How to Bypass or Remove a BIOS
Password
A BIOS password is a
protection measure that can be used to stop someone powering up a computer
system or making changes in some of the computers most sensitive areas. Many
big name computer manufacturers such as Dell and HP lock the customers out of
this area because they don’t want the customer changing anything and
potentially damaging the machine (which the manufacturer may have to warranty).
However, when someone like a computer technician or hardware enthusiast needs
to make some hardware changes to the computer, they will need to access the
BIOS. Here are some methods to bypass or remove a BIOS password.
NOTE: Do not try to guess the password on a pass worded Hard Drive. 3 wrong guesses will often result in the information on the hard drive being lost forever.
NOTE: Do not try to guess the password on a pass worded Hard Drive. 3 wrong guesses will often result in the information on the hard drive being lost forever.
How to Bypass or Remove a
BIOS Password by Removing the CMOS Battery:
The simplest way to remove a BIOS password is to simply remove the CMOS battery. A computer will remember its settings and keep the time even when it is turned off and unplugged because these parts are powered by small battery inside the computer called a CMOS battery. If we pull out this battery, the computer will forget a lot of its hardware settings, including its BIOS password. This should not be performed on Laptops if you are not experienced working with laptop hardware.
Anyway, open up the computer case using a
screw driver and locate the flat, circular and metallic CMOS battery. It should
look something like the picture to the right. Some computers have this part
standing upright.
Once you have located it,
observe how the latches are holding it. There are many different ways to remove
a CMOS battery but the most common way on newer computers can be seen in the
picture below.
Make sure to power down the computer, unplug the power cables and unplug
any USB devices if they are powered. The computer must not be able to get
power from anywhere for this to work. Take out the CMOS battery and wait 10 –
25 minutes before putting it back in. The reason for this wait is because the
computer can still store power in its capacitors even though everything is
unplugged. The waiting period allows enough time for them to discharge.
Plug everything back in, power
up the computer and enter the BIOS again. If everything went well there should
be no more password. In some cases, if you get weird error messages during boot
up now, you will need to go to “Load BIOS Defaults” in BIOS and save the
changes to fix them.
How to Bypass or Remove a BIOS Password using the
manufacturer backdoor password:
On many computers
(especially old ones), computer manufacturers build in backdoor passwords for
their own technicians to use so they can access the BIOS when the hardware is
being serviced. Here are some of the ones that have been reported. You may need
to try quite a few passwords before you find one that works
These passwords are Case Sensitive.
AMI BIOS Backdoor Passwords:
A.M.I. AAAMMMII
AMI AMI?SW
AMI_SW
BIOS
CONDO HEWITT RAND
LKWPETER MI
Oder PASSWORD
Award BIOS Backdoor Passwords:
(eight spaces)
01322222 589589
589721 595595
598598 ALFAROME
ALLY ALLy
aLLY aLLy
aPAf award
AWARD PW AWARD SW
AWARD?SW AWARD_PW
AWARD_SW AWKWARD
Awkward IOSTAR
CONCAT CONDO
Condo condo
d8on djonet
HLT J256
J262 j262
j322 j332
J64
KDD
LKWPETER Lkwpeter
PINT pint
SER SKY_FOXSYXZ
SKY_FOX syxz
SYXZ TTPTHA
ZAAADA ZBAAACA
ZAAAADA ZJAAADC
Russian Award BIOS Passwords:
%øåñòü ïpîáåëîâ% %äåâÿòü
ïpîáåëîâ%
Phoenix Backdoor BIOS Passwords:
BIOS CMOS
Phoenix PHOENIX
Other Manufcaturers Backdoor Passwords: (manufacturer
name – password)
VOBIS and IBM – merlin
Dell – Dell
Biostar –
Biostar
Compaq – Compaq
Enox
– xo11nE
Epox – central
Freetech – Posterie
IWill - iwill
Jetway – spooml
Packard Bell
– bell9
QDI – QDI
Siemens – SKY_FOX
SOYO – SY_MB
TMC – BIGO
Toshiba – Toshiba