My buddy called me and told me that he bought a used laptop off the internet. When he powered on it is prompting him for a password. I assumed it was a BIOS password since it was the first screen that popped up. I told him to call Dell and get the BIOS password for it. He called and they asked for the previous owners name. He didnt know this info since he had purchased over the net. I told him he may be screwed since the person he bought from is not resonding to his emails. Any suggestions where he can get this fixed?
Try digging around here.... http://www.motherboards.org/ I found some google groups postings referencing it.
Does he have the serial number? He should be able to give that to dell to trace the owners name. The only problem with that is if the laptop turns out to be stolen. That would worry me about why the seller won't contact him back. He may also be abel to trace the owner using the serial number and dell support site. I have done similar stuff with gateway. Generally most of those companies offer personal support. Go to the dell site and see if they have that. It is usually tied in through the serial #. When you put that in the original owners info may show up somewhere. Not positive any of this will help but it may. CK
Told him this and he says there are no stickers under the laptop. He may be screwed...thanks for the help guys.
He can reset the bios, which should remove the password. To reset the bios, you can remove the battery (usually there isn't a jumper on a laptop) on the motherboard -- this is not the laptop battery, but a different battery (one of those coin-sized batteries). It holds the date, time, etc. and settings in the bios. To reset the password, just remove the battery, then put it in again. The battery is usually located under the keyboard. To find out how to remove the keyboard, check in the manual, or look on the net. Usually, you can remove the panel just above the keyboard. It'll have some screws. Unscrew them, and you can pull the keyboard out. There will be some thin ribbon cables connecting the keyboard to the motherboard -- don't break them. You can remove them, but you probably won't need to. The battery will usually be located under a removable panel under that keyboard. I've done it before on a new-ish Dell laptop, and it was under the keyboard. Sometimes there's a panel underneath the laptop.
Man I am losing my touch. I totally forgot about removing the battery. That should have been my first thought but I got caught up in the finding out the previous owner info first
I hate to state the obvious, but make sure you remove the main battery before you start digging around in that thing. Also, count to ten or so before you pop the old battery back in place after popping it out.
Good call. When reading over this thread again that popped into my mind. Removing that battery will usually reset the bios. Mo...let us know how this problem gets solves...for future reference.
