BIOS Trouble

[dnovalkowski]

Hey folks, hows it goin?

Got some trouble with an Acer Aspire 7739-6837. When it turns on it says Harddisk Security and that its locked. I press enter at this screen and then it says Input Password. I hit it 3 times in the hopes of getting a code that I can use to determine the way to unlock it but I get no screen with a code. I get screen that says I can try again or System Continue. So I continue and end up getting

Check Cable Connection PXE-MOF Exiting Intel PXE ROM
No bootable device
Insert boot disk and press any key

 

[NYJimbo]

Did this computer come to you in this condition ?
Did you ask the customer about what may have caused it to get to this error?
Did the customer give you any passwords to try ?

Remove the HD and slave it to another machine and see if its readable, if not you are probably looking at a drive level locking or encryption.

 

[dnovalkowski]

The customer did give me the comp in the condition, yes. He doesn't know what caused the issue unfortunately and we tried a couple passwords that he had on hand that 'it could have been' but no luck. I'll see what doing a hdd test does.. Thanks for the advice!'


Anyone else with thoughts?

 

[Markverhyden]

Sounds a little odd to be honest. Computers can do some strange things but I find it difficult that the HD lock suddenly turned on by itself.

 

[jbartlett323]

This does happen occasionally, usually after someone sets a boot password, forgets it, and tries to clear it via a bios reset/jumper/flash. Unfortunately, usually when you get past the the boot password, and run into the HDD password (that may have been automatically set because of tampering with the boot password), your SOL. Buy a new drive and reload. Hope there wasn't any important data on it cause its gone.

Just had this happen with a Toshiba a few weeks back. This only applies to some models, and may or may not be your case. If you cant see any data when its slaved, and the drive tests good, that's a decent confirmation.

 

[dnovalkowski]

I actually replaced the drive physically... haven't installed an OS on it yet but.. getting the same request for password when I try to get into the BIOS

 

[NYJimbo]

I actually replaced the drive physically... haven't installed an OS on it yet but.. getting the same request for password when I try to get into the BIOS

Were you able to read the original drive when slaved to another machine ?

 

[dnovalkowski]

yup!

 

[Markverhyden]

You are dealing with a BIOS lock then and not HD. A true HD lock will make the drive unreadable on another machine.

 

[dnovalkowski]

Do you know how to get passed the password? Ive that there should be a code accompanying the message but there isn't. Also, I can't seem to find any default password for this laptop so I can at least try something..

Thanks for you help guys btw..!!

 

[Markverhyden]

I've never worked on Acer laptops so can't help you. I'm not aware of them having any ASP's so Google is probably your best friend.

 

[dnovalkowski]

So the last thing I've done is loaded up Hirens and went into the BIOS Cracker utility which said that for Acer/IBM BIOSes, the password is [ C2T D8] [ A] $ ]
Any idea if this is true and what the right usage of this is?

Thanks!