ibm t60 issue

[crasheren]

im in quite the pickle, some time ago i helped one of my mothers friends pick a laptop, she travels alot so i suggested she would go for ibm for stability, which she did, she picked the t60 (not my call though) well good enough

now she suddenly passed away (cancer) and my mother enherited the whole thing alongside with her sister, my mother picked the laptop for me, which ofcourse i was happy for, i didnt know her that well

now to my surprise, she has made a supervisor password on the laptop meaning i cant do anything with it, which ofcourse irritates me, its a good laptop! now after some browsing (okay alot) i found a site called allservice.ro that actually makes a unit that can read the information stored in a specific chip on the motherboard, the chip/program/reader is called PC8394 as far as i can read

my question is, does anyone have that module? did it work? im eager to hear!

thanks in advance

sincerely

marc, denmark

 

[crasheren]

and now when it gets to worse it seems like the 60gb harddrive is protected by some password too, i tried moving it to another ibm stationary computer and it asks for a password, then i cant even use the 2.5" harddrive in my mediecenter, wtf ;(

 

[Brainonska511]

The "supervisor password" sets it on the hard drive, so even if you move the drive, you'll need the pw. You could try calling up Lenovo to see if there is a master reset password, but I doubt it.

If you don't get an answer here, try the forums at NotebookReview.com - they are much more active for a notebook forum compared to this one.

 

[crasheren]

im pretty sure the supervisor password isnt stored on the harddrive but on a chip on the motherboard, so replacing the harddrive wont bring the laptop back to life

 

[Brainonska511]

It might be stored in 2 places. If you put the hard drive into another machine and it came up requiring a password, the hard drive obviously has a password written to it. Either way, you could try the module you linked to in order to break the password.

Have you tried putting an unpassworded drive into the T60 to see what happens?

On my laptop, I can set 2 passwords (besides in Windows): The BIOS, so that you need a pw to enter and change settings, and the hard drive, so after POST, it would ask for the hard drive password before it could continue booting.

 

[crasheren]

i found the solution, and omg i feel stupid it was written in the service manual hehe

now i have removed the power on password and now there is a new problem - the harddrive is also protected by a password, but that should be possible to fix with a usb2-2.5" external bay and then format it in linux or something

 

[TheStu]

Oh yea, nothing a good format can't fix

 

[crasheren]

i may have said too much, format didnt do the trick

apparently the harddrive password is set on a firmware level on the 2.5" harddrive, seems like i have to buy another 2.5" sata disc - not that it bothers me but ive read somewhere that the hd inherits the old password from the old harddrive (for some reason) so im probably suck with 2x2.5" discs that both has a password i dont know but ill try it out, ill order a 2.5" 40gb hd on monday, it'll arrive on tuesday, so with a little bit of luck the new harddrive will not inherit the old harddrives password - keep yours fingers crossed!

ill keep you posted

/crash

 

[crasheren]

the hd is a pain in the butt! it wont let me do much with it, just like my gf hehe

 

[illusionm8]

sorry to hear your troubles

but it sounds like the trusted computing security chip is doing its job exactly as designed. as i understand it, the passwords are linked to the chip on the mobo, so if you were to take the drive out of the computer then ppl still wouldnt be able to get your data.

 

[zetsway]

Originally posted by: crasheren
the hd is a pain in the butt! it wont let me do much with it, just like my gf hehe

the password is actually on the harddrive and not on the laptop. If you are still having trouble e-mail me and I can see what I can do.

 

[corkyg]

Remove the HDD, put it in an external case, connect to a desktop computer and format it.

BTW - I always write my system passowrds in the User Manual flyleaf.

 

[conradodav]

Hello i work as a certified technician in IBM i can unlock ANY MODEL. If anyone have questions feel free to write me to conradodav@hotmail.com.
Thinkpad LENOVO IBM BIOS PASSWORD UNLOCKER