T22 with password spash - any personalization editor?

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The GNUinator · #1 Post by **The GNUinator** » Wed May 28, 2008 12:06 pm

Hello all,

I bought a T22 on eBay from a Carl Boone who had a
contract to recycle numerous ThinkPads formerly owned
by Merck , the drug company. The machine arrived
in great shape. Then I put on a Power On Password.

Guess what? If there is any password set I
get a screen which says "property of Merck and Co...
address, phone number, Please return, etc".....

OK so I have looked all over for a Personalization
Editor for the T22. But I always wind up with a
link to the Personalization Editor for TP 600, or
770 or 760, etc. and these diskettes will not
run on the T22.

Do I need something which will do a bios dump?

Anyone else have this problem?

tia,
The GNUinator

ajkula66 · #2 Post by **ajkula66** » Wed May 28, 2008 5:21 pm

My guess is that your T22 has a supervisory password set, and that's what's giving you grief...

If I'm correct in my assumption, this is as far as this issue can be discussed on the forum.

Good luck.

The GNUinator · #3 Post by **The GNUinator** » Thu May 29, 2008 4:32 pm

ajkula66 wrote:My guess is that your T22 has a supervisory password set, and that's what's giving you grief...

If I'm correct in my assumption, this is as far as this issue can be discussed on the forum.

Good luck.

Thanks for the reply. You are NOT correct. The machine arrived
with no password set. There was NO password splash screen.
I then put on a POP and then got a password splash screen.
Then I took off the POP that I had put on and I get no password splash screen.
Then I put on a Supervisory password so that
a password is required to go into bios setup. There is no password
splash unless I go into the bios setpup. I keep seeing references
about a Personalization Editor for the T22. Since your assumption
is incorrect, we should be able to discuss this subject in
this forum.

Is there or is there not a Personalization Editor for
the ThinkPad T series?

tia,

The GNUinator

#4 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Thu May 29, 2008 5:53 pm

Merck being such a big outfit, they probably had a personalized BIOS put in on a big order.
You probably need to change the BIOS chip if you don't want that Merck blurb (or just don't put in a password).
You could try and upgrade/reflash the BIOS with a version from the Lenovo website. If that doesn't do the trick, you may be looking at re-writing the ATMEL eeprom (not to be discussed here).

The GNUinator · #5 Post by **The GNUinator** » Fri May 30, 2008 3:06 pm

RealBlackStuff wrote:Merck being such a big outfit, they probably had a personalized BIOS put in on a big order.
You probably need to change the BIOS chip if you don't want that Merck blurb (or just don't put in a password).
You could try and upgrade/reflash the BIOS with a version from the Lenovo website. If that doesn't do the trick, you may be looking at re-writing the ATMEL eeprom (not to be discussed here).

Thank you so much. This is a great message since it completely
answers the question I had. How tough is it to change the
BIOS chip? Isn't that chip soldered to the planar? For the time
being I just do not have a password set.

Again thanks. I sure understand why reprogramming the
ATMEL eeprom is not to be discussed ... I sure do not
support stolen ThinkPads in any way.

The GNUinator

#6 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Fri May 30, 2008 3:51 pm

If the laptop is for your personal use, I would learn to live with it as-is.
Try first to flash the BIOS. I don't know which chip that is, but all of them are soldered

Replacement Atmels are for sale on ebay (you need the 14-legged version for a T23), but they involve micro-soldering as well.
Don't have any other advice.

T22 with password spash - any personalization editor?

T22 with password spash - any personalization editor?

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