Deal of the Day

[n1nj4Lo]

I was at a thrift store near me called Park Ave Thrift in Georgia and was in the back of the store and one of the employees brought out a big buggy full of stuff and I snooped around and found an IBM ThinkPad T30 2366 and I picked it up and tried to power it on and saw that it went past the bios screen to a lock screen so I had a feeling it was in good health... Bought it for $19.98 couldn't get past the lock someone put on the hard drive so I dug around in my junk closet and found a 40Gb hard drive that fit it and installed xp on it and am now making this post with it. LoL

Just thought I'd share my find, my old A31 finally died from the short in the power supply on the laptop that was always giving me problems.

[rkawakami]

Not to be a downer but if the "BIOS screen" you are talking about is the IBM tri-color boot screen, then you may have a ticking time-bomb. If you haven't already, access the BIOS by pressing the F1 key at power up and see if you can enter the system without getting prompted by a password. If somebody went and enabled the hard drive password, there's a chance they also installed a BIOS password. You won't see it unless you actively try to enter the BIOS or when (not if) the CMOS backup battery dies (or is removed). If there's a BIOS password then your system will be a brick.

[n1nj4Lo]

So it could've added the password on it's own, also if I updated the bios would that help fix/prevent anything? LoL

[rkawakami]

The BIOS (or any other) password should not appear "on its own"; there needs to be a specific action taken in the BIOS to set/enable the passwords. I guess that it is theoretically possible that a corruption in the memory circuits of the system could make the computer think it has one, however the chances of that happening are very, very remote.

I believe that updating the BIOS requires that any BIOS password be removed first.

[n1nj4Lo]

Ohh okay I might be a lucky one then hopefully and no the bios screen I'd get was the traditional black screen with a white cylinder and a padlock next to it in the far upper left hand corner... I put the original hard drive in an old 600E I got and it gave me the same screen.

So in your own experience would you say updating the bios to the new 2006 version has helped prevent this bomb from happening? Or anybody here who might have experience with this can say whether it helped them or not.




That type of image, but with the cylinder as an indicator for the hard drive was what I saw

[rkawakami]

If you have already updated the BIOS to a new revision, then I believe your system is free from any supervisor password. I've always removed a BIOS password prior to updating the BIOS even though I think the update process will prompt for it if it's set. But just to be clear, if you press the F1 key when the system is booting and you get into the BIOS menu without having to enter a password, then you're okay.

That cylinder / lock icon is representative of a hard drive password. What you are showing in the pictures above that is the prompt when the system has either a power-on password or BIOS password.

[robert213]

...and I snooped around and found an IBM ThinkPad T30 2366 and I picked it up and tried to power it on and saw that it went past the bios screen to a lock screen so I had a feeling it was in good health... Bought it for $19.98

I bought a pair of used identical T30's over six years ago. I use one of them everyday. I keep the other in my office as a backup. I still enjoy using them.

1) Obtain the IBM Windows Recovery CD and you will never need to register Windows XP with Microsoft. Also, download, save, and install Windows XP Service Pack 3.
2) Hitachi 100GB (7K100 and 5K100) HD are still available by searching stores through both Yahoo and Google Shopping. Remember you want IDE/PATA and not SATA.
3) USB 2.0 PC Card is a must. A USB to mini-jack cord is needed to obtain 5V power from T30 USB 1.1 port. Most USB HD enclosures require 5V DC. Other sources of power include a powered USB hub or if your USB HD adapter has AC power cord.
4) In my opinion, UltraBay HD adapter is faster than USB 2.0 HD enclosure.
5) I save my clean Windows XP SP3 install on my original 40GB HD using Acronis True Image.
6) Check my signature, I don't exactly remember correctly, I think that PC2700 memory is cheaper than PC2100.
7) I am browsing the internet with ease through Avast! Anti-virus, Zone Alarm firewall, MS IE v8.0.
I have been sharing document and spreadsheets with others using Oracle/Sun Micro Open Office.