BIOS Issues on old HP Notebook

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I was given an HP 5103 Notebook with Win 7 License. However, the windows account and admin account passwords are unknown. Passwords have never been obstacles for me; I have several methods of cracking or bypassing passwords. . But …. those methods require booting into a non-Windows environment. I can’t do that on this notebook because the BIOS is set to boot into

• Hard drive
• Network

I don’t have an admin password to change the BIOS.

This computer has USB, but no BIOS provision for booting from USB. It has a hard drive and networking, but no access to the network

So I’m stumped.

I’m looking for an admin password for the BIOS, or a Win 7 password, or some way around the BIOS limitation on Boot Options.

TIA

 

 

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Just a stab – may not work:
Disconnect the hard drive?

By “admin password” do you mean the ‘Bios administrator password’?

Is this a Mini 5103? If so, see pages 109-110 of the User Guide.

Following may not be possible ?
109: “Reset BIOS security to factory default” – “Restore the BIOS security settings to the factory default.”

110: “Boot options” – “Enable/disable USB device boot.”

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WSSB2K

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Thank you. Those sound like good ideas, but I don’t have the BIOS Administrator Password. Without it, I can’t perform any of those operations. HP has a super-secret password on its web site. Alas, that password doesn’t work; nor does HP’s “if that doesn’t work, try this …”

Now the good news: I discovered that if I insert a USB drive or an SD Card into the 5103, they are recognized by the system as boot drive options. That means I can boot into Windows or Linux.

The bad news: I still can’t edit the BIOS, but my concern with the BIOS is merely to get it to recognize USB or SD for booting.

—————————————————————————————————-

The world’s most famous erroneous time-based proclamation: “Its 5-year mission …”
The world’s most famous split infinitive:  “To boldly go …”
The world’s most famous sexist remark: “where no MAN has gone before.”

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Take out the CMOS battery and regular battery and try to power on or maybe an accessible CMOS reset switch.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

1 user thanked author for this post.

WSSB2K

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HP has quite a write-up  about Resetting the CMOS:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-System-and-Recovery/bios-password-RESET-on-an-HP-Mini-5103/td-p/4634966

I was neither surprised nor disappointed when it didn’t work. We are, after all, discussing HP.

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HP forums are a dead end here as per their forum rules.

d. No posts shall include instructions or directions intended to bypass or subvert security measures, including passwords, locking mechanisms, fingerprint scans, etc., or to bypass any safety measures.

which have beem/are well moderated.

Flashing the bios resets passwords on most HP devices, how in your predicament, is the big question. Womder if removing the HDD and inserting a USB device will override the boot settings..just hazzarding a guess

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WinKey + B starts the reset CMOS process.

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Kali Linux is a live CD that has a CMOS-cracking tool. If you aren’t nerdy enough to understand that, you don’t need to know. If you do understand it, do a search-engine neutral  search on

kali.org cmos

It also has password-cracking tools for Window XP, 7, and 10. You can download it from

https://cdimage.kali.org/kali-2021.3/kali-linux-2021.3-live-i386.iso

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