THINKPAD T20-21 SUPERVISOR PASSWORD

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damusana muñoz · #1 Post by **damusana muñoz** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:20 am

Good Morning,
I have a machine that no start cos ask me the supervisor password and I lost the password.
What can i make for start the computer if i don't have this password??
In the screen appears a simbol with a lock and a ¿¿diskette or little tft??
I try to start the computer with a start diskette of windows 98, 2000 but that not results...
Please, HELP ME!!!!!

Zeitgeist · #2 Post by **Zeitgeist** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:48 am

The only way: remember the password.

egibbs · #3 Post by **egibbs** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 5:58 am

Naw - all you need to do is replace the system board and hard disk drive (the disk symbol means there is a HDD password set too). That will cost about twice what the laptop is worth, but it will start up just fine then.

n3il · #4 Post by **n3il** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 6:05 am

http://www.nortek.on.ca/hdd_pw.html

Probably expensive - but less expensive than replacing components...

egibbs · #5 Post by **egibbs** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 6:22 am

Of course if it's stolen sending it to Nortek would be a BAD idea - they check to see if the machine has been reported stolen.

He would also need to ship the computer to Canada to use Nortek.

monty cantsin · #6 Post by **monty cantsin** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 7:04 am

From the FAQ:

12) Can you help me remove the BIOS/HDD password from this
ThinkPad that I just bought/inherited/found/was given/stole/other?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Cracking passwords is a highly charged subject that
reasonable people disagree over. Threads discussing it can be found
starting at:

http://zurich.ai.mit.edu/hypermail/thin ... /1095.html

and

http://zurich.ai.mit.edu/hypermail/thin ... /1132.html

#7 Post by **K. Eng** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 8:06 am

I hate to deliver bad news, but you're screwed.

And your story doesn't make sense. You say that you lost the password, right? And you don't know what the lock and diskette icons are, right? Well, if you had set the passwords originally and rebooted your computer sometime later, you wouldn't be surprised at the lock icons, would you?

damusana muñoz wrote: Please, HELP ME!!!!!

myckee · #8 Post by **myckee** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 11:03 pm

Hi,

I had bought a used thinkpad T23 which had a Supervisor and HD password. Ofcourse I had no idea what it was. I read on the internet that you had to send the laptop to IBM with proof of purchase and have the system board replaced. There is another way.

The supervisor password is stored on an eeprom chip on the system board and the HD password is stored on the HD.

Now there are some sites which detail how to unlock your thinkpad by buying a new eeprom chip, and having it soldered to your board inplace of the original. I don't believe this works. There are other sites which say you can remove the battery...this does work for Power On Password, but not for Supervisor password. Others which say to boot the computer with battery removed and only powered by power supply. this won't work and you will end up with a non functioning laptop.

I did find one site on the net which gives very detailed instructions on how to recover the unique password stored on the eeprom(no such thing as a generic password to unlock any thinkpad).

It requires that 3 wires be soldered to the eeprom(tiny chip located under the ram cover) and a small circuit built on a solderless breadboard from Radio Shack. My total cost was $100 Canadian. The hardest part was to solder the 3 wires as the chip is tiny and I have no experience soldering, but I did manage it!

The website with instructions is here: http://www.ja.axxs.net/unlock/

It worked for me! Good luck!

Plinkerton · #9 Post by **Plinkerton** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 11:37 pm

Wow. What a pain. I don't even know how to set a BIOS password or any of that. Should I have one set so someone else can't set it?

There's a thread on here where a guy says his room mate locked his as a joke or something...

I wouldn't imagine there's anyone I know that would do that, but is it something I should think of? I'd hate to have a locked computer.

egibbs · #10 Post by **egibbs** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 6:02 am

>>Should I have one set so someone else can't set it?

Yes - every few months some poor soul comes on here looking for a way to unlock a machine that someone else locked as a joke/revenge. If you don't set your passwords yourself you run the risk that someone will do it for you.

Just make sure you set them to something you will never, ever forget.

Ed Gibbs

Plinkerton · #11 Post by **Plinkerton** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 2:11 pm

How exactly do I go about setting all the "strange" passwords, like the HD PW, and the BIOS PW, etc. What other ones are there?

I know how to set the windows password, but have no clue about the others.

Thanks a lot,
Plink

JHEM · #12 Post by **JHEM** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 5:06 pm

Plinkerton wrote:How exactly do I go about setting all the "strange" passwords, like the HD PW, and the BIOS PW, etc. What other ones are there?

In the BIOS! http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.ws ... &loc=en_US

You want to FIRST set a BIOS (Supervisor, or SP) PW, which will also automatically set a HD PW that matches.

You want to then set a Power On PW (POP) which is DIFFERENT than the SP. (It doesn't HAVE to be different, but it's preferable)

WRITE THEM DOWN!!! Put them someplace safe and where you'll remember where they're at!

After this you will be prompted for the POP whenever you BOOT the machine. You will only be prompted for the SP if you want to change the BIOS settings, PWs or wanted to change the hardware (memory, HD, etc.) in the machine.

The upside of this is that no one can change your PWs without your knowledge and, if you were to be so unfortunate as to lose your machine, it would be a doorstop to a thief. Also, no one can take your HD out of the machine and read it on another machine without the SP (HD) PW.

Regards,

James

Plinkerton · #13 Post by **Plinkerton** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 11:19 pm

Thanks a lot. I'll get right to that... When I get a computer...

Stupid defective crap... I'm still [censored]...

aabram · #14 Post by **aabram** » Wed Oct 06, 2004 5:36 am

I can verify myckees success story with http://www.ja.axxs.net/unlock/
I bought used thinkpad and didn't ask BIOS password from previous user. Later I locked myself out when changing HDD and it prompted me to go to BIOS to verify settings. Previous owner had forgotten the password by that time so I was screwed. I was able to recover password though with help from aforementioned site.

And some people should really get over the paranoia that all "lost passwords" must really be "stolen notebooks".

MadeInJapan · #15 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Wed Oct 06, 2004 9:58 pm

aabram...I've done quite a bit of eeprom reading and modifying for DVD players...of course it's nothing like for a ThinkPad, but the method you gave (from the website) very much intersted me. It seems that the bin file created that you sent in could be read with a Hex File reader and some sense could be made from it...maybe even the Password extracted from it without much effort...don't know.

Anyway, I'm rambling here....was wondering if you still have the bin file created that you sent in and if so, if you tried to read it yourself?

THINKPAD T20-21 SUPERVISOR PASSWORD

THINKPAD T20-21 SUPERVISOR PASSWORD

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