E2012 2122F13A :100040001E302E20122122F100807F7F7E 7F7F7F55 :100050000000323634353531413738484E 42373179 :1000600020201E0031304C313731312020 2020201B :100070005468696E6B5061642036303020 20202037 :00000001FF - by Ads

One more thing (7:28pm EST Sun Oct 13 2002) Please do NOT send me Joe's KM6.bin files. I do not know how to, and will not try to unencrypt them. Just pay the 25 bucks, he's done the work for you. (you know who you are) - by Ads

joe's Key Maker interface (8:00am EST Mon Oct 14 2002) Has anyone build the interface in denmark, as i'm not a big electronics wizard... and would like to get some help in this phase... - by sparx

bilt joes interface (7:15am EST Tue Oct 15 2002) yes i have built joes interface send me an e-mail at hydro_____@hotmail.com for help. - by helper

Explained.... (2:25am EST Thu Oct 17 2002) Reading the password on an Atmel 24c01 eeprom. This is how I did it for an IBM Thinkpad 600. I will assume it is how it's done for all the 24c01 chips ie TP 390/380 etc. go to this site. http://www.kitsrus.com/upuc.html#k1 51 This is the interface you need to build (for a 24c01). the Circuit Diagram, and components are listed here. Obtain a copy of a AT PC keyboard scancode chart, and print it out. such as..... 01 Esc 0F Tab 1D L Ctrl 2B \| 02 1! 10 Q 1E A 2C Z 03 2" 11 W 1F S 2D X 04 3# 12 E 20 D 2E C 05 4$ 13 R 21 F 2F V 06 5% 14 T 22 G 30 B 07 6^ 15 Y 23 H 31 N 08 7& 16 U 24 J 32 M 09 8* 17 I 25 K 33 , 0B 0) 19 P 27 : 35 /? 0C -_ 1A [{ 28 '" 36 R Shift 0D =+ 1B ]} 29 `~ 37 * 0E BackSpace 1C Enter 2A L Shift 38 L Alt Download the software (about 50k) Connect it (the interface you built kit 151) to a computer (via printer port) connect the eeprom to the programmer power up the programmer/reader run the program (eeprom.exe) press "r" Read the eeprom into buffer press "s" Save buffer to file. Save the file as pwd or mypwd, doesn't matter what you call it. - by Ads

more.... (2:27am EST Thu Oct 17 2002) Open the saved (pwd.hex, mypwd.hex etc) file with notepad/wordpad etc. It will look like, or similar :1000000032F9B33630813B8511C6BAE20C 0025B80F :100010004E4831383136413637314A2020 36323178 :100020000000000030374C353639342020 202020A5 :10003000000082F9605092E71E302E2012 2122F13A :100040001E302E20122122F100807F7F7E 7F7F7F55 :100050000000323634353531413738484E 42373179 :1000600020201E0031304C313731312020 2020201B :100070005468696E6B5061642036303020 20202037 :00000001FF now look at the line ":10003000" this is where your password is. Count 16 places after the :10003000. In this example the first pair of characters starts with a "1E" which is scancode for the letter "a" The next pair of characters is "30" which is scancode for the letter "b" The next "CE" which is "c" and so on. If you would like help, just email me. I aint gonna ask for any money. - by Ads

Unlock (12:36am EST Sat Oct 19 2002) For people wanting their Passwords removed in Australia.... At least I will give you the options. Do it all yourself for free (apart from your time) and donate some cash to the RSPCA, or SPCA, or Greenpeace, or the Salvos etc it's your perogative. Send me your Laptop ($200 AUD) Send me your Mainboard ($100 AUD) Send me your eeprom ($50 AUD) Send me your Intel hexfile....and I will refer you to the above posts, or make you donate cash to the Mental Health foundation.. AUD=Australian Dollars, 1 USD= 54 cents Australian. - by Ads

typo (12:39am EST Sat Oct 19 2002) "The next "CE" which is "c"... should read The next "2E" which is "c" - by Ads

Hard Disk Password (3:45pm EST Mon Oct 21 2002) Anyone know where Nick Allsop (from the UK) is? He unlocked a load of locked IBM IC25 drives for me a few months ago. I've now got some more for him to do but he is not answering any emails at nick_allsop@hotmail.com If you're out there Nick, please send me email - you've got my address! Would be happy to pay more than $20 per drive if you can spare the time as the data is needed on some (like with the last four). Tony Chrozonsky (Nebraska) - by Tony Chrozonsky

ThinkPad 600e (9:34am EST Tue Oct 22 2002) When i start my Thinkpad 600E, i get the errors 161 and 163 (backup battery and time errorts) and can't do anything from there. THe battery is good. Anyone with info please help - by Dave

Password? (6:48am EST Fri Oct 25 2002) thinkpad model 760xl, Reports 8611 error, then locked symbol is there a work aroud? any help appreciated - by alan

In reply (6:38am EST Sun Oct 27 2002) Alan, 8611= Keyboard error Locked Symbol=means it has a Supervisor Password. Still workin on it. Dave, 161/163 Is time/config error. I assume you are holding down the f1 key at start up? If after doing that, it asks for a password, enter it, set date/time. If you don't know the password..Cmos has been reset with Supervisor Password set also. Read above on how to obtain the password. - by Ads

joes file (5:22am EST Wed Oct 30 2002) i can decrypt joes file i will do it for free just send me your file and i will send you your passsword in one day halilkisa@postmaster.co.uk - by helper

Unlocking a HD (8:54am EST Thu Oct 31 2002) Simply attach your drive to an Amiga 600, 1200, 2000, 3000, or 4000 using an IDE interface (Standard in the 1200), Low Level format, then format, then put back into laptop. Voilla. There are still some low level formatters available for the Amiga! - by Kidstuff

To Remove supervisor pwd (7:20am EST Mon Nov 04 2002) To permanently disable all passwords on any IBM Thinkpad laptop: Place in microwave oven Set to defrost (for 600w micrwave) Make sure the laptop is dead centre on the turntable Turn on for max 1 minute Guaranteed to disable all passwords, and perhaps more too, permanently. - by Gester

To Remove supervisor pwd - Gester (2:59pm EST Mon Nov 04 2002) Tried it Gester but my Thinkpad now comes up with Bluepop and Microchip error. Can anyone help with a kitchen fire? - by Joyfull & Triumphant

t20 supervisor password (4:55am EST Thu Nov 07 2002) i have read all of this commnets,but it seems to me that there are so many solutions and i do not know which one to pick .i tried a couple of solutions but no one works. any way feel free to email me pauldeek@hotmail.com - by paul

supervisor Password (12:29pm EST Thu Nov 07 2002) It seems everyone here has the same problem with this supervisor password.. well I too have a T20 thinkpad laptop and also has a supervisor password, which immidiately when you put on shows you a lock and a diskette.. well if anyone is so generous to pls tell me how to remove the supervision password.. I 'lld very much appreciate it alot.. pls mail me at kenny_shady@yahoo.com Thanks N:B And as for you Gester.. you are not that funny... why don't you defrost your ass for 600w and maybe any other thing in your body may also be disabled.. - by kenny

Doh! (4:32pm EST Thu Nov 07 2002) Hey Kidstuff You can't low level format a locked HD using an Amiga, dumbass. A locked HD does not allow read/write access to the data area. Have you actually *tried* doing this, or did you just want to post something for the hell of it? - by Grownupstuff

Hard disk password removal (4:17pm EST Sat Nov 09 2002) Finally after 2 jears of research, I finally managed to unlock HDD's. Yes real Harddisk password's or Drivelock's. For further information please contact me. Thruster@zonnet.nl Ps Ads I don`t think I`m god I`m just a smart engineer(and not a jalous @#$%^#$&). kaya The Netherlands - by Kaya

Hard disk password removal (4:17pm EST Sat Nov 09 2002) Finally after 2 Years of research, I finally managed to unlock HDD's. Yes real Harddisk password's or Drivelock's. For further information please contact me. Thruster@zonnet.nl Ps Ads I don`t think I`m god I`m just a smart engineer(and not a jalous @#$%^#$&). kaya The Netherlands - by Kaya

Mde2001 (3:30am EST Sun Nov 10 2002) I have IBM thinkpad R series haw i crack power on password. I start computer and surpraise is look with password??? Please help me - by Antonius

hard disks (3:45am EST Mon Nov 11 2002) i have a t20 laptop and there is a passowrd on the hard disk the computer will not run i am stuck i am willing to hear suggestions pauldeek@hotmail.com - by paul deek

ooops (6:23am EST Tue Nov 12 2002) I take that back Kaya.... I assumed you worked out how to read a serial eeprom, apologies. Nice work. I finally worked out the 760s password Damn I had to build another reader (16 bit) What do you charge for your service? (HDD unlock)? I only bother with multiple units that have the same password, as I can't justify one off dismantling of thinkpads - by Ads

Joe in Oz's Key Maker (5:11am EST Thu Nov 14 2002) I have successfully built and used Joe in Oz's keymaker on a TP 600e to get the Supervisor & HDD password. I got all the parts from Maplin's. I found the circuit board ok to build if you take your time and have a multimeter to hand. I left the asset chip on the motherboard and had the wires soldered onto it by J & P Electronics Ltd of Kidderminster. For a very reasonable Ł16, Joe in Oz returned the passwords. - by Joyfull & Triumphant

Joe in Oz's Key Maker (5:26am EST Thu Nov 14 2002) A couple of tips. I had a problem getting the 4700 ohm resistors as specified by Joe. In the end i had to use something called (I think)a SIL resistor, which seems to be a number of resistors in the same component. The TP 600e doesn't need to be completely stripped - the keyboard has to come-off (there are 2 tabs halfway down each side which need gently pushing in). The processor bit needs to come off and also a board next to it that restricts access to the asset chip.Batteries need to come out. Use insulated wires and makesure they lay flat as u have to replace the proccessor board ontop of them. Radio Shack/Tandy do a great introduction to electronics book. When removing screws push them thru a marked piece of paper to remember where they came from. Get the IBM technical manual as specifed by Joe. - by Joyfull & Triumphant

Supervisor vs Power-on Password (8:41pm EST Thu Nov 14 2002) How can I differentiate from a Supervisor Password and the Power-on Password on a TP T2x laptop? - by william

Unlock your IBM (12:47pm EST Fri Nov 15 2002) Had several done it workd liek a charm I have even coem up with a way not to pay him for his dat conversion. Is simple compiler ath thsi point but not to be doen by a novice. www.ja.olm.net/unlock - by heroshima

Joe's in Australia's Files (5:04pm EST Sat Nov 16 2002) Does anyone have a way to decypher the files that come from Joe's key maker. It doesnt look like the typical eeprom dump form an eeprom. - by Johnny5

WHERE IS THE EEPROM? (4:39pm EST Sun Nov 17 2002) I make my TP peaces but i cant find the eeprom chip you say. Any help?I got a 380Z. - by mpak

Disappointing People (4:55pm EST Sun Nov 17 2002) If someone puts the effort in, like Joe, to build the site, links, software and component instructions the least you can do is pay him a fair price for his work. I very much hope you low-life scum that would steal rather pay fairly for someone's effort get burgled lots. You are an embarrassment to humanity. - by J & T

Free thinking people (8:17am EST Thu Nov 21 2002) J&T you are talking cr*p. Joe has been quite happy to make money out of people who are unable to unlock their laptops, whether genuine owners or people who have stolen them. He has even gone to the trouble of 'encrypting' the output from his EEPROM reader software so that the average user has to pay him for the password. No-one asked him to set up a website or sell his service. He could have simply asked for 'shareware' donations as many others do. The EEPROM reader he has 'designed' is hardly a innovative design, neither is the software he has written. Let's face it, anyone with even a small amount of knowledge (plus the relevant datasheet from the chip manufacturer's website) can design a serial EEPROM reader/writer and it is common knowledge that IBM TPs 'encrypt' the BIOS password as standard IBM keycodes. By trying to make a mystery of reading an EEPROM, and in return for hard cash, Joe has made himself a target for anyone who has the ability to 'hack' what he is doing. Just as is the case with any commercial business. I would be more impressed if he had developed a solution for removing passwords from the actual hard drives - like Nick Allsop (UK) has (and Kaya from the Netherlands says he can). Although these guys no doubt charge for their services, the technology involved to do this without deleting any of the stored data is far more complex than reading an EEPROM. Sorry J&T but I don't see any problem with people using their initiative to avoid paying Joe or any other business their hard-earned money. I welcome people who are free thinkers. Without them, human civilisation would never progress. - by David Wilson

Joes EEPROM reader (1:48am EST Sun Nov 24 2002) Has anyone built one of these and used it to fix a CRC error? Would anyone be able to send one to me? I have read this entire board and read through Joes site and I am sure that I cannot build it myself. I will be paying joe his 50 bucks and would gladly return the device after using it. If anyone is interested please send me an email jstarny@hotmail.com - by AnotherJoe

tp 390e (1:32pm EST Sun Dec 01 2002) will sum1 help me plz.i have a ibm thinkpad 390e and when i boot up all i get is a small pci of a moniter and a locked padlock next to it. can someone tell me how to crack the p/w plz i cannot enter the bios - by 13yo

Joe's Wages - DW (2:48pm EST Tue Dec 03 2002) Talking cr*p? What do you do for a living David Wilson? When you've put the effort in for a day, are you more than happy if someone capitalizes on it without giving you reward? You work for free? I love it when I've worked hard and someone takes the credit, passes the hard work off as their own or exploits my efforts to make money without paying me. And how does the above make the world a better place and move it forward? The idea of doing stuff for free is great. And ideal for losing weight. And the roof over your head. Socialism isn't based on a 'free lunch' and inovation isn't encouraged because something is 'easy to do'. "Let's face it, anyone with even a small amount of knowledge (plus the relevant datasheet from the chip manufacturer's website) can design a serial EEPROM reader/writer and it is common knowledge that IBM TPs 'encrypt' the BIOS password as standard IBM keycodes. " - Easy for you, I'm sure. - by J&T

K6 Keymaker Interface (11:28am EST Thu Dec 05 2002) Can anyone build Joe's Keymaker interface....that works. Please email me at reedit34@hotmail.com if you can. - by Andre'

IBM thinpad 770 reference guide software (11:28am EST Sun Dec 08 2002) Hi All, Could anyone get me a copy of IBM thinkpad 770 reference guide software? That will be much appreciated.Thanks.James Erete jameserete@yahoo.com - by james erete

HDD Password (1:57am EST Tue Dec 10 2002) Only way to get access to locked HDD (a part of expensive equipment) is to boot from opened HDD and then "hot swap" it with another one (two HDD have to be absolutely the same: brand, size). Then using low level DOS utility (like NortonDiskEdit) try to find where password is located. Some BIOSes do not allow to swap HDD, simply do not recognize Hdd after swapping. This way is a bit risky, DO IT ON YOUR OWN RISK !!! Maybe somebody has got "homemade" utilites to find password using this method ? Feel free mail to my new adress venloer@hotmail.com - by Frank from Germany

retrieve password from HDD (3:05pm EST Thu Dec 12 2002) Did anyone ever find a "replacement" for Nick Allsop, HDD services, or anybody here take over his business? write me (but take off your HAT) at frodkirHAT@hotmail.com - by sparx

Thinkpad recovery (9:21pm EST Thu Dec 12 2002) www.greenleafcomputers.com These people said they could do it for $50 They'll just send me a disk and thats all. But I am too f**king poor to pay $50 to get this disk. I'd like to see if anyone has the answer but I'll probably end up selling blood just so I can afford it. Unless anything new comes up. my 760ED just says invalid system disk. No matter what autoexec or sys or config files i try, same damn thing. - by ive_fallen

TO IVE FALLEN (7:49am EST Fri Dec 13 2002) TELL WHAT YOUR PROBLEM IS AND WHAT OS YOU ARE USING I WILL HELP YOU FOR FREE REPLY TO HALILKISA@HOTMAIL.COM - by ????????

TOOOO IVEN FALLEN (7:50am EST Fri Dec 13 2002) AND IN THE SUBJECT OF THE E-MAIL PUT HELP WANTED?? OK UVE FALLEN - by ??????????

Need Experts Help on ThinkPad A20m (11:32pm EST Fri Dec 13 2002) Dear all Experts, Pls kindly advise me how to reinstate my NB as it was locked by BIOS pwd. I can't even boot it up. Thus, all kill CMOS/BIOS software are inapplicable. It always prompts for password before booting up either by HDD or FDD. Urgently need your kind help. Many thanks. Regards/Geo - by Geo

Think pad T20?? (2:51am EST Thu Dec 19 2002) The thing is that i have a power on password on my computer. I went back to my home country for vacations and i came back after 3months and i had forgotten my password. i have tried everything but nothing works. i need help. email me at saburkhalid@yahoo.com - by sabur

Joe in Australia still aroud? (11:23pm EST Thu Dec 19 2002) I have problem to reset my TP 600E supervisor password. I had try to view the information on Joe website but it seem link to "Future Home of a Dotster Registered Domain" Is Joe service still available? My e-mail is vin.k@eudoramail.com. - by Vincent

for joe (6:08am EST Sat Dec 21 2002) I have send u 2 e-mail but u don't reply me....why? - by Ilmanu from Italy

T-22 thinkpad (4:09am EST Sun Dec 22 2002) im trying to find a few sites on the 24rf08c. still having a problem w/supervisor password on my t22 - by dumme-

T-22 thinkpad (11:38pm EST Sun Dec 22 2002) can someone please explain the whole process of removing the supervisor password form my TP. I've built Joe's KM interface three times... ....checked "ALL" wiring.... ....read all his tips.... and still it doesn't work... (johne514@netscape.net) - by dumme

It's Christmas! (8:07am EST Tue Dec 24 2002) Bah, Humbug to the lot of you saddos. A definite lack of Christmas cheer goes to IBM particularly. I won't be bringing anything nice down their chimney...! (Have just chucked my TP 600E in the bin after smashing it with a hammer. Very satisfying. Lost the password and could not give a damn anymore.) - by Santa

SUCSESS!!!!!!!!!!!!! (10:24pm EST Thu Dec 26 2002) I HAVE CREATED A PROGRAM WICH READS AND AND DECRYPTS THE PASSWORD OF AL THINKPADS ANY TYPE AND THE GOOD THING IS YOU CAN USE IT WITH JOES DEVICE. IVE UNLOCKED 3 LAPTOPS WITH IT. IT RETRIVED ALL OF THE PASSWORD IN MATTER OF SECONDS. IF ANY ONE WANTS IT ITS A FREEWARE JUST E-MAIL ME AND I WILL SEND IT TO YOU FOR FREE. HALKISA@POSTMASTER.CO.UK - by UNLCKOKER

t22 thinkpad (4:47pm EST Sat Dec 28 2002) looking for a new mainboard 2647-m5u (JohnE514@netscape.net) - by dumme

Don't trust UNLCKOKER (2:51am EST Sun Dec 29 2002) Don't trust UNLCKOKER... HALKISA@POSTMASTER.CO.UK , he is sending out a rar-ed up subseven trojan... just a heads up for those of you who run anything without scanning it. Just pay Joe the $25 like I did, and get your pass )) - by anonymous

Thinkpad 770X Boot problem (9:08pm EST Tue Dec 31 2002) Hi, although our problem doesn't fit exactly in the ongoin' thread, maybe someone might have a clue what's goin' on. Booting our TP 770X it started with an 173 163 Error, which is, refering to the TP Maintanence Manual, a wrong or lost time date info. Clicking OK in the error window brings up the Easy-Setup window for date and time info. Well, entering the correct date and time, clicking OK and the system hangs. This also happens when clickin' on CANCEL in the error window. Anyone having a clue what's goin' wrong? Many thanks in advance. BTW, happy New Year to all of you. :-)) Norbert Roth Bureau for Civil Engineering Darmstadt, Germany PS: It's not a PW problem... PPS: Refering to the TP Maintanence Manual I've already short circuited the Jumper J13 on boot time, this should help to solve problems the POW. But no luck in this case. - by Norbert Roth

Laptop supervisor passwords (9:12am EST Wed Jan 01 2003) Happy New Year We specialize in laptop password removal, repairs and hard disk data recovery. We can remove all passwords - Supervisor, Admin, POP, PAP,etc, from most major brands - IBM, Dell, Compaq, HP, Toshiba, Acer, NEC, most clones, etc. On some models we can unlock the hard drive. Pricing depends on the following: 1. the model of the laptop 2. the type of password 3. if there is a locked hard drive. Power-on passwords from $25 to 50 Supervisor passwords from $90 to 250 Supervisor and Hard drive passwords from $125 to 300 Prices are in US dollars. Prices do not include postage. We are located in Australia. We post internationally We have a No Fix, No Fee policy. Two day turn around. To recieve a quote and our postage and deposit information, email your details, including, if possible, 1. the model and type of the laptop, 2. what sort of password you have, 3. if you want the hard drive unlocked or not please also include your country, state and postcode to calculate postage costs Address: passwordsrus@optusnet.com.au - by passwordsrus

TP 770: Hardware Maintenance Service Disk v1.05 (12:04pm EST Thu Jan 02 2003) Hi, another question regarding our above described problem. Does anyone know if and/or how it is possible to download the Hardware Maintenance Service Disk Version >1.05 for Thinkpad 770X Laptops. Many thanks in advance for any hints, have a nice day, best regards Norbert Roth Bureau for Civil Engineering Darmstadt, Germany - by Norbert Roth

To Norbert (6:13pm EST Thu Jan 02 2003) Norbert, your thinkpad 770x has a dead cmos battery. You need to replace the battery and then reset the time and date in the bios. I think its under the memory cover. Here is the URL for the 770x maintenence manual http://www.pc.ibm.com/qtechinfo/PFA N-3TSMGJ.html?lang=en_US&page=brand &brand=root&doctype=&subtype=Cat Copy and paste it into your browser. Its a pdf file so you will need a reader like acrobat to view it. Hope this help. - by Evan

tp 770 code erross 161 163 8601 (10:24am EST Tue Jan 07 2003) don´t boot becoce ahhhh help please - by will

IBM 770 Won't Boot error codes 161,163 (1:11am EST Wed Jan 08 2003) Was given an old IBM 770 Think Pad by a friend. After reading a few of the above comments, I will try replacing the cmos battery, hopefully it will boot then. No money invested in this machine so why not. - by Jetski Bob

760E sound & battery (7:43am EST Wed Jan 08 2003) After loading win98se on 760e I have lost sound and battery support. Have read some on MWAVE reinstall and or bios update but a little confused as to what to do. Note that machine works fine except for above problems. - by 760jim

760XL super password (9:41am EST Wed Jan 08 2003) I have an old locked 760XL. I have read the eeprom, however the password is not obvious. It seems other TP models store the password in scan codes at 0x38 and 0x40, however the data in my 760 at those locations is clearly not a password. Also, earlier in this thread there is a post of a 760 with a known password (1234567) and in that post, location 0x38 is not scan codes, which confirms my experience. So does anyone have any dumps from a 760xl with known passwords, so I can attempt to identify the pattern and extract my password? - by GJP

760XL super password (10:30am EST Sun Jan 12 2003) GJP what's your email address? I send you one. - by RTA

760xl super password (7:57am EST Tue Jan 14 2003) Ref 760XL eeprom dump with known passwords Thanks for the offer of some known dumps, RTA. You can get me on gperciva@tpg.com.au - by GJP

SUPERVISOR FOR FREE !!! (5:19pm EST Wed Jan 15 2003) You are in possession ThinPad ? You have with password problem ? Send to me e-mail ( zibi@microcomputer.com )from "bin" this I will draw out Ci him for FREE ! Until me oneself it does it well how someone feeds on human harm ! I greet. - by by ZIBI from Poland

the answer to all your problem (9:17pm EST Thu Jan 16 2003) I've unlocked several TP laptop and this site helped me. The problem is you have to know what you're doing or else........ http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock/ - by Zildjian

Unlocking Hard Drive Password (12:09pm EST Fri Jan 17 2003) *** My fix was easy not to mention FREE! I also own a PowerMac G4. I recently bought an external firewire hard drive case. I put the TP Hard Drive in that case, connected via Firewire to the Mac and reformated the complete drive. When I put it back in the IBM there was no password required and it was 1 single partition instead of the two it used to be with one of them locked. So my suggestion is to find a friend with a Mac and let them format it. By the way I'm using OS X (version 10.2 / Jaguar) and used the Disk Utility software that comes standard on every Mac. - by SE Online

390e help??? please...... (9:49pm EST Tue Jan 21 2003) okay okay, so I've seen all your postings and scanned through months and months and I've done everything besides build an eeprom reader and I really need help here. Of course, the 390e IBM thinkpad, thats what I'm stuck on... please help, email help too mac_ad@hotmail.com , Thanks All - by mac_ad

EEPROM dump of TP T20 (4:33pm EST Sat Jan 25 2003) Here is EEPROM dump of locked TP T20 (Atmel 24rf08xx - 14 legs). Can anybody tell me the password ? Thanks a lot. First half: :020000040000FA :1000000053455223140C01D27E00000000 00000072 :100010000833384C343131345A314A3039 5530385C :100020004E30585A20B153323634373234 47353592 :100030003431394E5420202038B15A3130 453031D6 :1000400035305332202020202020202040 32374CD1 :10005000353137395A4A31454545303730 485846A9 :1000600000000000000000000000000000 00000090 :1000700000000000000000000000000000 00000080 :1000800000000000000000000000000000 00000070 :1000900000000000000000000000000000 00000060 :1000A00000000000000000000000000000 00000050 :1000B00000000000000000000000000000 00000040 :1000C00000000000000000000000000000 00000030 :1000D00000000000000000000000000000 00000020 :1000E00000000000000000000000000000 00000010 :1000F00000000000000000000000000000 00000000 :1001000055535223100001D20000000000 000000EF :1001100000000000000000000000000000 000000DF :1001200000000000000000000000000000 000000CF :1001300000000000000000000000000000 000000BF :1001400000000000000000000000000000 000000AF :1001500000000000000000000000000000 0000009F :1001600000000000000000000000000000 0000008F :1001700000000000000000000000000000 0000007F :1001800000000000000000000000000000 0000006F :1001900000000000000000000000000000 0000005F :1001A00000000000000000000000000000 0000004F :1001B00000000000000000000000000000 0000003F :1001C00000000000000000000000000000 0000002F :1001D00000000000000000000000000000 0000001F - by John

EEPROM dump of TP T20 (4:35pm EST Sat Jan 25 2003) Second half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by John

IBM LAPTOP SECURITY (7:47pm EST Sat Jan 25 2003) I have been able to crack the first bios pass by pulling the hard drive in and out of its socket . In about 20 seconds I get a drive failure message and enter the the bios . go to the superviser pass and change or delete it and remove all other passes .I bought a new hard drive and had no problems reloading xp. - by ZACK

IBM LAPTOP SECURITY (9:12pm EST Sat Jan 25 2003) Here are the steps in order 1 remove screw under hard drive area. 2 Pull hard drive out then slide it back gently. 3 Push power button then gently move the drive in and out while listening to the drive. you will hear it start to spin up to speed. Don't let it spin up too long or it will display the lock. If the lock appears start over. 4 If the drive cant boot properly in 20 seconds you will get a screen that says (HARD DRIVE FAILURE) 5 hit F1 or ESC to enter BIOS 6 remove or change any passes in BIOS Replace hard drive and reload OS. - by ZACK

Thinkpad 600E help (7:07pm EST Mon Jan 27 2003) I have an IBM Thinkpad 600E laptop with the traditional unknown supervisor password and locked hard drive problem. I traversed almost every internet site over a year without finding any easy solution for the non-technical person. Finally I decided to purchase a system board having resigned to the sad fact that the present board was not useful anymore. I thought why not experiment with the locked board so I grounded the SDA pin on the Atmel 24RF08BT chip and booted with password protected hard drive removed. Lo and Behold !! I was into the bios. I immediately changed the supervisor password and the system worked. I now booted the laptop with the hard drive (still password protected )and I got an error 158 (supervisor and hard drive passwords do not match). It took me to easy setup where I simply click “Exit” and upon restart the drive booted successfully. The problem is that this sequence continues with that particular hard drive. I was wondering whether the hard drive password, which is presumably still active, can be retrieved from the now seemingly accessible drive. I tried a few file recovery programs but I always get read access errors for block 0. Is there a way to access the password on that drive? If anyone can help me please email me at emmerson1991@yahoo.com. - by Mike

----> att. ZACK (4:54am EST Wed Jan 29 2003) But will this procedure work if the pc also has a supervisor pw enabled??? - by sparx

Update re: Thinkpad 600e help (11:12am EST Wed Jan 29 2003) My previous post mentioned the grounding of the SDA pin on the security chip of the Thinkpad 600E whilst booting. Without a hard drive installed I was able to now remove the supervisor password from easy setup by simply following the User Reference Guide's procedure for password removal, so that, with a password -free hard drive installed the boot process is completely free of password requests. I have concluded that the password on the original hard drive cannot be easily removed. I will try one more procedure before giving up on that drive. An earlier post mentioned the hot plugging of the affected drive as secondary on a desktop (with related adapter, of course) after the system has been booted with a drive of the same model and size. I will attempt to do that when I acquire a drive. Be reminded that I grounded a chip on a system board I was about to discard. I will not recommend that anyone do this if that person is not prepared to risk the board’s demise - by Mike

IBM (12:18pm EST Thu Jan 30 2003) Irritating Bum Monkeys - by I love IBM

---> Zack (7:21am EST Mon Feb 03 2003) your procedure only works if supervisor pw isn't enabled... - by sp

Un-locking a dell c-400 laptop (6:12am EST Tue Feb 04 2003) i managed to get this machine sooooooo cheap it would be a shame not to be able to use it...... does anybody have info on a power on password?????? in need london..... - by Dylon

Re- Dell C400 by Dylon (10:34am EST Tue Feb 04 2003) Go to this page and read :http://www.driverforum.com/bios4/i ndex.htm - by Mike

Thinkpad 600x help (10:04pm EST Wed Feb 05 2003) Regarding to the previous post on TP 600E help: I have a TP600x with supervisor passwd and hard disk passwd. It didn´t boot because a date error (161, 163), so i shortcut SDA and GND and it worked, it boot (the supervisor passwd was there yet, but I can run my win2k). But there was not all, as I managed to boot up the computer I thought that I would be able to delete the passwd so I did it again and the only thing I get was a 188 and 189 error!!! :( So be careful, I can promise that it worked I have started windows and I can enter easy setup (I didn´t have access to all bios features) but then I corrupted all the bios and so the procedure doesn´t work any more (the eeprom is corrupt so there isn´t possible to enter bios)... If someone has a bin of the 600x with no password I will try to reprogram the 24rf08, my hd will not work but at least I don´t have to throw the whole TP to the trash. - by Rodro

Thinkpad 600 passwords (7:38pm EST Thu Feb 06 2003) Why bother with all that shorting out stuff. Just unsolder the password chip and swap it out with one from a dead motherboard, if you have one, or buy one off ebay. Its a lot easier and a lot safer. Just takes some good soldering skills. I've done it many times. This works for all thinkpads. - by Evan

Installing Windows system (4:19am EST Fri Feb 07 2003) I have a Ibm Notepad 760e laptop it had win 95 I'm trying to install win 98 having problem with the bios passwords and setup funtions. - by Angel

This Messageboard (2:56pm EST Fri Feb 07 2003) It's time it was closed down. - by The Moderator

why (3:16am EST Mon Feb 10 2003) why - by why

HD password on TP 380Z (3:58pm EST Thu Feb 13 2003) Hello, I've an IBM TP 380Z which works perfectly with a Travelstar DADA-26480, 6Gb. I've another Travelstar, model DADA-24090, 4Gb which refuses to boot: The much hatred Lock/HD symbol, indicating that it has a HD password. Although this is a 'spare' drive, I'd like to use it for another OS than WIN 98 SE which is on the 6Gb drive. Any suggestions ? Thanks in advance, Peter - by Peter

HD password on TP 380Z (2:54am EST Fri Feb 14 2003) 4gb drives are cheap on eBay. Use your locked drive as an impressive paper wieight :-). - by Rick

Dell latitutes Bios fix... 30 seconds to laptop use. (9:16am EST Sat Feb 15 2003) YESTERDAY I HAD A POWER ON PASSWORD....TODAY I AM USING MY LAPTOP....L I S T E N.....Locate your EEprom on your board..there is a service pad next to it...the pad is where a screw goes through and it has daps of soider on it (about 5 or 6 dabs) Take a paper clip to legs 5&6 (there is a white dot on your eeprom the leg next to it is 1 under it is 2) (5 is bottom right 6 is above it) of you eeprom and touch it to each dab on the service pad (one at a time) with each time powering up your pc. If your screen gives you the message (PRESS FN-X) your in....Turn it of and put your pc back together and ENJOY-IT **DO NOT TOUCH PIN 7 it is Write protect!** Here is a site with a digram of EEPROM LOCATION AND PICTUPE... do not use there methods, just the pics. http://www.geocities.com/d29sand/59 5b.html QuickError Free HD fix : Will 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. You welcome! - by SouperDawber

SouperDawber (4:33pm EST Sat Feb 15 2003) Your HD methoed wont work. The locked HD will not even spin. Are you refering to the Dell Locked drives? This method wont work on IBM locked drives. - by Rasputin

km6.bin interpretation (11:26am EST Fri Feb 21 2003) hi guys ! is someone have success to read Password from KM6.bin file from Joe ? thanks Dunkane60@hotmail.com - by Dunkane

unlock IBM Travelstar harddisk (8:56am EST Tue Feb 25 2003) After all the mess & chaotic messages that came up here, there still isn't a sollution for unlocking a harddisk. Myself: an ibm t21 with a 20 gig harddisk (DJSA-220) This one is locked. I removed all the BIOS password etc. By simply removing the CMOS battery. So when i remove the locked harddisk, i am able to get into the bios. Thus, it's only the drive wich is locked. I tried to put the drive into a laptop wich don't support hdd-security features in the bios (such as old x86 and pentium 1 machines) Finally put the disk in a Toshiba 230 CX, boot and start Norton's Disk Editor. When a harddisk is locked, there is some information written in the first 512 bytes of sector 0. If you're able to replace them all to "00" then the lock should be gone. Actually, i tried this and the result was an "129 error" message from DiskEditor. So, if there is somebody who can do something with this information, please tell it. In meanwhile i found somebody who can unlock most harddisks. But i like to know (and manyMANY people here to) if there excists a workaround for unlocking your harddisk. - by sector0

sector0 (3:15am EST Wed Feb 26 2003) Ive tried many things suggested in this forum to no avail. Some people in here act like it is a military secret. Or they really dont know but act like they do. I have only one thing left to try and that is the MAC way, I will post my results hopefully by next week. - by Rasputin

TP R31 Password Lock (1:14am EST Mon Mar 03 2003) I can boot to CD is there any way of reading the eeprom through software means I.E. and software EEprom dump it should be possible cause the bios has to be able to access the EEPROM to read/write and check the password if any one has software post a reply - by S8NX

Champion (6:24pm EST Mon Mar 03 2003) Champion the Wonder Horse. Champion the Wonder Horse. He was one cool dude, I bet he knew how to unlock hard drives... No-one here does. - by Champion

ThinkPad 240 password lock (5:17am EST Thu Mar 06 2003) after a bios upgrade, my laptop asks for a password, though I never used one (except for return). IBM will only change the mobo. Has anyone found a solution for this laptop's password? - by wat

Thinkpad 240 password (12:35pm EST Sat Mar 08 2003) Wat, just unsolder the password chip from the board, and the computer will work fine. You wont be able to set a password though, but who cares. And you will not get any errors. I've tried it myself on this model, and it works. - by Evan

gueyes (3:32pm EST Sat Mar 08 2003) atodos son unos pendejos!!!!!!!!!aaa - by chem

A device to unlock hard disks! (11:47am EST Fri Mar 14 2003) Have just found this company on the web. They seem to have a handheld device that will unlock all types of locked hdds. I knew someone would do it in the end! Anyone know anything about this and how much it costs to get one? - by Rick Tilley

A device to unlock hard disks! (11:49am EST Fri Mar 14 2003) oops, sorry forgot the link:- http://www.vogon-international.com/ vogon-international/vision-11/right tools.htm - by Rick Tilley

Thinkpad 240 supervisor password (6:14am EST Sat Mar 15 2003) Further to my post on 8th March : I tried the eeprom reading system from http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock/ and voilŕ, he sent me the supervisor password against a small charge of us$ 25 and my thinkpad is open and working !! I strongly recommend this fellow. - by wat

ATAPWD (10:46pm EST Sat Mar 15 2003) I see a lot of talk about Passwords for Travelstar harddisks. What has happened is that you have a "User" password set on the harddisk. If you search for a tool called "ATAPWD.ZIP" you can find it on Goggle, this will let you format the disk if you have the master password. However I have never found out any Master passwords for Travelstar disks. Anyone work @ ibm and know how to find out what the master password is for a travelstar disk? But for admins, ATAPWD is also very usefull since you can SET the master password and prevent password loss again in the future (since you can unlock a disk if you know the master password!).. - by Peter

IMB 600X cmos password....PLEASE HELP!!! (8:11am EST Mon Mar 17 2003) I bought a laptop (IBM 600X) by working hard and saving money.the guy who sold me did not mention about Cmos password. Now i can't use the system and i can't even find the guy who sold me.... please help................. My email add: sarveenj@hotmail.com - by samuel

MAC Firewire (2:18am EST Sun Mar 23 2003) MAC Firewire will not unlock IBM locked hardrives as previously reported. I have tried to no avail. I tried with Mac os9&10. The Mac will not even recognize the drive. Therfore you cannot format it. This is an engenious lock! - by Rasputin

Problems (11:46am EST Sun Mar 23 2003) I have a Thinkpad 760el that is giving me a lot of trouble. For some reason every time I start it up it suspends and for some reason I can't get it out of suspension. I tried putting my hard drive in a friend's computer to work on it but I don't know the HD password and I can't get a hold of the person I bought it from. Can anyone help me? - by Person needing help

T32 problem (10:55pm EST Sun Mar 23 2003) I've bought a T32 Thinkpad for $ 1200 on ebay but there is a Supervisor Password and I can't use it. Does Joe's interface works on this model ? CAn someone assemble it ? (I can pay him, but not too much, consider I've already paid $1200 for an expensive box with IBM written on it...) Is there another way ? (dongle or something like this, ..) to find the Supervisor Password ? I live in Belgium. Many thanks for any answers !! techfinder@netcourrier.Com - by techi

re: device to unlock hard disks (6:15pm EST Wed Mar 26 2003) yes Rick, this baby does work. i know someone who uses one of these vogon hand held things at work and it unlocks all hard drives he has tried, just push the locked drive in, press a button wait about 10 mins and it comes out unlocked dont know how much it cost though. probably alot - by tech support guy

Compaq Armada E500 (11:00am EST Fri Mar 28 2003) Crack password bios Compaq Armada E500?? Pls!!! - by deluxe@rol.ru

errors 161 163 (4:33pm EST Tue Apr 01 2003) Wow seems to be allotting on this subject here well all I to am stuck with a TP 600e with the dang 161 163 errors. I got mine by pulling the laptop apart to repair the power plug on the back of the unit (what a job I might add) well its all back in one peace and now I get the errors funny thing is there where no passwords set on this unit to start with so why I cant get into the bios is beyond me. One would think that if there was no passwords to begin with then there shouldn’t be any after you put it back together. I have tried most of the so called fixes on this page other then building the reader seeing I don't really think I could build one if I tried. But I do have a really large hammer that just might work (evil Laugh). Anyways anyone know if there is some sort of utility disk to clear the sup password if any because I can't IBM replacing the main boards just to clear a password or after repairing the laptop (I have noticed the floppy dose try to read before the system displays the error codes and then stops with the error codes and the little manual page) - by Jim from Canada

errors 161 163 (9:21pm EST Tue Apr 01 2003) Update seems that the harddrive is locked allso so im thinking if there is someway to pull the password off it i can unlock this dang computer anyone have any ideas please email me at js-computers@shaw.ca thanks in advance :) - by Jim from Canada

By George, I Think I've Got It! (1:08am EST Wed Apr 02 2003) Have just built a contraption to unlock hard drives! Got some insider info. on drive electronics, thanks 'stoolie'. :) Need a drive to test it on. If you got one collecting dust... - by Gandolf

Re: By George, I Think I've Got It! (1:31am EST Wed Apr 02 2003) now that all depends on where you are lol i could make you lots just by plugging them into this locked IBM POS lol - by Bob the lurker

IBM Thinkpad 390E Problem (9:31am EST Wed Apr 02 2003) Do you have any suggestions or solutions . canyou send me this free ware as sson as possible i am in afix I have an IBM 390E laptop . Now intially the problem was when you power-up the power-on password emerges. So at the time I thought it was a mulfunction because there was no set poer-on password set on the Thinkpad because the laptop could still boot by you press CRTL+ALT+DEL. So I decided to upgrade the BIOS with the latest version I followed the instructions to the letter,except getting rid of the power-on password which was an error to me anyway. So after the BIOS upgrade it started up fine thrice so I left the laptop to the owner knowing it is fine. No to my surprise the following day I was called ,being told that now it has any Icon of a HDD & a lock with a number one symbol which translates to HDD password one installed on the PC. Now my client is telling me that she didn't do a thinng like setting the Password and would rather I reverse the whole process. No I am in a fix because even the CRTL+ALT+DEL can not go through. Do you have an Idea of who can help and what should I do . now that you are having a similar Laptop like mine. I thank you in advance and please forward my request to GEEK.com I don't have the email address. Thanks in advance. Can you help me and what do you think of this microwave stuff releasing alll password. P/S can I try this hotswapp thing on my laptop please let me know Regards Joseph EmAIL: joseoluoch@yahoo.com - by Joseph Oluoch

Re: IBM Thinkpad 390E Problem (1:13pm EST Thu Apr 03 2003) Joseph - I would suggest that you contact a professional data recovery company if your client has important data on the hard drive. Messing about with hotswaps and other methods to remove passwords is fine if it's an old laptop that belongs to you, but if it is someone elses it's worth paying a professional to make sure the data is safe. Try these guys, I have used them myself. Don't know where you are located but they have offices in the US and UK aswell as other countries: http://www.vogon-international.com UK phone: 01869 355255 Good luck! mickbrown@mail.com - by Mick Brown

Locked Hard Drive (9:52am EST Sun Apr 06 2003) Bob, That would be Ontario, Canada Eh! Anybody got any locked drives in Canada or US??? Willing to purchase from you! - by Gandalf

unlocking lockd hard drives (7:32pm EST Wed Apr 09 2003) hello every one i have read through this forum and i have found a sloution to one of your problem. well you can unlcock locked hard drive by connectting the hard drive to a mac computer and the run the hard drive unlocker that i created wich would make the hard drive usable. if any of you would like the program im happy to give just send me an e-mail to hydro_____@hotmail.com - by hydro

unlocking lockd hard drives (9:55am EST Fri Apr 11 2003) hi you guys i put the post above i noticed that i got a lot of e-mails so i decided to put a little website just click here to download the hard drive unlocker http://www10.brinkster.com/halilkis a - by hydro

Searching for so. who can build Jo's Interface (9:38am EST Mon Apr 14 2003) Hello everyone, if theres s.o. who has an working Interface here in Germany or Europe and is willing to build one for me plz. contact me at : lost_angel@lycos.de thanx. spacy - by spacy

unlocking hard drives by hydro (4:21pm EST Wed Apr 16 2003) don't bother downloading hydro's program as it is a virus. - by bobby

hydro's virus (4:28pm EST Wed Apr 16 2003) yes it is a virus. be warned. - by trio

HDD PW (4:44pm EST Fri Apr 18 2003) where can you purchase the Vogon tool? - by FU

Primary password for dell latitude (12:37am EST Sat Apr 19 2003) Hi, I have a dell latitude cpx and I have forgotten my primary password within the bios setup. Can anyone help! Thank you - by sandro

Thinkpad 600x error list on boot (2:33pm EST Sun Apr 20 2003) Hi, Hope some people will be able to redirect me to website or info on how to fix those problem... Error when booting a TP 600x 00178 00193 00194 00188 00188 i only want to fix a notebook for a family member... so any info will be very useful (cyberblue22@hotmail.com for info if possible:) ) - by Matt

TP 600e hard disk password (11:38am EST Mon Apr 28 2003) So after reading all this Im none the wiser to be quite honest. So is there someone that will and can remove the hard drive password without destroying the data. I've seen the posts from Nick Allsop but my email gets returned undelivered. Thanks for any help - by Jim

Joe's file (5:02pm EST Mon Apr 28 2003) I can decrypt the hash file if you want to send it to me. Just e-mail the file to wavehelp@attbi.com Ill e-mail it back in a few hrs. - by hero nagi

Joe's Interface - Quick Question (11:56am EST Wed Apr 30 2003) I'm nearly done making this thing, but i'm looking at the schematic and there is one thing i do not understand. Why is it that when looking at the 24RF08 EEPROM chip schematic, it says only three wires are supposed to be connected (SDA, SCL, and GRD), but yet it has the PROT, WP, and VCC pins wired as splices from the VCC cable? Furthermore, am I supposed to splice the GND cable, and have the splice go to the GND pin, while the original wire continues to be connected to the VCC wire via the 0.1uF capacitor? Also, the CLK wire going from the device to the EEPROM chip... do we actually do anything with that wire, or just leave it hanging there for no reason? ALL of these just seem a bit unusual. I've tried to find the answer using pictures from his website, but they arn't much help. Thanks in advance for offering your assistance. - by Bruce

re: think pad...... (11:57pm EST Tue May 06 2003) ive taken the time to read all posts...and my sum is that it is not a world of sharing! anyone who has or proclaims to have a solution to remove admin pass. want's money ....seems like one big buiss. Or Bull Sh#t where have all the sites went who just want to help???? - by Voltageman

Re: unlocking lockd hard drives (5:27am EST Wed May 07 2003) Why is Norton Seeing This AS a VIRUS??? - by CONCERNED

Re Concerned (9:19am EST Wed May 07 2003) That's probably because there are quite a few lamers who think it's funny to make out they have a 'magic' utility to remove passwords but instead want to spread a virus. The only utility I have ever found of use on this forum was Nick Allsop's HDDSEC utility (was available from Joe's website once) which basically told you if your drive was actually locked or not. All the other suggested utilities turned out to be useless. - by Sorry.

IBM Dropped $ of supervisor password!! (10:32pm EST Tue May 13 2003) Hi every one, after spending more than an hour reading this forum i began to get really fusterated. i couldnt believe that ibm would not offer any assistance to someone who would lost their password. for arguments sake i went out and bought a nice new ibm t23, i then put a SVP on the laptop. i called ibm and they said the regular BS that was said previously on the forum. when i sent it over to ibm they sent me a repair bill of 49.95 to only wipe out the SVP and restore all settings to their default. i hope this helps *talk to a REP named Christian Sanchez - by Chris Laperiss

RE: IBM Dropped $ ... (8:49pm EST Wed May 14 2003) Did you get some kind of warrenty on the laptop ahead of time, and if so, what kind? Perhaps they are only willing to do this within the first 90 days after the purchase of the laptop. When you initially talked to them, did they give you a quote before you sent the laptop in? Curiosity killed this cat. - by Emily

Selling Joe's Interface (4:25am EST Fri May 16 2003) I've made and used Joe's interface, and now I don't really have a need for it. I'll sell, along with everything else you need (including soldering iron, additional wires, and extra diodes, caps, solder, etc) for $30 to the first person who e-mails me and says they are interested. It cost me well over $50 to get the parts for this device, so you're getting a deal for an already put together interface, and everything you need to make Joe's KM6.bin file within 15 mins of getting it. eliot1864@hotmail.com e-mail me to let me know and i'll tell you my paypal address. I'm more than 20 verified paypal, so no worries, you'll get what you pay for. - by Eliot

harddisk unlocking (2:09pm EST Mon May 26 2003) No one unlocked a drive here? Seems to me that over the years someone wrote a little program that works. I'm just a beginner. - by cabbie

error 301 (7:21am EST Mon Jun 02 2003) can any one advise me what error 301 in thinkpad 760ed means and how to solve this problem - by sami

Decode 24c01dump (2:32pm EST Mon Jun 02 2003) Hi there, I am doing a research and would like anyone to decode the dump of 24c01 eeprom. Thanks and regards, Part 1: :10000000B81209B7AC5606F9D82A247D87 DE1DBC84 :1000100022D2F0D20A18B3C9069DD7F2AB 96EA8F66 :100020009004262C33BDBEA3C33727F0D1 2009F19D :10003000111808770B74CB0AA1D3525A30 14438796 :10004000A7D709ECDD8A399F62B14CE45A 1CBED9AE :1000500030CA849929683C18C3FA57A412 D7E6BB62 :100060005F7CC4B30DEF1F80FDAB5488FD 660018A4 :10007000791AF3C80A8294AF9C23D1A10F BE4735E9 :10008000D2E928DEC4FF8327402DABC9A8 03FBECCF :10009000CFC971AF36266CB9A4337EFF94 CB40CF65 :1000A00010FCD218496B0B13AE2242C093 5420218E :1000B0004F5C5E9F896315E3E0BA59CA05 D1403AA7 :1000C000CA1FB0FE37EE9AA231ADD2B051 74D6BD80 :1000D000354B3A71C27B6EC637401BB26A D1D1C76D :1000E000A9F2A0EBFC7A7DBDE4ADD14F95 E523F0FC :1000F00045896420906A007C805C996350 E58205A4 :10010000418B346B6865523D4BC9EE388B F4A8B215 :10011000D45495A14FDFAB65D8A62DBAB6 DD89A220 :10012000024E8BCE4B8936B0483E4ACF37 A3432E82 :100130001120294A331C9DEAD84952CB38 FACB53B7 :1001400085997AA8D7B3858C9B4A23FD3A C8F91BB9 :1001500053681A54FFDD7432A9B1CCAB18 9EAC5F62 :1001600083858134AF9EC44CA67A4FE6DC BE669789 :10017000273C4FF02C23CAF0CAE7752C5C D56C4C99 :10018000416C41799D933BBAE7B1D5E41B D410474C :100190003C3346A232A0F9722821315A5A B115FED9 :1001A0004674521514D82CC9CF3E04801A C7E20FEA :1001B000CA328574EF0C87B7041A06B145 28A6E148 :1001C000E47DBD214D31A23E0E278B9011 ADD13C77 :1001D000304B77BB1D5E00C5E12BADEA6E 0EAC4E19 :1001E000852D6B940D67ACA7E3DE5F6C79 40BF0291 :1001F000C2E322C075CAAD771EA4E4CDDF 0DA244D0 :10020000E498807CE7583DDD725578A40A 705A2244 :100210007DBE386FA89B6ADBADDBAF48E5 B1E786F2 :1002200005E95A321778120D135837378C 3E46F1CC - by LuckyBoy

Continued (2:33pm EST Mon Jun 02 2003) :10023000D1336CB239AC2002C8C899A12A 9FCD7EB7 :10024000CCF54405663FF6D0734300EB63 C4E33955 :100250004BE51BD2B0EC156D20661BBB5B 9C618C23 :10026000613D6D5439F1D7255D18D2C5BF A15B52F0 :10027000163B65E408D2E451C52DFED9B0 6B3CF2C3 :1002800025434017550127C15BF89416C0 F587E157 :10029000431A59F3D8CB7E1CF242B9D7DB 9DC2A7D3 :1002A000AEFDA94E12A03E8A0169BCC88A 11521443 :1002B000D5DAFDCAD55D07F249AD74E8D4 CD311E5B :1002C0004FCF1BF6E394A6645E9B773554 25B2D4DA :1002D000D2C4E05A5F6D4D2CAC3061DEE3 0412D223 :1002E00043417B90824D87FF34AC84B26C 591DB280 :1002F000786B7230D7824D787101F99A62 B92E59B4 :10030000EDF84E65DE3B52F0F237CE9112 BBCAB328 :1003100091CA2A3BFD8A64BA0B172E3CFE BF0553D7 :100320007792D82279EB796CEE66A2EEF3 3D66D631 :10033000F1ED72EFA64579F58D781B5CE7 71D40479 :10034000E3AC383BC4BB886BE38FE754A2 2446F68A :100350000C210598C8A0C55410B4DBD7A1 C7667B93 :100360001A023BF22A066E8D2C69FEB094 B78AB849 :100370004CC93DCD495F0247B1094E31E0 9A39720F :10038000B5863F2E0B42B6ED50D407AAF9 4836A8E1 :1003900023B0BB6E74619CBA8503376CD6 F5ABDCB9 :1003A00087A223AA573ABA78D8043DBA8D 2447B811 :1003B000943B2E2B145D4CF1975241CF72 7EBD7948 :1003C0003FD46AE408F89EF06381ACEDB4 91D5B8EF :1003D00020FEA9921D08FF7174B6EFFE10 A0CD7C1F :1003E000BFBFFFBC735388E7C5DE128330 289D4E24 :1003F000C937E3487004AFC4003D589A5F 3C398761 :10040000D526CF42BF0E67EFA2D2646FEC 3F354ACC :100410005098E9299365DED80B916B2701 DDA4B5CF :100420000FAB7CC0A092F30F21DB01EEE6 AE000C17 :00000001FF - by LuckyBoy

More detail (2:36pm EST Mon Jun 02 2003) Meant to say could anyone find the supervisor password inside? Thanks!!! More info pls contact me at phulv2311@yahoo.com - by LuckyBoy

Correct eeprom model (2:35am EST Tue Jun 03 2003) Please refer the above eeprom as 93c46, not 24c01. - by LuckyBoy

Successfully Removed 390X Bios Password (2:17pm EST Tue Jun 03 2003) I was locked out of my notebook after updating various device drivers from IBM's website. WARNING! Be very careful when installing the "Bios Update" file. All the other driver updates for Windows 98 (modem, monitor, etc.) works great. Follow the instructions authored by "Ray of Bandung" very carefully. To reiterate, short the SDA pin of the Atmel prom which is located at the upper left corner of the system board. As you look down at the prom, the SDA is the bottom left pin. I was able to perform this without soldering. You see, I had great sex yesterday afternoon. My body is calm and relax. I was able to apply a very steady hand. Anyway. Many thanks Ray of Bandung. - by One Happy Puppy

Ibm Travelstar 30G From Ace Laptop (2:15pm EST Thu Jun 05 2003) I got password protected Ibm Travelstar 30G HD from my friend who recently bought second-hand Acer laptop with this protected HD. He replaced HD to a new 20G HD and sell me above disk for 50 $CA. I read all above posts relating those disks to IBM Tthinkpad laptops. But mine came from Acer. I experience the same problems as others and have no access to HD. I'v put it as a socond HD with adaptor on my desktop computer and tryed various low level format programs, but ALL of them report "can't access - drive password protected". As you can understand I don't need the data on the HD, I wish just format it and use with 2.5" USB2 external box as a data transfer disk (I already have one, 20G IBM 2.5" HD working in mentioned USB2 external box with 42MByte/sec transfer rate and I very happy with). I don't intend even to boot from. Again, I have nothing to do with IBM thinkpads, this HD comes from Acer TravelMate sub-notebook. Have somebody idea how can I unlock this HD from the password? - by Meridian

acer laptop (8:42am EST Fri Jun 06 2003) i ahve the same problem i have an acer laptop and some stupid kid has put a hard drvie password on there i am in the process of finding out how to get rid of it,, i will let you know if i get it sorted please vice verser if u get it sdorted please let me know, tracey@ninestiles.bham.sch.uk Thanks - by prittybird2uk

harddrive (9:00am EST Fri Jun 06 2003) also my laptop is still under warrenty, does anyone know how i can kill my hard drive so it isnt detected in the bios also while no damage is done to it, so i can get it replaced thanks - by prittybird2uk

Thinkpad T23 (12:03am EST Thu Jun 12 2003) Hi Dude, i have a problem with my laptop, the computer work ok, but a friend of mine put a supervisor password on it and he dont want to give me the !@#$ password and i can't change system setup ... i need help .... what can i do ? jaxtor@yahoo.com - by Jaxtor

760 ed (8:07am EST Sat Jun 14 2003) hi have been able to run software on a passworded 760 ed after taking harddrive out and running an early version of DOS I have been able to get into the command prompt. any later versions of DOS and the laptop just powers down before i can do anything. from this point i have tried cracking software (BRUTEFORCE Method) but this takes ages offers thousands of pass codes of which none have worked Yet. i'm not sure this is the right software to be using can anybody suggest a way of getting the password from this point please email david.hayes3@ntlworld.com if anyone can help. hope this gives a little hope to people DOS 5 actualy gets you into the prompt, somebody must be able to do somethimg from this point - by Dai Boy

passworded HDD (2:31pm EST Mon Jun 16 2003) i have tried reading the harddisk hooked upto my PC but can only see the drive information using third party software . if anyone knows of any software that i could see the password please let me know other than that my colleague tells me i need a servo writer. but according to Nick allsop earlier in the forum board said he could read the password straight off the harddisk. on another note where by on the eeprom dump is the password stored. any help would be appreciated either post message on forum or email david.hayes3@ntlworld.com - by Dai Boy

Hack the Damn Bios Already.. (2:09pm EST Tue Jun 17 2003) Is this a direct enough hint? - by Ex-Emplyee

RE: 760ED - OR HARD DISK password removal (6:15pm EST Wed Jun 18 2003) If you can get a prompt, then I assume you can also run a floppy disk. If you can, then there may be a solution to the elusive HDD password. Assuming the password is actually written on the HDD somewhere, and not stored in the hardware in a chip or something, then here's the possible solution. A long while back, when buying a New Hard Drive, i got a disk along with it. This was back in the day, with Win 3.1. The disk contained software that could COMPLETELY zero out EVERY SECTOR/ EVERY BLOCK of the HDD. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but this software (if it can be found) could DEFINATLY be used to clear out a HDD password (if stored on the HDD itself). My guess would be that a password would be stored at the very beginning of the disk, and it is possible (however unlikely) that you can zero out just the password with this software. Let me know what all of you think about this idea. If you think it could work, i may actually make an effort to find the disk. - by Elusive

Ex-Emplyee (6:00am EST Thu Jun 19 2003) R u talking about the harddisk bios or motherboard have tried brute force attacks on motherboard eeprom without a good result. i did read on a forum once that you could hack the bios on the hard drive but don't know how to do it, any help would be appriciated, will also have a look at the software Elusive is on about above. please anyone feel free to email me if you do not want to post info on this forum. Email david.hayes3@ntlworld.com ps yes i do use antivirus for any pranksters - by Dai Boy

Selling Joe's Interface (2:01am EST Fri Jun 27 2003) I have built Joe's Interface for use with my own ThinkPad, and have since sold that interface, as well as 4 others, to people via ebay, or directly through e-mail. I first suggest you look on ebay for my interfaces (search for ibm thinkpad password removal). If you do not see any listings, than e-mail me and I will build an interface for you. I charge $50 for the parts and labor, and $5 for shipping within US, more for other countries. It would cost you just as much to build the interface yourself, if not more. So i'm really offering a deal here. I guarentee you will get what you pay for. If you are interested, send me an e-mail at eliot1864@hotmail.com and we can work something out. DO NOT send payments to that address via paypal. - by Eliot1864

Hard Disk Password (5:23am EST Fri Jun 27 2003) The ATA compliant hard drive which supports security features (i.e. HDD password) stores the password (which can be up to 32 bytes long) in a HIDDEN area of the disk platters. Therefore any utility that simply wipes or zeroes out sectors on the disk WILL NOT succeed in removing the password. In fact when a drive is locked, no access (either read or write) to the DATA area of the platters is possible. In order to regain access to the DATA area, you need to send the ATA UNLOCK command along with the correct password to the drive on the ATA/IDE bus. Therefore please do not be fooled into thinking that any disk cleaner utility or sector wipe utility will remove a password from an ATA security-locked drive. It will not. - by Mark Amie

harddisk password (1:44pm EST Tue Jul 01 2003) then can you suggest utility that will unlock the password or erase the password - by anon

Need help with my a20m (10:05am EST Mon Jul 14 2003) Hi, hope you guys can help me, i bought a second hand a20m thinkpad, i was messing around with the cmos battery(the yellow one) and the laptop got locked, luckily the hard disk isn't locked but the motherboard is. I went to IBM and they said i need a new motherboard... they said it'll cost me 400$ ( the laptop cost me 600$, therefore i don't think it's worth it)... I heard that it's easy to unlock the motherboard so for all of those who were able to do it please help... Thanks in advance to all those who help. - by Mouhahaha

To contact me (9:09am EST Tue Jul 15 2003) if anyone can help me, send me an email at consulting1020@hotmail.com , thanks. - by Mouhahaha

wanna help you all (5:28am EST Fri Jul 25 2003) hi i have recently unlocked many ibm thinkpad laptops and im willing to share the information if any one wants to buy it. im going to open a website in two weeks for this reason if any of you cant wait then e-mail me with your location, name and wich model laptop you have or if its a hard drive you wanna unlock put tha make name and model number if it has one.(but please only send me an e-mail if your ready to buy the info on how to unlock your laptop and i dont give free info as i had to pay for most of it myself) my e-mail is master_277@hotmail.com - by just wanna help most

how can i receive my IBM Thinkpad supervisor password (6:05am EST Wed Jul 30 2003) how can i do that? can i not anywhere buy a plug tool or something like that...... - by geht dich nix an

master_277 (9:02am EST Thu Aug 07 2003) have read the above and emailed master_277 however he has not replied if you have not recieved my emails could you contact me at david.hayes3@ntlworld.com i will pay for genuine info also you said you were opening a Website could u please email me the address or post it on this forum thankyou - by DaiBoy

Hardware viewpoint (5:12am EST Fri Aug 08 2003) The drive its self reads the data on the drive to its controler then sets the operating mode(operate or locked)it should be possible to read this data With some sort of direct hardware connection. Alternitive to set controler to unlocked mode. In any case it is clear that this feature does not stop someone determined to recover data from a drive if prepared to hack the hardware. It can only frustrate users who dont have the time and money to spend. A real negitive value for most users! - by Altotus

interesting predicament (5:40pm EST Sat Aug 23 2003) i have a tp600x with the 12G travelstar drive. i want to upgrade the drive, but don't know the supervisor passwd - i do have the pop, so that when i enter it, i have access to the drive as it stands right now. it is a failing drive, so if anyone knows how to get the passwd off the drive WHICH IS UNLOCKED, but w/out the hd passwd, that would be useful! not, since TPs have the supervisor and HD password identical, getting the passwd off the drive would make upgrading it simple cause i'd have the super passwd too. please email info at anuj@udaku.com thanks! ~A - by anuj

I have the password (4:19pm EST Sun Aug 31 2003) My case is more simple: I have got my password for my HD IBM travelstar 12gn. I want just to move it from a died dell latitude that I won´t repair( no $$ ) to a desktop. How can I do this simple thing? The desktop PC does not want to read from it. - by Michela

a20m beast (12:07am EST Thu Sep 04 2003) Hello yall, i to have a TP a20m ive reset cmos now my supervisor password has locked me out. Ive read this entire pile of information and the best option i see is "removing the hard drive" (while booting). Gunna give it a go now, wish me luck. - by elee from england

Help (9:27am EST Thu Sep 04 2003) Could some one plz i just really wont to know somthing do you know when you have the bin file etc from your eeprom. Whats the next step is it just a case of pulling it up in a edit such as mplab or is it a bit more complex thanks for your help - by dandare2020

Hard drive (6:40am EST Mon Sep 08 2003) can anyone suggest a utility or method to read a password off an ibm drive taken from a IBM 760ed. have been told this cannot be done but have seen many companies offering this service. - by Annon

Suppervisor Password for 600E (3:47am EST Mon Sep 15 2003) I would need some help on resetting the suppervisor password and maybe the hdd password for an IBM Thinkpad 600E. If there is any universal method and I dont know it, please email me. raduc@tacomail.com - by RaduC

IBM Travelstars (6:11pm EST Thu Sep 18 2003) There is a fix to remove the hdu lock off the hard drive. It simply involves installing the hdu into an Amiga computer. This machine doesnt conform to the ata specs which include freeze and hdlock, therefore you can wipe the disk with the amiga format prog and then reinstall it back to your laptop and rebuild it using xp etc. - by fozzy

Verification... (3:05am EST Tue Sep 23 2003) Anyone test out "fozzy's" method above this message? If so, please post and let me know if it works, as if so, I will soon be buying an Amiga Computer. Also, please let me know if it works for laptops and/or desktops.. Thanks! - by eliot1864

Interface (3:05pm EST Sun Sep 28 2003) Is there a reader that I can just connect to a locked thinkpad without opening it up? - by IHateIBM

Removal of Thinkpad 390x supervisor password (6:29pm EST Wed Oct 15 2003) If U have a supervisor password ative on U'r Thinkpad 390x just do as Ray of Bandung wrote on the subject, search for 7:41am EST Mon Sep 09 2002 on this page. Note: I also did this without soldering as One Happy Puppy search for 2:17pm EST Tue Jun 03 2003. A great THANK U to Ray of Bandung for sharing his knowlege with us. I'd hope U (Ray of Bandung)get that HDD password fixed and share U'r discovery with us. ravant@hotmail.com If U send a mail my way subject must be www.geek.com - by Ravant Black

HAS ANYONE DONE IT YET (2:28pm EST Mon Oct 27 2003) I read through this forum and just wanted to know if anyone has actually found a way to unlock the HDD password. I have the problem with a Dell Inspiron 2650. A girl I know sold me this laptop her Mom bought for her and is now nowhere to be found. I know both of their names and their address but don't know the address the computer was mailed to, so now Dell won't give me the password. This means that I spent money on a useless laptop. SUCKS - by PASSWORDLESS

t20 locked (12:36pm EST Wed Nov 12 2003) i need this unlocked before i get the sack. it has a supervisor password. any help apart from the above would be great. - by masterofzens

THE BIG SOLUTION (12:17am EST Sun Nov 16 2003) i have the big solution to all of your problems i have read this whole section and have the solution email me and ill give you the solution to getting the supervisor password and the HD password. Just E-mail me at sthsctts14@aol.com - by johnny

shutup (1:41am EST Fri Nov 21 2003) shutup all of you none of you know the real solution but Joe - by ???????

superivisor password (6:31am EST Sat Nov 22 2003) I did it the same way as ray of bandung suggested and was able to set the time/date in bios afterwards. But the supervisor password seems still be there. If I go into the bios some options like password change and boot sequence are grayed out ... and I'm still asked for a password, whenn i press f1 to go into bios - but just hitting enter will do. So, I assume that by shorting sda just the bios is faked but the supervisor password remains in the chip. One advantage does this method have, you can work wiht the laptop if jou had to change the bios battery and then locked out doe to the invalid time/date in the bios. I did it on a tp600. - by xxgman

supervisor password (7:02am EST Sat Nov 22 2003) another thought: if the bios can read the security chip, a small program executed on that laptop, should be able to do it also, e.g. by using the same instuctions as the bios does during power up. This would help in cases, when the laptop is still operational but the supervisor password is unknown. - by xxgman

CRC problems (8:54am EST Sat Nov 22 2003) Dear Joe, i respect your hard work for recovering passwords and stuff. But could you just release a free crc repair kit? I understand if you want earn some money, when people mess up with your kit and produce CRC errors, but there are also other probs that cause this CRC errors, and it would be great to have FREE possibility to correct them. - by Bligh

goodpoint xxgman (8:55am EST Sun Nov 23 2003) on that point, is it possible to run a program before the supervisor password kicks in on a T20. I was also thinking of hacking the bios so it ignores the supervisor password completely. Any thoughts on this techno people? - by MasterofZens

good point xxgman (8:58am EST Sun Nov 23 2003) on that point, is it possible to run a program before the supervisor password kicks in on a T20. I was also thinking of hacking the bios so it ignores the supervisor password completely. Any thoughts on this techno people? - by masterofzens

supervisory passwords (6:22pm EST Tue Nov 25 2003) I have found the easiest way to remove a supervisory password on any Thinkpad is to simply swap out the password chip. Works everytime for me. Their available on eBay. - by Evan

can anyone confirm (11:20am EST Thu Nov 27 2003) I have heard by putting a blank password chip in the laptop doesnt work. With all due respect Evan, you could be the one selling them!!! I need some tech. backup on this anyone!! I'm confused on this issue, as many people have came up with ideas, 90% percent just dont work. Joe from australia demands money, people sell the blank chip etc etc. This is doing me head in! - by masterofzen

next supervisor solution (4:30pm EST Sun Nov 30 2003) Hello I'd like to present next password solution for anybody from central-east Europe , I am from Poland. On this site is the solution of unlock supervisor pass from almost any models of laptops. Of course if the HDD is locked I can retrive password from IBM or Dell laptop.All costs for IBM is equal of any currency of 50-75$ , other manufacturer are chiper, including disasemmbling and assembling laptop. remzibi1.republika.pl email: remzibi1@poczta.onet.pl - by remzibi

Default pasword for IBM's and Compaq (3:59pm EST Thu Dec 04 2003) there is a guy that claims that there is a default password for IBM's and Compaq and he'll give it for 250 US ??????????????? - by new guy

Ibm Default Password (8:55am EST Fri Dec 05 2003) if a default password exists How then does IBM know nothing about it and changes the motherboard to get around the supervisor password. on the other had i would like to think there is a master password to give me some hope in this problem we all share. Any thoughts please share them with this forum - by DaiBoy

efault pasword for IBM's and Compaq (2:50pm EST Fri Dec 05 2003) Anyone heard of this guy:Khurram Munawar he says that he has the default password - by new guy

770 Thinkpad (9:32pm EST Sat Dec 06 2003) I cannot get the thing to charge, I know I can buy a replacement board but how do I get the thing apart? Can someone please help? I am new to laptops and haven't a clue how to open it to replace parts. logarian@yahoo.com - by Log

MONEY for PASSWORD (6:58am EST Mon Dec 08 2003) I am prepared to pay anyone who has the know-how and technology that can open IBM passwords through a software program or a hardware device that will avoid having to change a chip. Anyone possessing such knowledge who will contact me will find it very rewarding. JACOB SHUSHU8@NETVISION.NET.IL - by JACOB

IBM Thinkpad 600e 2645 (9:40am EST Thu Dec 18 2003) 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.. ERROR 00161 00163 then i cant do anything it just has the error page and i have to restart the computer.. can anyone tell me how I can fix this problem... you can email me erdalkarabulut@yahoo.com thanx - by Martin - by Martin - by erdal

Error 161 163 (8:20pm EST Thu Dec 18 2003) The error your getting is a date and time error. The cmos battery in your laptop is dead. Its located under the memory cover. You can either replace it or you'll have to set the time and date everytime you power up the computer. - by Evan

Cracking Joes Bin files (5:33am EST Fri Dec 19 2003) emm is anyone actually capable of cracking joes bin files ? i emailed every single one of the people who said they were able to do it... and got no response at all... did joe mail bomb them or somethin ? if anyone can crack it, can you teach me how on the forum, thanks... - by newb

Thanks Ads (12:59am EST Fri Dec 26 2003) Ads, thanks to your post I just recover my Thinkpad 600 supervisor password and since my hard drive password is the same. I got it unlock too. - by Tom

REMOVING thinkpad 390e BIOS password (1:41am EST Mon Dec 29 2003) 1. remove hd 2. remove backup battery 3. remove baterry 4. remove bundle of CD & floppy drives remove all screws, remove keyboard( go easy on the 3 conectors under the keyboard ), remove heat base under kboard, remove "thing" on the right of the pc next to the cd drive used to go, then you will see a switch on the motherboard ( SW1 ) conect power cable, then move from position ( 1 to 0, 0 to 1 ) the four little switches in the SW1 panel, power the laptop on, then turn of removing power cable, then put back in the ORIGINAL mode the four little switches ( 0 to 1, etc ), then just wrap everything up the way it was, put "thing" on the right of the pc next to the cd drive used to go, put heat cover again, put ALL screws, put kboard obviously conecting the 3 little conectors under this one, put back hd, battery, backup battery, and you're done !!, then just power on the pc, enter bios setup to verify the password is gone for sure, and thats all, . about the HARD DISK password, im still working on it, cause my clients laptop had BIOS password ( the one i just removed using this method ) and Hard Disk password, ( the one im looking for ) if u know how to dump the HD password, please drop a line to xpc23@hotmail.com, good luck! - by lucas23

remove BIOS pwd from TP 390e (1:42am EST Mon Dec 29 2003) 1. remove hd 2. remove backup battery 3. remove baterry 4. remove bundle of CD & floppy drives remove all screws, remove keyboard( go easy on the 3 conectors under the keyboard ), remove heat base under kboard, remove "thing" on the right of the pc next to the cd drive used to go, then you will see a switch on the motherboard ( SW1 ) conect power cable, then move from position ( 1 to 0, 0 to 1 ) the four little switches in the SW1 panel, power the laptop on, then turn of removing power cable, then put back in the ORIGINAL mode the four little switches ( 0 to 1, etc ), then just wrap everything up the way it was, put "thing" on the right of the pc next to the cd drive used to go, put heat cover again, put ALL screws, put kboard obviously conecting the 3 little conectors under this one, put back hd, battery, backup battery, and you're done !!, then just power on the pc, enter bios setup to verify the password is gone for sure, and thats all, . about the HARD DISK password, im still working on it, cause my clients laptop had BIOS password ( the one i just removed using this method ) and Hard Disk password, ( the one im looking for ) if u know how to dump the HD password, please drop a line to xpc23@hotmail.com, good luck! - by luke23

To joe in australia (8:51pm EST Wed Dec 31 2003) I have tp390 not 390e or 390x so the eeprom chip is 24c03 not 24c01 , I build the key maker interface and successfully detected on com1 port, than i carefully follow step by step with the instructions on your web page,finally when i press recover password it says "eeprom not responding" than i check connections on eeprom chip and km interface over and over again still no go.than i disconnect all the wires turn off thinkpad unplug the power,remove the battery pack,solder the red wire from interface to "vcc" pin on the eeprom chip,do the procedure over again,it does created a km6.bin file but the message from km software says:"no supervisor password detected or no password stored in eeprom,no hard disk password detected or no password stored in eeprom",and the bin file size only about 2k,i dont think this is good file.but i am 100% sure the thinkpad is supervisor password locked,because i did all the procedure step by step on your web page. Any help would be much appreciated. - by a guy

Removing TP390E Bios passwords (2:48am EST Fri Jan 09 2004) Hey Luke23 i tried it but it didnt work. Could you be more specific as to what switches to change on SW1 - by Mick

Some Help (3:14pm EST Tue Jan 13 2004) Hi there, I have worked on 100's of thinkpads and I don't profess to know everything but here is some help. On the Thinkpad 600 series the 16X errors simply transpire into needing a CMOS battery replacement. One means you time and date need to be set, of course you set it, but it have no CMOS battery to 'save' the time. So, you will set the time, reboot, it will say turn laptop off and on and then might act funky after that cause it needs a new CMOS battery. As the the Thinkpad T series (thorn in my ass) the Supervisor password is stored in the EEPROM chip. To date, I know of no way to remove it, short of removing the chip and replacing it. A reader may assist you in this but I don't know for sure. There may be soldering involved also on certain models. If your having problems with the T series just email me at taekwon@accesscomm.ca and i'll do what I can to help you out and I'll send you a PDF with all of the error codes and the maintainence manual. In return for my 1% of knowlege if someone knows how to reset the password on a T series email me and let me know. P.S. Toshibas were beautiful. There is a loop back type connector that plugs into the LPT port and you turn the laptop on and it removes the password. Go figure. - by DreadLoXXX

ibm (4:11pm EST Sat Jan 24 2004) There is a website which can tell u how to find user and harddrive passwords, i have used it and it works. - by graham

graham - whats the website? (9:36am EST Sun Jan 25 2004) Whats the website name ? :) p.s has anyone got any answers for supervisor password on t20. still need it unlocking. - by masterofzens

TP password (4:20pm EST Wed Jan 28 2004) What a stupid way to waste good hardware. I will understand the information must be secured but I never bought PC with timebom in it. Sometime I will forgot thinks and in this case it will mean to lose hardware ???? So stupid. - by ruisku

HDD Password (7:33am EST Mon Feb 02 2004) Looks like just a bunch of childish assholes with stolen ThinkPads.... - by Barry221

Ibm thinkpad 600e (3:41pm EST Mon Feb 02 2004) ray of bandung Thank you!!! it worked for me!! - by DJ

More ideas (10:47am EST Wed Feb 04 2004) OK, I have an IBM hard drive with the password. I never had the original laptop to begin with. I have been trying to get rid of the password on this drive. I have some suggestions that I am unable to try since I don't have the hardware to do it. 1. Hook it up through a USB enclosure. I don't have one, but they are so cheap that I am going to get one and try it our. I will post my results. 2. Hook the hard drive to a macintosh system and low level format it. I don't know how mac BIOSes behave so there might be some headway to be made there. If anyone out there has an IDE mac and is willing to stick an IBM drive with the password into it please e-mail me at paul@koala-tea.com and tell me what happened. - by Berezansky

Another IDEa (12:11pm EST Wed Feb 04 2004) Hook the drive to a RAID controller and low level format it. Use a laptop drive adapter to hook it up to standard IDE. - by Berezansky

magnets (10:41am EST Mon Feb 09 2004) putting magnets on my drive killed it entirely. it no longer powers on at all. i guess this is not the way to try to get rid of the password. - by n/a

I can ulock ibm thinkpads (2:30pm EST Wed Feb 11 2004) if you remove battery or short jumpers for unlock password , and still can't remove pass? just send me mail at jvela001@hotmail.com i can tell you for bit money how you can unlock any eeprom and decode the data and recovery the pass from supervisor or hdd of your thinkpad, i was unlock several thinkpads as 560x,600E,600ED,etc... PD.in spanish if possible. - by Jose Velasquez

HELP:dump of A20m (8:59am EST Thu Feb 19 2004) i forget the supervisor password. and need the dump of eeprom of A20m with no password or known password. can anybody do me a favor ? Thanks!! Thanks!! zhwill@etang.com - by good luck

lost admin password on dell cpi a (6:12pm EST Fri Feb 20 2004) well i havent seen anyone reply to any dells yet but ill ask any way of fixing the admin pass on a dell cpi a dell has a factory pass but the wont give it lol ok thanks please email me at trashpunkkid@yahoo.com if anyone can help thanks very much - by trash

POWER ON- PASSWORD (3:07pm EST Sun Feb 22 2004) I DO NOT HAVE MY POWER ON-PASSWORD ON A HEWLETT PACKARD VECTRA,WINDOWS 95 IS OLD BUT IT WHAS MY FATHER`S COMPUTER AND HE PASS AWAY.HE WHAS THE ONLY ONE THAT HAD THE PASSWORD. - by HECTOR

POWER ON- PASSWORD (3:11pm EST Sun Feb 22 2004) I DO NOT HAVE MY POWER ON-PASSWORD ON A HEWLETT PACKARD VECTRA,WINDOWS 95 IS OLD BUT IT WHAS MY FATHER`S COMPUTER AND HE PASS AWAY.HE WHAS THE ONLY ONE THAT HAD THE PASSWORD. E-MAIL ME AT MURPHYKIDD@OPTONLINE.NET - by HECTOR

READ..... (4:51pm EST Wed Feb 25 2004) Long time, no see...... There are 2 fundamental differences with IBM serial Eeproms (containing passwords) One is a 16 bit 93cxx (760 series) The others are 8 Bit Atmel 24C (most others) You need an 8 bit reader, or a 16 bit reader, depending on which chip. THERE IS NO CMOS BATTERY PULLING, BUTTON PRESSING, FUNKY CHICKEN DANCE WIERD ASS WAY OF DOING IT. Dick Smith Electronics (In Australia) make a kit you can build for the Atmel Eeeproms, or from memory, I built one from Ponyprog Website. FOR FUCKS SAKE STOP ASKING "CAN ANYONE SHOW ME HOW TO UNLOCK BLAH BLAH BLAH" ALL THE INFO IS HERE, IF YOU CAN'T READ OR UNDERSTAND HOW TO DO IT, PAY SOMEONE WHO CAN. For Dell CPIs etc, there is a backdoor password that Dell will supply if you fax them proof of purchase, your ID, a screenshot etc, it works, I have unlocked 2 Dell machines without turning a screw. Email Dell, and they will tell you exactly what you need to supply. SHEESH At least Tom can read! - by Ads

Password recovery (7:16am EST Mon Mar 01 2004) (01-03-2004)Guys - I have a thinkpad-600X and someone put a password on it without my knowledge.when I turn on my computer it's asking for a password -displaying a locked icon in black screen..can somebody pleeeeeees help me!!!!! Buttyboy04@hotmail.com - by butty

What hell, IBM BIOS Setup Utility? (6:12pm EST Fri Mar 05 2004) I was given an IBM thinkpad 390X by my brother-in-law. He's gone, and when I power up the damn thing a message at the bottm right hand corner reads Press F1 for IBM BIOS Setup Utility, and an icon that looks to me like a lock appears after a few seconds. can someone please let me know what I need to do. Thank you, anyone who can help!!! JaGar930@aol.com - by James

TRAVELSTAR SPECIFICATIONS (1:29pm EST Thu Mar 11 2004) This Master PAssword Revision Code is set by SEcurity Set Password command with the master password. And this revision code field is returned in the identify device command word 92. The valid revision codes are 0001h to FFFEh. The default value of Master Password Revision Code is FFFEh. Values 0000h and FFFFh are reserved. I got no idea what this means but I found it for the Travelstar 32GH/30GT/20GN hard disk drive specifications. I think you can use these codes to unlock or reset the passwords, I have more information on this email me with the subject TRAVELSTAR PASSWORD and I will send you the whole document (.pdf) or post on here asking for more information. It says if you use this however and high level security is set then you will NOT lose data, however if MAXIMUM security is set all data will be lost. - by mikey

Thinkpad password reset (7:22am EST Fri Mar 12 2004) For a TP 600 , possibly others, Remove the main battery from the laptop & look for a pair of pins which can be jumpered or a mini switch in a small recess of the battery compartment. Jumper the pins or toggle the switch, reinstall battery, power on, remove battery remove jumper or toggle switch to original position & reinstall battery. Voila. For hdd, install into a non-ibm laptop for unlimited password attempts as opposed to being locked out every 3 incorrect guesses. Look for signs of wear or dirty/clean keys on the ibm k/b, often narrows down the possible combinations as they are used every time the user boots. - by Try 1st b4 flaming

I KNOW ALL THE TRADE SECRETS (4:45am EST Mon Mar 15 2004) Hey, mister IBM Employee. It's a little complicated, but here goes. To get the the supervisor password for any thinkpad past model 760, the procedure is as follows: -first build a small component that connects to the serial port on two computers. (email me for the wiring diagram, it's simple) -configure a seperate computer to recieve binary data though the serial port (best done in DOS or unix/linux) -sauter a few circuits to the EEPROM chip on the mainboard (email me with your model number, or if you want it faster, find the wiring diagram and email that to me) -after all the sautering is done on the board, connect the serial ports and start the TP, all of the EEPROM data will be sent through the serial port to the host 'puter. -save the data recieved -use a compiler to compile data as a basic text format file -the password will be readilly apparent after looking through that file. that's generally it, for more specific info, post back or email me here: undergroundprophet@hotmail.com - by undergroundprophet

BY THE WAY (5:18am EST Mon Mar 15 2004) Im 17, no degrees, never even knew anyone who worked for IBM. im not bragging, just spitting in the face of corporate industry. I dont care if im putting IBN out of their profit margin. try putting out a good product and supporting your obscenely overpriced technology, if im gonna pay that much you better be willing to fix it free. as for corporate trade secrets, sit on your fat pile of cash and see if we buy your stock. you pigs. - by undergroundprophet

just figured it ou (5:32am EST Mon Mar 15 2004) by the way, works for older than 760 as well, just a different eeprom config i didnt fig out, same goes as before, just another sauter on the mainboard allowing the eeprom data to send through serial port. - by undergroundprophet

HELP ME PLEASE - DEAD GUINEA-PIG (8:54am EST Tue Mar 16 2004) My guinea pig has died and it was the only one who knew the password to my business laptop (I used to get it to type the password in). Now my multi-billion dollar business is heading for disaster as I can't get to the accounts data and payroll information. Backups? Have just found out that my MIS dog hasn't been doing them. Bloody animal, now he's dead too. Anyone able to read the password from my dead guinea-pig? Please help me. - by Desperate

dell latitude cpx (6:44pm EST Tue Mar 16 2004) i have a dell latitude cpx and i can not get pass the power on password can anybody help me please? e-mail: deenmike7@msn.com - by hourglass

help needed with thinkpad t20 (2:01pm EST Sat Mar 20 2004) My children somehow locked my laptop and it has a supervisor password. Is there anywasy i can get the password without spending a fortune to get it. - by alsunique@hotmail.co

help needed with thinkpad t20 (2:02pm EST Sat Mar 20 2004) My children somehow locked my laptop and it has a supervisor password. Is there anywasy i can get the password without spending a fortune to get it. alsunique@hotmail.com PLEAS HELP ME. My laptop has my wedding photos on it and i would like to retrieve them. - by alsunique@hotmail.co

DELL password, etc. (11:45pm EST Wed Mar 24 2004) hey, if anyone needs, they can email me. i have a list of master passwords for almost every bios out there, enter your bios setup and let m know(in an email) what type of bios you think it is, and any it could be, and ill send you the list for that bios) any other computer sage-like queries you can also email me about undergroundprophet@hotmail.com - by undergroundprophet

IBM r31 type 2656 (7:08am EST Fri Apr 02 2004) God dam piece of crap i bought this 2nd hand but the bloddy things locked i enter the bois or anything can someone help please the worst of it is i don't even now whats on it so i'm not to keen to take it to a dealer to get it sorted. maffwalker@hotmail.com please help - by walks

HDD locked (IBM) (11:27am EST Sun Apr 04 2004) Hey has anybody had problems with a locked IBM hard drive? Can anybody help me remove it? - by GeekslikeUS

Locked IBM T20 (5:45pm EST Tue Apr 06 2004) I just traded a crackhead a dime bag for a IBM T20 but when i got home to try it the piece of Sh*% has some kind of lock and needs a password i tried "CRACKHEAD" but its not the correct password. does anybody know how to crack the passwords. ????? - by Mr. Crackheadhater

Dell C640 585B (12:08pm EST Thu Apr 08 2004) As far as I know pins 3 and 7 can be paperclip jumpered to short out the eprom on a 24c02 chip , but what about 24c04 seems no combination of jumpering can clear this lil basterd. - by dvd_shop76@yahoo.com

Crack head (12:15pm EST Thu Apr 08 2004) Is that a dimebag of crack or pot? Is that a Bios Password? or a HDD Password?,..Can it boot to A: Floppy?, if it can try downloading a prog called KILLCMOS (beware the program is detected by your anti virus as a trojan...just unpack Killcmos.exe to the a: floppy, if the laptop has a cdrom burn the file on a cdr as a bootable cd-rom. if the bios is locked try disconnecting the internal battery for 1 hour (make sure the battery is out, and ac unplugged) - by dvd_shop76@yahoo.com

Thinkpad 390E hard drive password (2:11am EST Fri Apr 09 2004) Does anybody know really how the hard drive password for a 390E IBM laptop can be removed or bypassed? I´ve tried to see it from a Desktop computer using an adapter and connecting it as a secondary hard disk but no matter what I do or what operating system I use I cannot see it to format it or erase it. Please if someone is willing to help me send me an Email to qr76@yahoo.com - by Felipe

IBM TP R30 (10:28am EST Fri Apr 09 2004) Here is part of the dump, but I can't reveal what's the password. Any help? 0000300 A4 8C FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF EF 72 BD � 0000310 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 0000320 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 0000330 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 23 25 62 61 2F 62 45 1F #%ba/bE. 0000340 23 25 62 61 2F 62 45 1F 02 31 04 7E 32 10 04 7C #%ba/bE..1.~2..| 0000350 B0 FF FF FF FF 1F FC FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF . - by R30

Unlocking Hard Drive (7:20am EST Sat Apr 10 2004) I read that you could hot-swap a pcb from an identical harddrive/firmware from an unlocked hard drive to a locked one after its checked and set as unlocked. I was wondering if you succesfully accesed the "locked" platters (hard drive) if you could just lock it with a knowen pass, swap boards back and unlock it with the new pass, would it overwrite the un-accesable area with a new pass?? If I get the chance to try, ill post back. - by C4

IBM TP 600e (8:27am EST Mon Apr 12 2004) how i can dump eprom ? - by ECT

TP X20 Locked (6:42pm EST Mon Apr 12 2004) can anyone help me for unlock my tp x20, what i need ? how do it... e-mail me SVP ec.tech@wanadoo.fr - by Eric

how do i make it so the windows pass works..... (2:51am EST Thu Apr 15 2004) I dont want the Esc key to work when i restart my pc... I want people have to enter a password to get in... how do i do that? - by ELSKA

my e-mail is (2:54am EST Thu Apr 15 2004) dead_girl371@yahoo.com - by ELSKA

... (2:57am EST Thu Apr 15 2004) I just dont want them to be able to do anything without having to put in a username and pass... the esc key should not work after i do that...... can you help me out? - by ELSKA

help help help (4:46pm EST Wed Apr 21 2004) hi im not great with building stuff and wanted to find out if anyone had joes interface wich they dont need im willing to pay for shipping and the cost of building it if anyone can send it to me e-mail me on halilkisa@hotmail.com - by stupid!!!

ok i am to in dis stuff (1:52pm EST Sat Apr 24 2004) i hawe readed the contains from the 390x eprom whit the joes eprom reader, what now whit the binary file. i hawe no solutions here from yugoslavia to pay him for pasword recoweru can enibody help. - by sasa yugoslavia

IBM PASWORDS HELP #@^!^@% (10:57am EST Sun Apr 25 2004) I am a very average lady with very average brain. I have an IBM laptop that I sent to the local computer shop and the guy who works there tried to take the password off for me. He got the old password off and now there is a new one there and he nor I can get in my laptop. What kind of password is it and what can I do to fix it? The password comes up right after you turn it on but before you see any other screen. It is a black screen with the password prompt in the upper left corner. There is a tiny lock under the prompt and once I type in the password now I get an X and access is denied to me. HELP !!!! - by Freaky Babe

i broked a startup pasvord but (1:11pm EST Sun Apr 25 2004) i broked a startup pasword but i have still no aces to change a hdd pasvord i dont have a acess to change it in bios setup. i have traied to change the hdd vhit new but him is stil ask me for hdd pasword i am thiking the pasvord is stored on enader chip not on 24xx anybodu noy on what chip is stored the hdd pasword on 390x. - by sasa yugoslavia

To R30 (3:32am EST Tue Apr 27 2004) 2R30 and others, you can send me complete dump of your eeprom (but not readed by Joe's interface cause it encryptes the binary data for security) and wil try to recover lost pass. my e-mail is: technodeath@mail.ru - by Spiralman

Read The WHOLE Thread (12:21am EST Wed May 05 2004) Not a single person knows how to unlock a frickin fracken shit HDD. These IBM turds really came out with some money stealing ideas. Sell an item and if the buyer does something idiotic (like a PW they forget) they're totally screwed. What an innovative concept. - by by NumbNutt

bios pass for a a20m thinkpad (8:31pm EST Thu May 06 2004) any one got tips on turning off a bios pass on a thinkpad i have tryed bios cracking software on cd and floppy but booting from cd and floppys has been disabled thxs - by kevin

Geez you guys... (11:40pm EST Thu May 06 2004) I have a Dell Inspiron 2500 with a Hitachi drive. The laptop has arrived from someone who wishes to be able to use the machine for home use. The laptop was given to him, according to his story. I managed to circumvent the BIOS password by using a BIOS password tool to fake the BIOS into thinking it had a checksum failure. That problem was solved, however I am now presented with a hard drive password that must be entered before the machine will boot. I'm still working on this problem. If I come up with a solution, I'll post it. Some things to keep in mind. 1.) Nobody here is interested in your corporate advertising spam. If your company can recover a HDD password, yipee for you. It doesn't mean we should be besieged with "Pay me and I'll do it for you" spam instead of useful assistance. 2.) If you know how to do this but are foolishly believing it's a "trade secret" and withholding the information, then you're a sad, sad person. Knowledge is public and everyone deserves the right to know, not just you. - by ceseuron

Hack HD password (3:11pm EST Sun May 09 2004) HD Drives Locked - Any Software programmers out there? I also have several desktop hd's that have a password on them. My system will allow me to boot from a floppy, then i can try to unlock them. I was wondering if anyone can write a dos program, that would boot from the floppy (or cd), then try all the passwords and start from all 0's, then work it's way up and test them all? Write the last code to a txt file, then reboot. I believe the ATA spec states that after 5 tries, you cant put in any more passwords. I was able to do a and was able to try 5 more. There seems to be several utilites that can either unlock it or see if it is locked, maybe all those can be pieced together? I understand this would take a long time to test, but it's better than having a paperweight? Maybe even boot from a CD, and write a txt file to a floppy or another fat drive? Just my 2˘. - by Brent from US

sasa yugoslavia (9:19pm EST Sun May 09 2004) Hey Sasa, What is your e-mail address, I may be able to help. - by John

Convert EEprom info to ASCII (9:24am EST Sun May 16 2004) Hi there! can any one really help - where can I find conversion utility to convert reading from my Laptop's (TP600) eeprom into ASCII to find bloody Super. Password? Thanks, myE: vizacom@37.com damn it... Vit - by Vit

Battery for TP600 (9:35am EST Sun May 16 2004) Do any one know the pin configuration for the TP600 Battery ? which is which? you may send image to me! Thanks, my E: vizacom@37.com - by Vit

power on password (4:30am EST Thu May 20 2004) I forgot my password to my sony laptop. Model #pcg-fx250. Can someone please tell me how to reset it? - by iam1toknow

IBM Thinkpad 390 (11:05am EST Mon May 24 2004) Need to know how to hook cable connect into this laptop. there is no ethernet port. A little new to "non dialup" Please email me the fix at jamesnjodie@cableone.net - by James

TP 390E (11:53am EST Mon Jun 07 2004) Heloo to John and Sasa, I'm also interesting about craking TP 390E supervisor password, I already reda the file from EPROM but it is not similar with TP 600 that I previosly crack. So I need help to find corrct addres of the character for password. Plese let me know how I can faund you. b.r. Valentin service@vts.com.mk - by service@vts.com.mk

175 Bad CRC1, stop POST task (12:09pm EST Mon Jun 07 2004) Hi there! I have got an IBM A22p which fails during boot with this error code. Has anyone eeprom dump or memory map for this model? Please help me! Please email me or share with us! p-rajnai@alpine.hu - by Rachny

IBM TP HDD LOCKED (1:26pm EST Mon Jun 07 2004) Hey All, I found a program PTD(partition table doctor), version 2.0 DEMO, that allows to overwrite the MBR if you have the full version (about $35,00). Who knows this software ? Does it work ? Tks, (roberto@smt.com.br) - by Roberto

hitachi/IBM pwd set (6:02pm EST Wed Jun 09 2004) hi, i need unlock HDD hitachi/ibm 40.0GB how? Anybody help me? - by viper

Supervisor and HDD passwords (10:44pm EST Thu Jun 10 2004) Wow what a long list. First off thanks ray of brandburg. Using an exacto knife I was able to rest the flat of the blade against the case while touching and releasing the specified pin on that tiny little 24xxxx chip. 390e got very confused and sent me to the bios and let me remove the supervisor password. Gave me access to the HD on that boot but upon reboot the HD password is still set. Rather than risk any of ths hot swapping foolishness I just replaced the HD with a cheap used 10G. There was one post about shorting out a jumper in the battery compartment but no follow up messages. Anybody try this? P.S. by copy/pasting the actually usefull posts to a word processor this list became readable. should post it someplace. - by sponge

hdd lock (12:04am EST Sat Jun 12 2004) Has anyone ever tried the Xbox hdd unlocker to unload the IBM hdd? - by HappyD

agree w/ HappyD (12:45am EST Mon Jun 14 2004) yeah just get an ide adapter for the hdd to work on a regular pc, but swap it in an evox modded xbox,backup from evox menu, ftp hddinfo.txt from box to pc, get hdd password, use xbox hddunlocker utilities and voila. it goes to show what kids can do nowadays. - by think like HappyD

Removal if known (1:31am EST Wed Jun 23 2004) If you know the password to a thinkpad 760x (may work with others, but not sure) when prompted to type the password, add a space at the very end of the password before pressing enter, this will remove: power-on and HDD pass. for supervisor, just type the pass. and leave the new field blank. Sorry if im poiting out the obvious to some, but earlier in the message, people were asking this... - by Shotz

HDD LOCK (12:11pm EST Sat Jun 26 2004) How can i read the password of a locked hard drive set up as a slave??? I know for a fact its on the disk surface but i need a tool that can examine the entire disk surface so i can view the asci password i will pay....banton1uk@yahoo.co.uk - by Steve

T21 supervisor password (8:52am EST Sun Jun 27 2004) Dear All I need to remove the supervisor password of my IBM T21 please help. If any one has a solution please mail me on zoom_17@hotmail.com - by Hazem Amin

Hdd password (6:48am EST Tue Jun 29 2004) I bought 100 laptop hard drive frome ebay, I found allof them have password. Please email me with any info how to remove the password. email me imadammari@yahoo.com - by Laptop specialest

Unlock (9:49am EST Fri Jul 02 2004) I've find the way to unlock allmost hdds and laptops, but technology is very difficult and require exist of device. - by Igor

hdd password (11:03am EST Fri Jul 02 2004) ive done a dump. but my hdd still locked. does anyone know if i need to take a piss too? maybe i need to piss first an then do a dump? can anyone help me please, or do i need to see a shrink? - by HillBilly

HDD Lock (9:03am EST Tue Jul 06 2004) You must be a moron if you think the Xbox will unlock a locked laptop hdd. You posted as if you have done it successfully, but I know you could not have. When you do a BACKUP in evox, it stores the hdd password(in hddinfo.txt) specific to that Xbox(generates it from eeprom data). It does not read the password from the locked hdd. - by TRoN

HDD lock (11:24am EST Tue Jul 06 2004) TRoN is right. There really are no simple solutions to removing HDD passwords from drives. Sticking the drive in an Amiga or Xbox or for that matter through a converter on a PC ATA bus is just not enough. A locked HDD does not allow access to any data sectors and so trying to format the drive using ANY method will fail. To unlock a drive, some knowledge of the internal design methodologies of the drive is required. I work for a well known drive manufacturer and I speak the truth. - by Kelly M.

HDD lock /Kelly M (11:27am EST Wed Jul 07 2004) so how is it done there must be utility that can read these passwords, have tried for nearly two years have tried everything on this thread just cannot read it allthough have not tried the amiga option yet Kelly M you say there is no simple solution but there is a solution just need to find it - by DaiBoy

HDD lock (12:54pm EST Wed Jul 07 2004) You are right that there is a way to do almost anything, but there really is no software utility that can unlock these drives because it is not possible through the ATA interface. However it can be done using fairly complex hardware which connects to parts of the drive electronics. You need to know quite a bit of low level stuff about HDDs to do this. I know of one guy who has built hardware that can unlock HDDs. He has posted elsewhere in this thread (Nick Allsop). I don't know if he's still doing it but it might be worth sending him an email if you are desperate. I have directed a couple of people to him in the past and he was able to unlock their drives but I think he does charge something for his time & you have to send the drive to him. Hey ho! - by Kelly M

HDD lock (1:52pm EST Wed Jul 07 2004) Yes i tried emailing him a about year ago i had no reply I would Still like to try and speak with him though as it looks like the only real way of getting around them thank for writing back so soon Kelly M - by DaiBoy

Unlock/by Igor (4:56am EST Sun Jul 11 2004) Hi, Igor Could you be just a little bit more specific? I am very interested in the subject. If you could tell us any more details of you finding that would be appreciated. Or maybe you prefere to e-mail me? By the way, which country are you from? Somewhere in the East of Europe? Do you live in the country belonging to the European Union now? - by hdpass

Unlock Hitachi HD (3:04pm EST Sun Jul 18 2004) Hi there I have a tip 4 all the hard disk passwords. Just put the Laptop HD in a Desktop PC as a slave drive and make a bootable dos disk. 1:Try to format the disk. Or:2 On that dos disk you need to install a tool named "ATAPWD.exe" you can find it with google.com With this tool you can hack the HD's firmware and discover the passw.Put the disk nack un youre laptop and boot it. Good luck - by Benny D

Benny D hdd password (7:39am EST Mon Jul 19 2004) Hi Benny D i thought "ATAPWD.exe" only checks the state of the harddisk security and if you have the password already you can change it using that utility but how do you hack the firmware using it i'm unsure any help on where i am going wrong would be appreciated - by DaiBoy

ATAPWD.exe (12:07pm EST Mon Jul 19 2004) I have an acer notebook that has this same issue. The only way i can get a floppy or cd to boot is to hotswap the hdd in AFTER post. I tried using ATAPWD and it does only show you the status of the drive. It does not allow any access other than that. None of its features work. The security on these drives relies on NOT allowing any access to the platters at all. SO you can not read or write to them in any way. I have tried a truckload of different utilities over the past month. IBM's harddrive software does go one step further than any of the others though. It will tell you whether or not your hdd lock is high or maximum security. Apparently a maximum security lock is unpassable, even by the recovery companies. This is a very secure measure of protection. I must say i am impressed at the same time as being frustrated as hell!! Good luck to us is all i can say! - by Alp22

HDD password (12:37pm EST Fri Jul 23 2004) What an absolute load of rubbish is talked on this message board. 1) ATAPWD.EXE is a utility which allows one to view the security status of a drive and unlock it IF THE PASSWORD IS KNOWN. It cannot unlock a drive if you don't know the password. 2) Hacking the drive's firmware is a possibility, but not using some simple toy like ATAPWD.EXE, and in any case the password is stored in a reserved area of the disk surface. You'd have to rewrite the firmware to read the reserved area to give you the password. Not a simple job, and way out of the ability of the humble user. 3) Recovery companies CAN unlock drives that are locked with MAXIMUM security level. Read the ATA standard, this simply means that the MASTER password cannot be used to unlock the drive if the USER password is unknown, however the MASTER password CAN be used to erase and lock the drive. If you have a drive that is locked, forget this nonsense. Either learn about how hard drives work and develop your own hardware to do this or buy a new one. - by I just give up.

390E - Removal of power on password (12:27am EST Sat Jul 24 2004) I followed "Ray of Bandung" approach ( 7:41am EST Mon Sep 09 2002 on this page). The thinpad starts by displaying the IBM logo with the F1 option to go to setup.... I tried F1 to go to setup... it switches screen and then blank ... doing nothing, similarly if you do nothing withing 3-4 sec it supposed to start reading from FDD or HDD... again nothing Any ideas? "cooked eprom?" - by xoanon

password (5:18am EST Tue Jul 27 2004) i have an IBM thinkpad 390E and needs to have its supervisor password,but i forgot wat it is?and including my hard disk password too...why is it laptops to have such passwords like this?while PCs don't? this thing really sucks so if anybody can help me email me at arph85@yahoo.com if i still cant get the passwords its either ill buy new system board and hard disk or ill destroy this useless crap... - by biboi

HDD Password (5:53pm EST Wed Jul 28 2004) connecting to the hdd directly through custom hardware is the harder road to take imo. Brute hacking the password would be easier... so... can any programmer change the ATAPWD.EXE program (i suppose it would give unlimited password attempts?) so that it would simply brute hack the password? if im wrong and the time needed for a brute hack is too long then im also waiting for a better answer :/ cheers sm - by karkas

Brute force hdd password (8:57am EST Fri Jul 30 2004) Assuming password is 6 characters and you only use numbers and letters, the total number of possibilities would be 36^6=2,176,782,336. 7 characters would be 78 billion. I beleive the firmware of the hdd(not the unlocking app) only allows 3 attempts, then you must power on/off(or reset?) to make another 3 attempts. - by TRoN

Thinkpad A20m (1:43pm EST Sat Jul 31 2004) Have any one tried the SDA pin grounding on A20m ? If it worked pls let me now. e-mail :sarwar_morshed2000@yahoo.com - by S.Morshed

Eeprom dump (6:38am EST Tue Aug 03 2004) Please! If anyone has have a mapped/saved bios area for my Thinkpad,please email me. The type of TP is IBM 560X 2640-700 (The IC is a 1K-Atmel 24c01a-8 pin.) I desolder the eeprom and can reprogram with a flash prommer.I need just the eeprom image... Email:tamas.bedei@chello.hu - by Tom

Easier way to get to EEPROM? (3:53am EST Sat Aug 21 2004) There seems to be an easier way to see information stored on the EEPROM chip: (You must be able to at least get into Easy-Setup to do this, so you'll at least need to know the POP) As someone else had suggested, pressing Ctrl+D while in the Config section of Easy-Setup brings you to a manual BIOS editor. Cycle through the screens with F7/F8 until you see one which says "Base 64x2 EEPROM." I can see that this screen contains two serial numbers and the model number in plaintext, and two other lines of seven characters that I suspected to be passwords. However, those two lines as they appear do not work as the supervisor password. Does anyone know if the Thinkpad 770e 24c01 EEPROM encrypts passwords and if so, how to decipher them (preferrably for free?) - by frustrated but hopef

To frustrated but hopeful (12:51pm EST Mon Aug 23 2004) I am looking at a couple of TP 770 and have encountered the same problem of deciphering the passwords. If you could type the contents of line 20,40,and 60 into an email to me I might be able to get you a password from the differances in the three notebooks. My email is raybar40071@yahoo.com - by raybar

CD Rom issues (1:06pm EST Thu Aug 26 2004) I have inherited an Dell Latitude CPi D300XT and I'm not able to use the CD Rom. I would place a CD in it but for some reason, it's not reading the disk. My OS is Windows 98SE. Anothe question is there a password for this system? Thanks! My email address is spsbm@hotmail.com - by PSBM

Greetings (12:05pm EST Fri Aug 27 2004) All you people posting crap about removing Power-on passwords, and the techniques available on the net, there's no JUMPERPADS 315 any where withing a range of 5 miles on the board of a Thinkpad. darn. Ok, solution. We're fixing these systems. And we aint tellin HOW. Yeah SELFiSH or what ever else fish we're doing it. Atleast, we'll get your TP running, Supervisor and Power-on Password removal. Just plug in a new drive and get going. Long story short. People, please dont brag about HDD passwords throw the drive away get a new one. Cause by the time you've tried a million times to clear the passes on your own, turning the system on and off over and over, the drives get bad sectors already. For the time being we're contenting our experties to ThinkPads, but some other makes and models are also dumb enough to be recovered. So, what ever Laptop you got send it in, what ever make, company, model, TP's prefered as we're doing them the most. You dont have to pay us any thing, yep, no charges upon arrival. You only have to pay us the Return courier. Or visit us if you feel like it. Keep your hard drives and battery packs/adapters, they add weight. Add the hard drive ONLY if you are dumb enough, not being able to remove a stupid HDD pass on your own. Please add user/service manual if it came along with your laptop, other than IBM. This is the cheapest solution available people since IBM's customer service is too damn expensive. Other systems with broken, or faulty TFT screens, we can replace them as well, almost at cheapest rates. Contact through e-mail, for address and further information. We're located in KARACHI, PAKISTAN e-mail: billa48@hotmail.com Thank you - by Cybergen Systems

hi (12:29pm EST Fri Aug 27 2004) hi - by billa48

UNLOCK A COMPUTER (11:51am EST Mon Aug 30 2004) MY AUNT PASSED A WAY AND LEFT ME HER COMPUTER IT IS LOCKED AND NOBODY KNOWS WHAT HER PASSWORD IS IS THERE ANYWAY I CAN ACCESS THE COMPUTER - by MINDY

IBM Maintenance Diskette (8:09am EST Wed Sep 01 2004) I have IBM Maint Disk ver. 1.20, 1.41, 1.50, 1.60, 1.69. I need ver. 1.61 and/or 1.62. Appreciate any replys. I can remove Supervisor Password from any IBM ThinkPads. I do not work with NDD Passw., don't ask. Frank from Germany (Koeln). venloer007@freenet.de - by Frank from Germany

Removing Supervisor Passwords (8:16am EST Wed Sep 01 2004) Basicly I can remove any Supervisor/Boot passwords from any existing brands. Feel free write venloer007@freenet.de Frank from Germany (Koeln). - by Frank from Germany

DONT TRUST CYBERGEN SYSTEMS!! (1:54pm EST Mon Sep 06 2004) I sent my TP to Cybergen a month ago (see post from them above). They received it OK but I have heard nothing since. They ignore all emails and I know it was a stupid thing to do but at the time I really thought they could help. Don't trust them. Jim McIntyre, DC. - by Jim McIntyre

travel mate c110 (2:02am EST Thu Sep 09 2004) I have a travel mate c110 laptop that I chenged the password now I don't remember it. how can i defeat the password (bios). - by neo

Greetings (9:22am EST Thu Sep 09 2004) In response to Jim McIntyre's Warning. Why dont you be honest and tell people the truth. If you cant do any thing on your own , why are you saying somthing like this, so baseless of a comment against some one else? If you had sent us your laptop you would prolly had got a Receipt, can you please scan it, upload the image some where, so we all could see it. And also the courier receipt please. And about ignoring e-mails, i think i forgot to state, we're not an IBM TECH HELP DESK, and we dont provide solutions for free. The last e-mail i had was about a password locked Hard drive, ow grow up people, no more hard drive password quests please. throw it away if you cant fix something so simple. You surely dont deserve it. So if your mail is not answered, please dont brag about it. Your systems are NO GOOD to us and you too if it isnt working, we can make them work and send them back. PLEASE READ THE POST ABOVE VERY CAREFULLY. Well, any way, it's upto the people. We're providing a good and secure service. We have to run a bussiness not a customer support center. Jim McIntyre, i hope you stop lying. Thank you all. bye - by CYBERGEN SYSTEMS

Hello (5:51pm EST Thu Sep 16 2004) I am interested in developing an ATA brute force password cracker. I realize that this is less efficient/reliable than the hardware solution, but much cheaper, and you can do it from the comfort of your own home :-). If the character domain for an ATA password consists of A-Z and 0-9, the number of characters in the domain is 26 + 10 = 36. If there can be 7 letters in the HD password, then the number of possible password combinations is 36^7, or 78,364,164,096. I assume there are people out there willing to wait for the computer to reboot inbetween retries, and with a simple bootable CD and floppy, and use of a utility that tris to unlock the password, this CAN be accomplished. Someone else posted a request for this, and I am willing to develop it. Any takers? - by WSWarez

ATA brute force (5:49am EST Fri Sep 17 2004) yes if i could help in anyway, i'm not very good at programming, but i have gathered quite a lot of info over the last year or two on this matter, for any correspondents my email address is david.hayes101@ntlworld.com I look forward to this project - by DaiBoy

tp760 BIOS backdoor????? (8:19pm EST Fri Sep 17 2004) hello hey i am enter to locked TP760 &765 too press`-shift- & -ENTER- at the same time in the password screen and appears OK and going to SETUP ,but the PASSWORD and INITIALIZE submenu in CONFIG are not accesible..... I tried with a keys combo -CTRL- & -D- at same time and go to hidden menu with Hex values .... I am locking this,but can anyone helpme.. - by Think Bad

Joes' Reader (12:56pm EST Wed Sep 22 2004) i would like to give joe's eeprom reader a try but am not very good with electronics if someone has used this device would they be willing to sell it to me...Shaun Western Australia shaun2166@hotmail.com - by shaun

This thread (9:19pm EST Thu Sep 23 2004) 3 Years and no solution to HDD unlock short of a costly hardware procedure.. That was a good wasted 30 minutes of reading... BTW Vogon Internationals quote of approx $700US is a crock of crap.. And so is the USB/Mac theory of low level reformats.. Furthermore all you haters that ruthlessly and blatantly have tried to not pay Joe for his services dont deserve to have your TPs working anyways! If ANYONE actually performs a successful unlock of a group of drives using a method not requiring expensive hardware please post it.. otherwise quit the crap.. IBM sux btw... - by IBMandthisthreadH8TR

Atmel 24C01A pwd (tp770ed) (5:14pm EST Sat Sep 25 2004) I've got my tp 770ed locked. Here's the data from its Atmel 24c01a chip. 2FC0000000000000000000000C005B47 334D31343435534A454D312020363231 0000000031304C303936372020202020 00000000000000001011000000000021 10110000000000217F7F7F7F7E7F7F7F 00003935343935415537385830333731 20201E0031304C303838362020202020 5468696E6B5061642037373045442020 2FC0000000000000000000000C005B47 334D31343435534A454D312020363231 0000000031304C303936372020202020 00000000000000001011000000000021 10110000000000217F7F7F7F7E7F7F7F 00003935343935415537385830333731 20201E0031304C303838362020202020 5468696E6B5061642037373045442020 Could somebody find the pwd inside? - by Tigra

To Tigra (5:55pm EST Sun Sep 26 2004) You got your chip information through the configuration menu in setup. That doesn't give you the information you need. You have to connect directly to the eeprom to get it. A very difficult chip to access in the 770. - by raybar

To Raybar (10:18am EST Mon Sep 27 2004) I did dig to that chip, it really is in the very bottom of 770. I've posted the contents of that 24c01a chip, had been read by flash programmer, not the configuration menu in setup (I even haven't got to that setup) So please somebody help me find the pwd inside. May be I am getting the wrong data with my programmer? Anyway, tnx for help. - by Tigra

770ED pwd removed (12:24pm EST Mon Sep 27 2004) That's it. Just had to review the forum again, the key was there, as usual. If somebody interested in atmel 24c01a (tp 770ED) or 24rf08cn (tp 390X) passwords, please e-mail 1@visib.ru - by Tigra

Sucessfully remove Thinkpad 770E supervisor password (3:43am EST Fri Oct 01 2004) Hello Every body. Today is a great day ! With help of M. Ray of Bandung (see Sucessfully remove Thinkpad 390x supervisor password (7:41am EST Mon Sep 09 2002)by Ray of Bandung) above, I can use 3 years after very hard try my 770E. The phenomena is 161 163 error. Because CR2025 is out of order, 770E requet a supervisor pass to set clock. and block just after. Try solution of Ray of Bandung, it work !!! Ok, it don't work at first time, but after ~45mn, I arrived. I've a screen to set the clock, reboot, retry, etc, but now it completely ok ! Ok, you have to dissasemble completely your laptop, but use book from IBM to do it with secure way (You can found in http://www.ja.olm.net use this site also to see where is EEprom. Thank you Ray - by DDOVIS

Different approach (4:53am EST Fri Oct 01 2004) I have the POP for a TP 770 and can boot from hard disk or floppy, but cannot access BIOS without the Supervisor password. I have read all the EEPROM based solutions on this thread, but given that I don't want to rip the machine open, solder sensitive parts, and risk ruining it altogether, I've decided to look in a different place. Information on several sites states that if a Supervisor password is set but not an HDD password, the machine sets the Supervisor password as the HDD password and writes it somewhere to the disk. I clearly remember setting only the Super and POP passwords, so does anyone know a good hex-viewer type tool that can read the hidden area of the disk the password is written to? Someone else on the thread claimed to have done this but didn't say anything about the program they used. - by More frustrated, sti

Different approach (4:54am EST Fri Oct 01 2004) I have the POP for a TP 770 and can boot from hard disk or floppy, but cannot access BIOS without the Supervisor password. I have read all the EEPROM based solutions on this thread, but given that I don't want to rip the machine open, solder sensitive parts, and risk ruining it altogether, I've decided to look in a different place. Information on several sites states that if a Supervisor password is set but not an HDD password, the machine sets the Supervisor password as the HDD password and writes it somewhere to the disk. I clearly remember setting only the Super and POP passwords, so does anyone know a good hex-viewer type tool that can read the hidden area of the disk the password is written to? Someone else on the thread claimed to have done this but didn't say anything about the program they used. - by Frustrated

Ray's solution works on A20p? (2:13am EST Thu Oct 07 2004) The same problem with my A20p. Is there anyone ever successfully remove the supervisor password on A20p? I just don't want to replace the whole mainboard. Lucky my hdd is not pwd protected... Any suggestion? Thanks a lot! dreamleo@gmail.com - by leo

thinkpad 380xd supervisor password (12:04pm EST Mon Oct 11 2004) all I need is the default supervisor password for the thinkpad 380xd. any help would be greatly appreciated. - by lockedup student

Cybergen Systems (2:16pm EST Fri Oct 22 2004) Never trust a company based in Pakistan. For all you know, you could be donating your machines to terrorism. Only a complete and utter fool would mail a computer to some shady Pakistan "computer" company hoping it would be repaired. You'd be much better off mailing it to an American, European, or Canadian data recovery center instead. At least you'll get it back. Unlike Mr. McIntyre who appears to have inadvertently aided the "glorious jihad" against the known civilized world. - by Amused

Thinkpad 600e (4:26pm EST Sat Oct 23 2004) 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.. ERROR 00161 00163 then i cant do anything it just has the error page and i have to restart the computer.. can anyone tell me how I can fix this problem... you can email me eldarus@mail.ru thanx - by Martin - by Eldar Pleaseeeee help! - by Eldar

Thinkpad 600e (4:26pm EST Sat Oct 23 2004) 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.. ERROR 00161 00163 then i cant do anything it just has the error page and i have to restart the computer.. can anyone tell me how I can fix this problem... you can email me eldarus@mail.ru thanx - by Eldar Pleaseeeee help! - by Eldar

It sound s Joe's stilll the Man! (7:36pm EST Sun Oct 24 2004) I'll go with Joe - by The Savage

look this... (11:01pm EST Sun Oct 24 2004) This password system does not prevent theft because: When stealing a laptop, either off a park bench, while slipping into an office, breaking into a home or car a thief will not pull out their handy 'list of laptop models that are protected by an irremovable password", and leave the notebook there. Thieves steal according to opportunity, and even if they are aware that a laptop might be protected by a password, they will likely steal it anyway. If they can't break the password, they can just throw it away, as it did not cost them anything, and has no investment value to them. It also does not increase the likelihood of catching thieves, or the return of a stolen laptop because: Stolen laptops are often stolen along with other belongings which could likely include the original owner's identity and/or paperwork regarding the laptop. A thief who finds that the laptop they have stolen is protected by a password will not feel remorseful at this barrier, and seek out the legitimate owner so that they can return it. If a thief should call Dell and be unable to provide ownership information and the technician logs their caller ID, and reports it to the authorities: This is hardly grounds for a search warrant. By the time any action might be taken by police the thief will likely have given up on the laptop and gotten rid of it, or passed it along to someone else. There will be no evidence, and no returned laptop. If authorities confiscate a laptop which they believe is stolen: They may or may not be aware of their ability to find the owner through Dell. The owner may never have registered. They may not initially be believed by Dell tech support and decide not to press the matter. It also does not prevent the data on the laptop from being accessed because: Anyone who has the laptop in their possession can remove the hard drive in about 10 seconds, put it in another laptop or computer (or copy it to another hard drive) and access it. - by Thinkbad

Thinkbad (1:36pm EST Mon Oct 25 2004) but you can't read the data off removed hard drive if is pasworded - by DaiBoy

HDD Password (2:06pm EST Mon Oct 25 2004) I have a IBM T23 with a harddisk password. I don't know how to short out the jumper. Any remedies? - by jkdawn@pngusa.net

Hdd with password (1:24pm EST Fri Nov 12 2004) Yes, you can read data from an hdd that is password protected. There is a Canadian company(Nortek)that does this for a fee, which means it IS possible just not readily available information. - by TRoN

password recovery for ibm t20 (10:23am EST Tue Nov 16 2004) 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 for an ibm t20??. Any help would be greatly appreciated as it would save me IBMS costly route and also make my machine usable. The Cameroonian - by Ibm T20 password unl

Removing the paswords on my IBM (3:31am EST Wed Nov 17 2004) I finally did it I got a laptop to run about $2000. Amd I bought Myself a real Lap top, FROM AMD and got a 3.2 PC and 1 gig of memory and fully loaded with all the gigles. MY IBM hold the prestegious spot where it belongs Holding up the paint door in my paint shop It prforms there beter than it ever did on my desktop. It has a clear picture as well. Something IBM is still searching for and how many IBMS have the cracked door near the screan mount!! I mean it go up here and read all the model numbers ecthed in granite like Fred Flinstone. None of these units even do Word Well I bought MY IbM laptop from a friend who bought from a friend they all must have been mystified by the little blinking loock since it does nothing else - by 3Deng@starband.net

MY IBM paswords (3:45am EST Wed Nov 17 2004) I woulds still like to open my IBM IN ernast, But this page convinced me that IBM has the Hook up on all paswords that should make them very proude considering they are a light year back in technologyand want more too unlock a set than its overall value. Since all we do with older set is to give them to children with leaarning disoders FOC. IBM Even makes passing on the old computoer to student with a cause and those too haddicapped to operate a un-modified one. Even the aptiva is a near impossible set to work on as it has a handy dandy multi power level power suppy that usually fits at the top of the power supply bins of dead power supplies - by 3deng

Ray of Bandung's method (12:18am EST Wed Nov 24 2004) Works like a champ. Worked on a Dell Inspiron 1100. I was successful after about 6 trys. - by Very happy now

Ray of Bandung's method (12:25am EST Wed Nov 24 2004) BTW. It was a 24lc16B chip. I was grounding out SDA which is pin 5 - by Very happy now

This may be it??? (9:51am EST Mon Nov 29 2004) I purchased an IBM Thinkpad 770X from the wonderful world of eBay only to find out it was all locked up. I was not about to spend any money on it so I decided to use it as a learning tool. I tried all the tricks mentioned here and everywhere I looked. Finaly decided... the hell with it. But instead of smashing it or throwing it away, decided to open it up and see it's guts. In the process of doing so, discovered that there is another NiMH battery inside the unit. I think that maybe this is the trick. I tried reassembeling the unit again but couldn't, as I was not carefull in disassembeling it. But may someone can try disconecting and reconecting it. I think it is this simple. It has a label with PIN 05K4652. If anyone tries this ant it works, let me and everyone know. Good luck. - by Flustered

bios password (6:07pm EST Tue Nov 30 2004) Hello, i have a dell latitude c400 that is scured by bios (phoenix) but i dont have my password more. the service-tag is #711RC0J-595B. i can not use my laptop. can anyone help please??????????? jeymann@lycos.de please send e-mail thanks - by jemann

travelstar hdd password removal (8:32pm EST Sat Dec 04 2004) if you can get into the bios,hdd password is eazy.did a 240x last night by useing power on password to change supperviser pass ..then alowed me to change hdd pass.spacebar..enter removes it - by by toolman

Ray of Bandung's method (6:23am EST Sun Dec 12 2004) With help of M. Ray of Bandung (see Sucessfully remove Thinkpad 790 supervisor password (7:41am EST Mon Sep 09 2002)by Ray of Bandung)i have removed startup pasword but still is the hdd pasvord here a am thinking that the ide chanlel is locked to in bios.a have inserted a new hdd but its stil asking me for a pasword for hdd. - by sasa yugoslavia

bios password (11:27pm EST Mon Dec 27 2004) how do i remove - by bob

RE: ALL (8:20pm EST Thu Jan 06 2005) STOP posting here 'My TP is locked ... how do I' !!!! We all KNOW that some TPs are locked? I´ve read about 300 replies and didn´t find help! All I found was 300 times the same problem posted from different guys! Stop posting if you don´t have a solution or at least an idea! - by Louka

Password (7:22am EST Fri Jan 21 2005) Check this out...........www.laptoprescue.com. au - by Laptop Rescue

Password (7:23am EST Fri Jan 21 2005) Check this out www.laptoprescue.com.au - by Laptop Rescue

successful tp 240 supervisor password recovery (2:07pm EST Wed Jan 26 2005) Thank You M. Ray of Bandung - my old TP240 is again working :) old harddisk is still locked, but data successfuly recovered and with new 80G one is everything ok. any idea how-to dig password from old harddisk ? - by hrochoun

to R30 (1:32am EST Mon Jan 31 2005) which Keyboard type you have ? , it unusual code on it - by maro

to R30 (12:06am EST Thu Feb 10 2005) It's my mis-understand. It showing password but deffrent from other ThinkPad code. - by maro

keyboard scan codes table? (10:16am EST Fri Feb 11 2005) please advice where scan codes for R30 240,390,570,600 A2x , etc are use standerd keyboard scan code but R30 is deffrence - by maro

ibm password (7:33am EST Sat Feb 19 2005) Best thing to do is trash the machine and Never Buy Another IBM LAPTOP - by TRASH IT

passworded thinkpads are super easy to fix (3:52pm EST Thu Mar 03 2005) all you have to do is dump the thinkpads atmel eeprom and recover it, post your email addreess if you want the instructions trust me i have done it 100 times thanks - by thinkpad_d00d

RE: Passworded thinkpads are super easy to fix (6:30pm EST Thu Mar 03 2005) Please email me the directions on how to dump the eeprom. shentar@gmail.com - by shentar

passworded thinkpads are super easy to fix (10:11am EST Wed Mar 16 2005) could u email me the directions how to dump the eprom in t23 grzes1981@poczta.onet.pl - by grzesiek

390E Recovery Disk (8:23pm EST Thu Mar 17 2005) Anybody know where I can buy a 390E recovery disk - IBM has stopped selling the win98 recovery disk that originally came with my TP. - by ac 390

passworded thinkpads are super easy to fix (2:17am EST Fri Mar 18 2005) mine is a t23 as well, thx for any info, kevend@thinkreferrals.com (Who knew I'd need to enable the com port two years later??) - by annoyed at com port

Reset the bois password (3:11am EST Sun Mar 20 2005) ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbb s/mobiles/09n1033.pdf Go here to reset the bios password, Remove the Hard Drive and put in a ordinary boot disk. Power off the laptop short the two "Password Pads" they speak of on page 106 of the pdf file. Keep the Pads shorted and power on the Laptop when you power it back on for a few seconds. Let it go, reboot, and bam you got pass that one. At least that worked for me. I can't stand these jokers in here trying to make money on this. As far as the Hard Drive one, I don't know that one. Get another Hard drive, or they're probaly things you can try to wipe it clean for a low level format. They are also a cheap tool you can buy to connect a 2.5" hard drive to a Regular IDE PC drive. Good Luck - by Big Cliff

wow (9:36pm EST Tue Mar 22 2005) what a lot of shit posted here ... yesterday i disassemble a hp omnibook 6100 a 24c08 eeprom is in it. currently i didn't find out how to decrypt the pw, it isn't any scancode nor ascii, i found out that on 0x7F there is a "bitmap" where all passwords things are set. convert the value to binary 0000 0000 => all passwords disable, hdd lock on 0100 0000 => master password enabled 0000 0001 => boot password enabled all other disabled. 0010 0000 => user password some values (boot enabled while no password is set) didn't make sense, but still work. i disable all pws and set a user pw, read the eeprom and copy the "xxx" hex pw-values to the userpw location on the originally eeprom. ==> i overwrite the userpw, but didnt know any master pw !! when i boot the hdd (ibm) is connected and no error at all, i can use the whole disk, but didn't know the master pw. when i disable the masterpw (using the flag) the hdd wouldn't work :-( so i cannot unlock the hdd until i found out how hp crypt the password inside, but still working on it. i think the hh lock flag inside of 0x7F is (000 1000) and i think it is inverted (making some tests, but not sure) the passowrds are at the folling locations: user pw: 0x5b - 0x63 master/hdd: 0x6d-0x75 i read something about hdd locking and ata specs, is it right that the password on the hdd is a 32 bYTE value? is it a hash of the masterpassword or something? the result of my "meditation" is, when its possible to disable/change the user password and test it how they encrypt the data, maybe its possible to "test" a couple of letters and numbers to find out the masterpassword and then unlock the hdd. maybe its simply bitshifting or something... at the end: atapwd is a nice tool, to see what sec feature is enabled, but still useless without any passwords. goto nex post => - by michaw

wow Part 1 (9:37pm EST Tue Mar 22 2005) what a lot of shit posted here ... yesterday i disassemble a hp omnibook 6100 a 24c08 eeprom is in it. currently i didn't find out how to decrypt the pw, it isn't any scancode nor ascii, i found out that on 0x7F there is a "bitmap" where all passwords things are set. convert the value to binary 0000 0000 => all passwords disable, hdd lock on 0100 0000 => master password enabled 0000 0001 => boot password enabled all other disabled. 0010 0000 => user password some values (boot enabled while no password is set) didn't make sense, but still work. i disable all pws and set a user pw, read the eeprom and copy the "xxx" hex pw-values to the userpw location on the originally eeprom. ==> i overwrite the userpw, but didnt know any master pw !! when i boot the hdd (ibm) is connected and no error at all, i can use the whole disk, but didn't know the master pw. when i disable the masterpw (using the flag) the hdd wouldn't work :-( so i cannot unlock the hdd until i found out how hp crypt the password inside, but still working on it. i think the hh lock flag inside of 0x7F is (000 1000) and i think it is inverted (making some tests, but not sure) the passowrds are at the folling locations: user pw: 0x5b - 0x63 master/hdd: 0x6d-0x75 i read something about hdd locking and ata specs, is it right that the password on the hdd is a 32 bYTE value? is it a hash of the masterpassword or something? the result of my "meditation" is, when its possible to disable/change the user password and test it how they encrypt the data, maybe its possible to "test" a couple of letters and numbers to find out the masterpassword and then unlock the hdd. maybe its simply bitshifting or something... at the end: atapwd is a nice tool, to see what sec feature is enabled, but still useless without any passwords. goto nex post => - by michaw

wow Part 1 (9:38pm EST Tue Mar 22 2005) what a lot of shit posted here ... yesterday i disassemble a hp omnibook 6100 a 24c08 eeprom is in it. currently i didn't find out how to decrypt the pw, it isn't any scancode nor ascii, i found out that on 0x7F there is a "bitmap" where all passwords things are set. convert the value to binary 0000 0000 => all passwords disable, hdd lock on 0100 0000 => master password enabled 0000 0001 => boot password enabled all other disabled. 0010 0000 => user password some values (boot enabled while no password is set) didn't make sense, but still work. i disable all pws and set a user pw, read the eeprom and copy the "xxx" hex pw-values to the userpw location on the originally eeprom. ==> i overwrite the userpw, but didnt know any master pw !! when i boot the hdd (ibm) is connected and no error at all, i can use the whole disk, but didn't know the master pw. when i disable the masterpw (using the flag) the hdd wouldn't work :-( so i cannot unlock the hdd until i found out how hp crypt the password inside, but still working on it. goto nex post => - by michaw

whhhaaa f*** sorry (9:41pm EST Tue Mar 22 2005) i'm so sorry, everytime got an error like "document moved here" then i cut the post an pressed again... sorry part 2: at the end: atapwd is a nice tool, to see what sec feature is enabled, but still useless without any passwords. when i got the book, i can't do anything (boot pw, etc), now i'm ready to decide between a.) use the hdd and dont change anything in bios, or b.) buy a new hdd. i think 1 week and i don't have to decide :) when anyone have more informations about hp and the encryption, please contact me. excuse my crappy english, hope anyone understand me. contact in german or english: hdd@psytrance.info best regards and thanks for the thread, it gives me a lot of impulses - by mw

re: wow (2:44pm EST Wed Mar 23 2005) Thank the XBox community these... I'd post the links, but I'm not near my hobby machine at the moment. You'll need 3 tools: atapwd, hddunlock and UnlockX. If you're able to boot to a floppy, or (with the proper addapter) connect the HDD to a desktop, the 3 tools mentioned above will will read\clear the hdd password of the HDD. - by T2KJ

password locked hard drives (7:12pm EST Wed Mar 23 2005) Is the password for password locked hard drives saved on the hard drive in the Hardware Protected Area? If so then a program called "PAremove.exe" can be used to erase it. Has anybody tried this? - by StillLearning

A30 (8:41pm EST Wed Mar 30 2005) Hi all, I need a dump from a working ibm a30/31 with NO passwords at all. Does anyone have this ? - by Michael

IBM R40 Security Chip P1 (6:04pm EST Sat Apr 02 2005) Let me tell you a little story about how I came aware of these little pains in the a$$. I recently got me new laptop and me first laptop at that, its a IBM R40 2681-CU3. I obtained this little jew for a small fee of $300 at a pawn shop with windows xp home preinstalled. Well I hate xp home so I was going to go and put a pro version on then set it up the way I wanted it set up not to mention it had a few error when it booted up like all old instalations of xp have. First thing was to set the bios to boot of the cd-rom drive and there it was... The supervisior password was required to gain access to those settings. Being honest and all I called IBM and asked how abouts to remove or clear the password told them where I purchased it and every other little detail they asked for, including the windows key (why I dont know but they did). Any how the tech person (so called twit) she precedes to tell me that I could try removing the cmos battery and the battery pack as well as the cord for a few minutes to see if that will clear the bios password. So I hung up and did as she said to the T even tried it 3 more times for GP. Well all it did was lock the PC up tighter then a nuns c_nt. Now I cant even get into windows it now has a pop password. Well I called back and Im not 100% shure but I believe it was the same gal (at least it sounded like her) and told what I was told. She then preceded to to tell me that that is a shure fire way to reenable the supervisiors passowrd for the bios and for boot up. And then she telles me "there is no way to remove, clear, reset, recover, or even change the security chip on the board. That in fact I would have to buy a new board and I might as well buy a new pc for that cost. Well to say the least now I was pretty F_____G pi$$ed off to say the least. - by Just a Kid

IBM R40 Security Chip P2 (6:06pm EST Sat Apr 02 2005) But not to be one that gives up easy I did a bit of thinking and a bit of searching as well. After talking to some great friends that I have aquired on web over the years that are verry good and also unliked reverse engineers I came to a possible solution. There is place called password crackers on the web and they offer for $100 a new security chip to replace the one that has a password on it. Well after calling them they would not tell me where the chip was at since I didnt purchase one. But since Iam one that has a hard time to quit I went ahead and purchased one for thier price and with a thought in the back of me mind ticking away. So I waited to get the chip and when it arived I replaced the little bugger with the new one. Oh by the way.. its labeled as U24 on the board and believe it or not dumb a$$ IBM painted the thing green so it realy sticks out one you have an idea as to where to look for it (just south of the hhd). So now since I get this new chip in place and run a search for the chip on the web I goto find out I can buy one of these little jewls for about $3.20 a piece. hmmm ALOT LESS then the $600+ that f_cking IBM wanted for a whole new mother board that was the only way to regain use of the laptop. Well I also found that if you want to read what is in this little atmel chip, well get your self a an older Dishnet reciever with a jtag port on the bottom, a free ware program called JKeys and a hex editor like WinHex. - by Just a Kid

IBM R40 Security Chip P3 (6:09pm EST Sat Apr 02 2005) Well just note the pin 1 location place your locked chip on the board of the reciever in place of its eeprom, edit the details in the .def file of JKeys for your eeprom that has 8 legs, and then read the eeprom save to file and open with winhex.Now what does all this cost you?? Well if your brave and can think OUT SIDE OF THE BOX, then you can get the software for free even trial versions work since the eeprom file is only 8k and reciever well you may even find one at the dump just make shure you got a JTAG port on the bottom and 5 100 ohm resistors for makeing your own jtag cable you connect to the parrell port of your PC. I Tell you all this for one simple reason.. IBM is f_cking scum!! they are nothing but money hungry leaches that live off your neglect to think out side of the box. Thats right I hope IBM hate my ass for this and I hope they get ripped for selling abunch of stuff that is unneeded. For instance is it right for you to have to buy a new laptop cause your hard drive takes a dump?? Why not only thier hard drives work in thier laptops and you can change hdd from one machine to another. BS. Thats all I got to say. Oh yeah want all the maintence manuals they got for your laptop then here go. Since I cant say EXACTLY where to get them I can tell you this LOL. Think out side the box. Now the link is in this thread allready on a manual, so... remove the file name and a couple of directories and there is the FTP that has it all for most of the laptops in fact gigs and gigs of data, manuals, drivers, service notes, publications and so so so much more. But wait if you visit the FTp in explorer you cant see that much... they must be hidden server side. So get a small app like flashget that rips all files on a page... and there you go so many gigs that most dont have enough HDD space to get it all. Look for the index files and the allfiles files to see what the files are . - by Just a Kid

IBM R40 Security Chip P4 (6:10pm EST Sat Apr 02 2005) Open them in notepad and do a search for what your looking for then get it while you can. Oh yeah to be legal and all for all those out there that have bone to pick with some one like me.. well if you use a FTP clinet you will see that there is a notice that the ftp is not for every one, but hey they dont password protect all the folders and it is freely accessed so uck you IBM! And your so called trade secreats shove those up you butt as well! :P Now for those that want to make some money at this or even do it for your friends here is an idea.... Use the above methode for reading and eeprom copy the data from one you buy for $100 and then copy the data to a new $3.20 chip and sell it for $75.Hmmmm is it trademarked and or steeling the info. NO Why? Cause IBM cant copyright a simple chain of chain of commands in a eeprom. This is your LAPTOP not thiers! They cannot tell you that you can not explore the contents of the chip. Now if you duplicate the chip physicaly that would be different but of course we cant do that so no need to get panties in not. Were all here to share info and this is what I found out in a matter of 3 days and some time looking and not giving up. But most of all THINK OUT SIDE OF THE BOX. If you found this thread you can do the rest. Oh one other thing all the data is in hex code and mose hex code has a common set of op codes for atmel stuff not mentioning you can get a free AVR studio from atmels site as well that has ll that stuff ready to go in it for you. So one last thank you to IBM and thier screwed up tech support, I hope you choke and die! - by Just a Kid

hdd unlocking (3:16am EST Sun Apr 03 2005) - check status: atapwd or in linux hdparm -I /dev/hd? - haven't check the tools from the xbox people but doubt that they can remove the pw if it is an arbritrary one. Thing is, the pw is in a system area in the platters , where the firmware resides. This is not accessible with the regular ATA commands. You would have to know the propper command s to interact with this firmware area and these are dif for every maker and even between models. So frezzing, formating with mac or amiga dont work - the locked state is internal to the drive regardless of what you do outside to the box or the OS. Various data recovery shops have adquired this knowledge for some models. - If you want to program a brute force crack it is easy check the ATA standard, use DOS to keep it simple and reset after every 5 attempts (power off hdd or reset line) which you could automate by making a symple cct attached to line #1 (^RESET) to drive it low by sending a signal from the parallel port. It will take forever on average still. - and here comes the spoiler: in a pinch, and if you don't care if you lose the data, the drive, or your motherboard and if you have the identical drive unlocked (same model, same firmware version: check with hdparm -I ) do a real "caliente" transfer :-) it may just work for you or it may not, in which case it's professional care for your drive, if the data is that important - by Eric Cartman

T-20 Password (3:35am EST Mon Apr 04 2005) Hi, Can u remove password from T20 by shorting SDA to GN pin. I tried it but now the machine gives 188 CRC2 error. Can somebody advice how to remove it. microdotllc@gmail.com - by NA

T-20 Passowrd posible answer (2:09pm EST Mon Apr 04 2005) Most crc errors in the bios are repaired by updating the bios, how ever if the machine will not boot up even off a floppy then you may need to aquire a preloaded bios chip with the current bios if it is removable. There also may be a fix in the maintence manual for that laptop. There is a FTP talked about above in a post by "Just a Kid" that I know works since I have been there but you will need to look for the all files.txt files to see what file is the maintence file for your laptop. Good luck and hope this helps. - by anobody