Toshiba notebook BIOS password removal?

Someone gave me a Toshiba Satellite laptop A105-S2101 which has a BISO password and he does not remember what it is.
Has anyone has this problem or should I say would anyone know how I could go about resetting the password?

Thanks

 

Resetting the BIOS password is fairly straightforward on a desktop - remove the CMOS battery; after a short while (usually 10 to 15 minutes) the BIOS will be reset to the factory settings.

Laptops however present a bit more of a challenge.

There are several guides to using backdoor passwords
Google "resetting bios password laptop"
This will give you a whole range of possible solutions.

If you simply need to bypass the password but not reset it:
most Toshiba laptops will bypass the BIOS password if the left shift key is held down during boot.

 

This depends on what type of password we're talking about. If it's a BIOS password that prevents unauthorized entry into the BIOS, then removing the CMOS battery for an extended amount of time might work. If it's a power on password (also known as a POP) that prevents unauthorized users from using the laptop at all (meaning it won't boot or go into the BIOS or do anything w/o the password) then chances are that you have a very expensive paper weight. There is one online outfit that you can send the laptop to and they claim to be able to reset the password for $300.00. I have also seen password reset USB devices on EBay but have no idea how effective they may or may not be. Older Toshiba laptops could be reset by the use of a home-made loopback cable. You'd use an old parallel printer cable and connect pins 1 and 2 and 15, and connect pins 4 and 8 and 27, etc... (these are not the actual numbers, I made 'em up as an example). But that was on the old thick grey Satellites and Tecras, the Pentium I's....

Good luck!

 

I had the same problem years ago. My friend lost his password and brought me his Toshiba laptop to try and get past or fix it. I had sleepless nights for a week trying to figure it out. I couldn't fix it at all. He than took it to some other guy who was able to take the password off. I don't know how he did it though...

 

dlb is probably right about the POP, yet I am curious as to where (physically) the motherboard is storing the routine.
Clearing the CMOS by either removing the battery or shorting the "clear CMOS" jumpers has always been sufficient in my experience, to revert it to its original state.
Perhaps when you install a POP it flashes it to the CMOS permanently (or at least until it is changed). :confused

If that is the case, could not a flashing of the BIOS suffice?

 

Looks like I have a paper weight on my hands.
Thanks for all the input.

 

At least on an HP, clearing the CMOS by battery removal or using the clear CMOS jumpers, is the accepted way to clear the BIOS password.
However it is insufficient to clear a POP.
According to:
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service...47626+1210255823082+28353475&threadId=1184650.

Rosss
Before you chuck the laptop, try entering a backdoor password and see if it will give you computer access.
According to:
http://www.tech-faq.com/reset-bios-password.shtml
the backdoor password for a Toshiba is "Toshiba"

 

same as what was said earlier, there are ways to reset it....but you will have to google it...there are some programs out there to boot from a floppy (or cd, i imagine) that will reset bios passwords, usually you will need to know what brand bios (if its the computer manufacturer, phoenix, etc.)

 

I do remember that the bios password would not let me boot into windows when I was trying to help my friend with his TOSHIBA laptop. But it would let me boot to a disc like UBUNTU LINUX. I can't remember what key I used to press to get passed the bios password question. But I was able to get passed it. Just not able to load windows.

 

There is no parallell port on the labtop. I tryed all the passwords from http://www.tech-faq.com/reset-bios-password.shtml. There is no 3.5 diskette drive.

 

Perhaps using an external USB floppy drive will work. If you can get the PC to boot from a floppy, there are several utilities that will revert the CMOS back to factory defaults (I believe one of 'em is called KillCMOS and another is called CMOSPWD I think). However- on some laptops (older IBMs for example) if you completely wipe the CMOS to factory defaults, you may have a bigger problem on your hands. Some older IBMs will never boot again if the CMOS time and date are set to 00:00:00 and 00/00/0000. All you get is a black screen with "160" in the top left corner; this signifies an 'invalid time/date' according to the IBM Knowledge Base; and you can't even get into the BIOS if you have an invlaid time/date checksum. But this is probably not the case with Toshiba.

From joelsz:

If the laptop isn't booting, you can't flash the BIOS But if you could boot the laptop to a floppy (as I mentioned above) then theoretically you'd think it would work. I don't know about Toshibas, but with some IBM Thinkpads, there's actually 3 different chips involved in a POP and all three must have the exact same checksum for the PC to boot. The only way to accomplish this is to enter the right password (if there is a password). Flashing the BIOS doesn't work because the other other 2 chips are not effected by a BIOS flash. This also means that removing the BIOS battery and even changing the BIOS chip itself won't work, and the other 2 chips are micro-soldered to the system board. Many Thinkpad owners got really POed at IBM because of this (if your 5 year old somehow manages to enter a password, your laptop becomes worthless). The only way to remedy the situation is to replace the system board. Even IBM couldn't reset the password. There was a guy in Australia that published plans on the web on how to build a device that you'd plug into the serial port on the laptop, and plug the other end into the serial port on another PC, then you'd run his program and it would dump the coded contents of the chips into a binary file. Then you'd email the Australian dude the file, PayPal $30 or $40 (or whatever it was - this was a few years ago), and he'd email you the password in a few days. I helped a friend of mine build the device (about $15 for all the parts) and we did the whole thing, and sure enough, this Australian dude sent us the password and it worked. Again, this was a few years ago and for an IBM only (if I remember it was a T31 ???).....

 

Sometimes I get so wrapped up in the details I forget the basics. DUH

Interesting that IBM uses 3 (PROM?) chips.
I didn't know that.

 

Rosss

I know that at least some Toshiba laptops have a usb floppy.
I have one such (presently on loan to my daughter).
Rather than trashing the laptop, it might prove a worthwhile investment.
The only potential problem is that your machine probably won't boot to a USB without your telling it to in the BIOS.
Sort of a techno version of Catch 22.

 

Thanks for the info.!!