Useless Laptop

[jim.mar]

I have a 1997 Micron Laptop which came with Windows 95, later updated to Windows 98SE.   I turned it off around Thanksgiving of 2002 and did not try to use it again until about a year later.  When I tried to boot it up, it displayed a message type “BIOS password”.   Since I had purchased it as a refurbished unit, I had not put in a BIOS password.   I thought that maybe the clock battery had run down so I took it apart to replace the battery.  I could not find a clock battery and, after completely dismantling the thing,  I put it back together.   Then, when I tried to boot it up it just asked for “user password”.  (why the change?)  Again, I had never installed a “user password”.  A call to Micron resulted in telling me that I would have to return it to Micron to have the BIOS chip replaced for $285.00.  More than the machine is worth.  However it does have files that I would like to recover before I trash it.    Does anyone have any ideas     :-/

[Raptor]

I suggest you look for schematics on the Internet and reset the BIOS.

Resetting the BIOS can be done either by shortcircuiting the BIOS jumper or taking out the battery for 10 seconds.

[jim.mar]

Raptor,  Thanks for the come back.  Where would I go to look for schematics??    I have heard some thing similar to that in the past,  but while i was in the machine i found  no jumpers.   I did find a two position DIP switch which i tried setting through all three other combinations of settings with no apparent results.    I will look fo the jumpers again.   By the way, the main battery has been out for months.  It will no longer last more thatn about 2 minutes when i try to use it so i have been leaving it out and using the AC adapter to power it.    :-/

[Raptor]

I am not familiair with laptops, however, I doubt the hardware can differ much from standard Desktops.

I suggest you open the Laptop and search for a name on the motherboard. Type that name in any search machine (Google for example) and see if you can obtain info related to your CMOS battery/motherboard lay out. Or perhaps even contact the manufacturer of your mainboard and see if they can tell you where the CMOS battery would be located.

Here are articles related to the CMOS/BIOS:

Computer CMOS information

CMOS

BIOS

Computer BIOS Information And Help

I suggest you take a good look at the first article and see if your CMOS battery (BIOS/clock battery) can be identified by the use of the 4 images displayed in the top right corner of the article.

The other articles may be useful for additional information.

It is possible there are no jumpers for your CMOS/BIOS. You may have to take out the battery or lift it up a few milimetres in case it is soldered.

[johnwill]

It is pretty easy to recover the files from the laptop.  Pick up a 2.5" <-> 3.5" IDE adapter cable, about $5 or so, and temporarily install the laptop drive in a desktop system.  It's just another disk drive at that point.  Here's one for an enormous $3.99.  http://shop.store.yahoo.com/insidecomputer/la2tode3hadr.html

[jim.mar]

Raptor:  …   Thank you very much for the information.  I really appreciate it.   Sounds like a good plan.  I try to do that as soon as I get back to my laptop, which will be sometime this fall.  I am at present traveling around the N.W. and I have left it in Arizona where I live.   I didn’t know there were so many configurations of C-MOS batteries.   I have only seen two.


Johnwill:  ….   Thank you.  I didn’t know that about the IDE adapter.   I will have to check it out.  Will I be able to use the laptop hard drive as an external drive using that adapter, or only be able to read from it?

[Computer_Commando]

If you are able to disassemble a laptop without instructions...Congratulations!  I've worked on lots of them, and no two are the same.  Micron should have repair manuals available for download on their website (Dell does).  The repair manual will show how to reset the BIOS.

The IDE adapter allows a notebook drive to be installed into a desktop box.

[johnwill]

Many laptops have the hard disk more accessable than other internal components.  Also, as you say, there are manuals available for many of them.

You are right, no two laptops are even close to the same when it comes to taking them apart!  

[maqtda alsadr]

another way to get rid of the bios password is with a cd I have seen advertised on ebay. Presumably it will get rid of the supervisor password in windows too.

[merlin_2]

http://labmice.techtarget.com/articles/BIOS_hack.htm