How To Unlock Cdrom Drive

Hi to all,

I bought an IBM laptop used. Spec's are IBM Thinkpad, A30, Model 2652DU1, P-3/1.13, 256mb, 30 gb. It has Win2000 Pro on Hard Drive. I bought a new Windows XP to install on it. The Computer checks out just fine. Gets on internet, etc., but I want to reformat hd and install XP on it. The cd rom will not bootup the XP program. It seems thru all my checking out that whoever owned it before use it in a business and set it so you cant download from internet, or use the cdrom drives. All the hardware is reconized and seems to check out fine but wont let you do nothing. I checked the BIOS. All seems fine, but if you try to set the cdrom as the first boot it gives an explanation mark instead of selecting it (!). Im sure for security reasons the IT dept set this so the employees could not mess anything up. I see no where that it ask for some password, etc. Does anyone know how i can reformatt the hard drive and install xp on this. Would me flashing the BIOS delete all their settings. I have never messed with a computer that was previous owned by someone else that used it on a corp. network. I have bought a new hard drive for it, but it has not arrived yet, at this point i cant set it up either. Thanks

 

My understanding is that some laptops have bioses that are password locked and where no changes can be made. Attempting to change the boot order is not allowed ...unless one has the password. Changing the HD will not elliminate the problem, it is to do with the bios itself.

I am not very knowledgeable with lappies but ran across information highliting this issue when I was trying to upgrade a Dell to give to my daughter. Odly, I spotted this info on ebay where in the description the vendors spoke of this drawback/problem.

I followed up my investigations on the Dell forum and the upshot is that you need the password by all account as the bios is just locked. Apparently, resetting the cmos or taking the cmos battery out does not overcome this difficulty.

Hope this helps

 

Thank you for the reply. If it were password protected, would it not ask me for a password? It boots to the program win2000, which I dont want to use nor is it legal. Im just confused about this computer. Seems if they did not want you to use it, they would have reformatt the hard drive or took it out.

 

As I said not really an expert in this field at all. Was just trying to shed some light.

I did just try running a seach in google..."bios locked laptop" and one of the first entries was the following from the Petri forum

http://www.petri.co.il/forums/showthread.php?t=6875

You can see that this is a common issue.

Hope this helps