T40p supervisor password

[bs_pal]

Hi,

I purchased T40p couple of years ago. For my projects in University I had to leave the system running all time at the office. So for security reasons I set the supervisor password and also enabled the embedded security chip. It worked really well until I forgot the SVP. I spoke to IBM hardware support guys. They said it would cost me $895 dollars to replace a new motherboard since the old board is useless now. All my years of work is in the laptop.

Fortunately, I was able to get into windows without entering the SVP and got my files secured. I tried to used the rescue and recovery proccess in the IBM access utility to restore it to factory contents. I updated the OS and IBM utilities and also installed the CSS. Now I tried to disable the chip using CSS. I tried to remember the SVP and enter it in the CSS to disable the chip. I entered wrong password couple of times. So I left it were it was and continued with my work. Later at the end of the day when I rebooted the system and all hell broke loose. There is an error saying"Error0199-IBM security - too many retry counts". This time I used the "Restore to Factory contents" in the Access IBM utility. It did install the OS but no use. No network connections, no wireless connections, no sound, no video drivers. Just the OS.

Can anybody help me to solve this problem? I cannot spend 80% of my laptop cost on the motherboard.

Thank you in advance.

Shankar

[Shammyh]

Unfortunately you might be up a proverbial creek. I do remember having seen a few companies that claim they can reset motherboard passwords, but most tend to be for non IBM laptops. I am almost 100% sure t43x/t60x series passwords cannot be recovered if the "passphrase" option was enabled in the bios. As far as your t40p goes, do you remember setting a "passphrase" option, or did you just set the supervisor password normally? Further, don't even both with so called "master" or "overide" passwords you find on the internet, they won't work. Perhaps someone can dig up a thread somewhere about this topic.

- Sam

[bs_pal]

Yes, I did set a passphrase too at the time of CSS installation. Does it matter if a CSS passphrase is set? Because I remember the CSS passphrase.

Thank you

Shankar

[cmarti]

You may also check on eBay because there is a seller who got a chip that you can buy and use it to override the security chip in some IBM laptops.

Good luck!