Compaq Presario 1230 Laptop Accessing BIOS Setup

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

If I can change the boot sequence, I can do without the floppy drive,
but to get into the settings by pressing F10, I have to enter a password.
I don't have the phone number of the person I bought it from who lives
out of town.

<http://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/edwin/laptops/compaq/Compaq Presario/Compaq Presario 1230 1232.pdf>

Page 21.

Geoff.

 

[[email protected]]

Hi,

I service TVs, etc. Once in a while, I service my own computers, one of
which is a Compaq Presario 1230 laptop with Windows 98se I bought second hand
a few years ago. You may consider this obsolete, but to me, it is very
useful.

Recently, during power up, I saw "Error, O2BO: Diskette drive A error".
I removed the floppy drive, but I got the same error, which could be
it's controller?

I inserted a bootable CD rom hoping that the boot sequence might start at
the CD rom, but it didn't. It must be A: drive first. Note: The HDD is fine
because I removed it and checked it on anther PC.

If I can change the boot sequence, I can do without the floppy drive,
but to get into the settings by pressing F10, I have to enter a password.
I don't have the phone number of the person I bought it from who lives
out of town.

I removed the RTC/CMOS battery (soldered in) and waited 24 hours
hoping that it may "clear" the password requirement, but it did not.
Maybe I should wait longer?

Pressing F10 presents a screen that says, "Phoenix BIOS Setup Utility"
followed by a prompt for a password. I tried some by guessing, but it
didn't work. I hope the password isn't stored in the BIOS.

Do you know a technique to bypass the password requirement so
I can change the boot sequence?

Thank You in Advance, John

PS, Remove "ine" from my email address

 

[Dav.p.]

a few years ago. You may consider this obsolete, but to me, it is very

useful.

I don't...

Hi, i'm from Italy, once in a while i put my nose in the US repair ng, but it seems incredibly
DEAD!! Why??? It's the wrong one? There are many? It's my provider? bah..

Do you know a technique to bypass the password requirement so
I can change the boot sequence?

U have 2 ways to fix the problem, crack the passw or fix the floppy problem, but since
u maybe will have to access the bios in the future it's not bad starting to crack it..
i know the pass is stored in many laptops in a chip that if i remeber what i have read is
common to many producers, so if u want, start to find the chip name or dismount the laptop
to see, if u find that the chip is the same as the Ibm thinkpad T2x (T20 etc..) series u can
find in internet a little project to crack it, with a very little homemade hardware and a little
software to read it's eprom and decode it to pull the passw. Bye