[bigdawg24]

I do not fix many laptops and this is why...a friend of mine asked me to work on his...

I have here a Compaq 2510c. The Startup/Bootup password is unknown to the user. I used the documentation from https://computinghar...p/c01095444.pdf that shows how to fix it on page 39. It says basically to remove batter and then RTC battery for a few minutes and then replace it. I’ve done this very carefully. Now, the screen wont show anything. It seems as though the HDD works fine since all lights are coming up correctly. Any suggestions? I’ve reseated stuff just to double check likely 5 times. Looking for any tips here

I would greatly appreciate it

[no2pencil]

Once it's booted, & you have a black screen, hit the caps lock key & see if it's responding. Maybe you just knocked the video loose, or the power to the inverter board. How 'into' the laptop did you have to go to pull this battery?

[bigdawg24]

no2pencil, on 14 April 2010 - 06:44 PM, said:

Once it's booted, & you have a black screen, hit the caps lock key & see if it's responding. Maybe you just knocked the video loose, or the power to the inverter board. How 'into' the laptop did you have to go to pull this battery?

Well - I just figured out what I did - I am a noob sometimes. I didnt push the card down far enough thats above the battery. Regardless the issue did not work itself out. Although, the screen loads its still asking for a password that no one has. Its right there on boot - not able to get to BIOS or anything.

[no2pencil]

Unfortunately this falls into the gray security area where your reasoning might be very legitimate, but if we help you we're potentially helping others that use this information for malicious purposes.

I will say that Laptops have much stronger protection than simply pulling the BIOS/CMOS battery. That worked fine in the 90's but times have changed & many other factors exist for BIOS/CMOS passwords. Your best bet, in my opinion is to contact the manufacturer. They should be able to provide you with a boot disk or program that will blank the current password.

[bigdawg24]

Very understandable - not to worry. I did however find out for a fact (because I do run a legitimate business) that the laptop is not stolen and there has been a search for the previous owner for over 1 year. I do not want to get in trouble more than the next guy. However... I did repeat the course of action to pass BIOS password and it worked. Now.. just have to swipe the finger like the previous owner! haha