Help!! Lost "Power-on Password" for Compaq Armada 7400 Laptop

Hello. I searched the forums and didn't find an answer to this. I've been helping a friend set up pc's and a network for his business. He just handed me his Compaq Armada 7400 and said he doesn't know the password for this and asked me to help. He claims this laptop is running XP. Anyway, as soon as you turn on the laptop before it does any booting a little screen pops up that asks for the "Power-on Password." He gave me a password, but I'm assuming it is his XP password and not this since it obviously doesn't work and I doubt he knows what this is. Anyone know how to reset this or get around it to reset it???

Without disassembling the laptop since I can't get into it here is some info. from the bottom of it:

Armada 7400 6300/T/6400/D/M/1
7918BXL 10037

This laptop currently has a swapable CD drive in. I believe he has the floppy swap drive.

I went through the 7400 material on hp/Compaq's support site and couldn't find the answer. Thank you in advance!
-bdubble

 

This is a BIOS password - so the XP password ain't gunna work.

Have you tried removing the battery for a few minutes? I'm not sure whether that'd work, but it's worth a shot. Thats the only thing I can think of that you can do without dissasembling the laptop.

 

Thank you Goldfish for the reply. I did try taking out the battery for a little while and it didn't work...
-bdubble

 

Anyone?!?!

 

Maybe leave the battery out for a lot longer than you did before?

Bazza

===

 

Ya might have a look here:
http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/reference/biosp.htm

 

Great find! Not tested, but great find! Bookmarked.

Now, I was going to say is that sometimes there is a reset pinhole on some laptops. I'd consult the manual, if you can't find the manual, try to download it.

To reset the battery for the laptop, one MUST remove the battery.

Also, one must remove the battery on the motherboard....

OR.....

Ask someone for the password....

 

One last thought?
Maybe there is no password, just hit enter.

 

Or type: password (for the password)

 

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ has a BIOS password utility.
But did you pull the CMOS battery or just the laptop battery?

*Disclaimer*
I am not 100% on this but some Comcraps have a little boot partition that
enables you to get into BIOS (without it you dont get the "Hit [key] to enter setup"). If you're deparate fdisk it and reinstall it. I had to reinstall this to a laptop and it did not loose the OS. But I don't make any guarantees. I am not sure that this boot system has the password... but if you must...

 

Thank you everyone for your input! I'll post back what I figure out after trying some of the various ideas. I did remove the battery for a couple of hours to no avail. Tried no password, tried "password", and yes, it does lock after three failed attempts.
-bdubble

 

"Power-on Password" defeated! I couldn't use any of the boot methods since it wouldn't boot...it's just stuck on the "Power-on Password" screen. I removed the power cord and battery for hours to no avail. Anyway, I removed all power, hard drive, cd-rom drive, nic, keyboard/cpu cover, heat shield cover under that with heat sink, disconnected the aux. battery and then the RTC battery. Waited 10 minutes and reinstalled everything. I got the info. from: http://www.howtofixcomputers.com/bb/sutra489530.html

Anyway, I'm passed the "Power-on password" and now the computer is hung/frozen on the "Windows is starting up..." xp blue screen, so I may try the boot cd link and/or try a safe mode start up. This laptop is so old that I'm surprised xp ever worked on it without freezing up all the time. Hopefully the blue screen freeze isn't from me pulling the power on the aux. battery and RTC.

After this, I need to figure out what to charge the customer for this...
-bdubble