Thinkpads Forum

Hi all.

Today I tried to enter the BIOS on my T61 (only supervisor password enabled).

1. Power on password icon showed up (not supervisor pass icon) I tried to enter the BIOS without typing anything, just pressed ENTER and BIOS content showed up but I was not able to do anything there, as all the options were greyed out. So I provided the supervisor pass but without success.

So I tried reset Power on pass via

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-59377

and now I not not able to enter the BIOS at all nor run the system. T61 has expired warranty.

Any suggestions please?

Admin note: Split this post from T410 Power-on Password Glitch and moved to T6x forum.

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

I split out your post from the T410 thread but may have partially answered your question there: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 34#p614734

If your system has the Supervisor password set and you removed the CMOS battery, thinking that you were resetting a power-on password, then the system will keep prompting for the BIOS password when it is turned on. For some systems, the power-on password icon and the supervisor password icon is the same (a crude picture of a computer monitor next to a padlock). I'm not sure if the T61 has this or not, but I know that most (if not all) of the earlier Thinkpads or BIOS revisions used the same icon for both passwords.

It is possible to enter the BIOS without providing a password and see the contents, but not be able to change anything. This is an option in the password menu system so that is normal.

The only way you can get your system to boot again would be to provide the correct BIOS password. Be sure you are typing in the correct password. If you can't enter the correct one, then the only solution is to replace the system's motherboard. There's nothing else we can offer as this site has a policy of not allowing discussions of breaking into secure computer systems.