~Toughbooktalk~

LF, I hope you will not feel offended if I said you might be getting over your head, fiddling with the bios on a laptop with no OS [you only said you've gotten a new harddisk. No mention of an OS in the previous drive... or none at all. You DO have a HDD caddy, right....?? ].

About your earlier question, "boot options" simply means what devices (HDD, CDD, FDD, USB, etc) are available to boot up the system. It will also allow you to set the "boot order", ie. which device to boot first (over everything else).

Your model number is usually found in a sticker on the base. It should read CF-19xxxxx and which COA do you have?

Welcome to the forum. The guys are helpful but you'd better be braced for some steep learning curve.

Ron
sleepless in SG

Hi, has anybody tried the "password skipping plug" from CF-29 service manual (page 4-1)?

Regards,
Mellors

Melly wrote:Hi, has anybody tried the "password skipping plug" from CF-29 service manual (page 4-1)?

Regards,
Mellors

That plug will only bypass a boot password. NOT the BIOS password.

Anyone who reset the BIOS password by booting from USB care to talk more about it? Am I really gonna need to buy a new 2GB flash drive to be able to boot?

I doubt I'm understanding this correctly. Do I just need to put Hiren's Boot CD on a flash drive, then stick the flash drive in before booting up?

not to sound mean but you can get an 8GB one for like $30 shipped these days... 4GB for probably 15 shipped...

Well I'm sitting on 4TB+ of hd space and 20 gb of flash memory somewhere around here, but I read here that you need a 2GB drive specifically to do it. I'm guessing that article is dated.

I've also been looking through this tutorial about booting with Hiren's, and it looks like it needs you to first enter the BIOS utility to change the boot order preferences before you can use it, which is a problem because I get prompted for a password whenever I hit F2 to run the BIOS utility.

Core Team wrote:Well I'm sitting on 4TB+ of hd space and 20 gb of flash memory somewhere around here, but I read here that you need a 2GB drive specifically to do it. I'm guessing that article is dated.

Yeah "Nov 21, 2005 8:00:00 AM"...

many mobo's can have the password cleared using dos and the debug command.... google it, as i don't remember how to use it; it's been 3 years or so since i needed to use it.

I am having a similar issue with an mk3 SBC CF-29

Ive tried running residual power out of it, Ive tried hirens boot cd bios utilities (cmospwd, ibios, etc) this did nothing. The date and time reset but the password is still locked. No known bios backdoor passwords work. It is not blank either.

As it stands I think my only options are:

*new logic board $75 lose 200mhz (computer will only sell for $200)
*eeprom hack (definitely beyond me)
*copy a known bios from a cf29 and install it using bios hack utility like ibios.
*find the solder joints on the bios and reset them with a wire

Has anyone ever had this kind of trouble? If the date and time reset and I turned the power on with no cmos battery, no battery and pulled the plug so it died like 5 times then flipped the power switch a few more for good measure I would think this would have reset the cmos?

TrillPhil

Read my post on page 2
Be carefull as ainitivirus progam will try to delete