Can I Replace The Boot Disk Without Changing Anything In The Bios?

Our nonprofit has a compaq 8300 Elite SFF desktop (Win 10) from ~2013 that's giving warning signs of impending hard disk failure via SMART. The computer was donated used, years ago, we've lost track of the company that donated it, AND they set a password for the bios. From what I hear, I don't dare fool with the jumper to reset that password for fear of bricking the motherboard. So I can't make any changes in the bios. (That's from my notes. It's been a couple of years since I looked into this and I don't remember details at the moment.)

So I want to clone & replace the 500 Gb boot drive with maybe a 2 Tb drive. I haven't done this in years. Is this going to need changing a setting in the (password protected) bios? Am I out of luck here?

Thanks

 

There is information on bypassing the BIOS password like Ultimate Boot CD or , or you could get a dock that has the clone feature and clone the drive outside the PC and replace it.

 

To be a bit more specific, the company that donated it set a setup password. I do not know if it has been set to "stringent security," and I'm not aware of how to tell if it has, except to fool with the jumper to reset the setup password and see if it bricks the motherboard. I can't risk that, so apparently can't make any changes in the bios.

 

Foogoo, thanks for the suggestion.
My actual question hasn't been answered, but I gather that as long as I don't switch from mbr to gpt, I probably won't have a problem switching boot disks without requiring changes to bios settings.

I have the mfr's maintenance & service guide, which shows that there is a jumper that can be removed to reset the setup password, as long as "stringent security" has not been set. But this guide stated incorrectly that IF stringent security has been set and the jumper is removed, the computer will be unusable. I thought they were saying it would brick the motherboard, so I was reluctant to try the jumper. Turns out that's wrong. The computer will be unusable only in the sense that the bios can't be edited. It will still function as a computer, even if stringent security is set and that jumper pulled.

But I've also figured out that on my computer, stringent security actually has not been set. So the bottom line is that after pulling that jumper I should be able to access the bios and make any desired changes. Yay.