Thinkpads Forum

Hey all. I bought a bunch of 15.4" T61's for parts. Mainly, I needed two screens. They were partially stripped (no keybard, palmrest, HD/caddy, WiFi), but when I put in some components, I discovered that they worked great! Unfortunately, the BIOSes are locked, though one does let me boot off of pretty much anything. Any way to solve this problem by poking the right bits into the ROM somewhere??

Thanks,
/DA

AFAIK one of the no-no's of this forum is discussing how to circumvent BIOS password security.

Second that.
Only acceptable discussion would be ways to track down the original owner and ask for a password.

Third that.

joester wrote: Only acceptable discussion would be ways to track down the original owner and ask for a password.

^^^^^

Exactly.

Second acceptable discussion would be to offer what the factory says about this: replace the motherboard(s).

The board that allows booting of an OS will continue to do so until the CMOS (backup) battery goes dead (or is disconnected). After that, when the system is turned on it will always prompt you for the BIOS password before loading an OS. Since you don't have it, you basically have another brick.

Third option: check your "new messages", you never know...

Thanks. One of them actually comes up with a splash screen saying where the laptop is from. It's a company right next to the recycle shop, but they've been gobbled up by another, international, firm. I did try calling, but no one responded to my detailed messages.

These are old laptops, guys. There should be a point at which discussing unlocking of the BIOS would be kosher. I mean, if I had a locked 600E, wouldn't this be a valid discussion? I mean, really. At this point, who would be breaking into such a beast?

Anyway, I now know that there's all kinds of stuff on youtube. And sellers of tools. And service providers. Thanks to everyone.

/DA.

There should be a point at which discussing unlocking of the BIOS would be kosher.

I understand where you're coming from, there's a reason why the rule was put in place.

Simply put, it's dangerous knowledge that can be used for illegal activities.

Don't worry about it too much. Forums have rules like these for a reason and are usually understandable. But I feel your frustration. On another computer forum I have been a member on for over ten years, I got my thread deleted and warned because I was trying to "subvert security measures." I was asking for help in setting up a VPN server with family back home. I live in China where living behind the "great firewall" really sucks, where tons of stuff is blocked/slowed often what feels quite randomly. This was on a 100% US-based forum mind you! So yeah, just keep looking elsewhere and you will eventually find your answers. Although I guess it seems that you already did.