I've been given a HP laptop to reinstall XP on...

[Insane3D]

The laptop is a HP ze5400. I took all the visible screws out to try and get at the motherboard to find a password jumper or the motherboard battery, but it just won't seem to come apart, and I don't want to break it trying.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[MichaelD]

Laptops can be SUCH a PITA.

Maybe the BIOS is set to boot from a floppy first? That's default on many rigs. Maybe boot to a DOS disk and go from there? I know you'd still be screwed come reboot time, but its' a start.

Also, will it boot from network? USB?

 

[Insane3D]

Tell me about it.. Itook out like 8 bazillion little screws and it still won't open up. As for booting from a network or USB, I have no idea. I'm just trying to get into the freakin bios so I can load windows.

 

[MichaelD]

I assume you've already tried booting from the CD?

 

[Insane3D]

Nope, not yet. I has XP on it, but it's gacked, so it's going to boot to the HD before it will boot from the CD. I still want to be able to get into the bios to make sure things are good. HP site is a POS and NO HELP AT ALL.

 

[Scifience]

Do laptops have a motherboard battery, or do they just use the standard battery? If so, just leave it without any power for a while.

 

[Insane3D]

I think I'm going to just give it back to the person. It's a nice laptop...P4 2.66, DVD, wireless, etc, but I'm not even gettting paid to do this. :|

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: Scifience
Do laptops have a motherboard battery, or do they just use the standard battery? If so, just leave it without any power for a while.

From what I've read, the battery is hard wired, and it takes a LONG time before it will run out of juice...

I would have a better idea if I could get the damn thing open. :|

 

[sharkeeper]

The "reserve battery" is probably beneath the keyboard. Pulling the leads from this for a few seconds (with no primary battery engaged) will erase the CMOS table and you should be all set.

Cheers!

 

[Insane3D]

Yeah, I figured, but I can't get the damn thing open. Does the kb come off a certain way. I took out every screw I could find, and it won't quite come apart. Am I missing something? I'm afraid to use any force because I don't want to break it.

 

[sharkeeper]

Most keyboards come off by pressing two tabs slightly to the side and lifting out. These tabs may be concealed by trim that pops off or slides and unlocks.

Cheers!

 

[jagec]

Laptops can be a REAL pain to take apart if you don't know the specific model. There are all sorts of hidden latches and the like...

 

[Insane3D]

Ok, I think I've made some headway....but I have good and bad news. The good news is I lifted up some trim and found four screws holding the KB down. I lifted the KB, and found the battery, and pulled it out. The bad news is I think I may have slightly cracked some of the underside of the trim...nothing that will be visible, but I'm just hoping it works ok when I put back together...

 

[cessna152]

http://www.cgsecurity.org/index.html?cmospwd.html

http://www.11a.nu/index.php?menuValue=15&chooseType=art&chooseValue=27

I've never used any of these. It might be worth a try.

 

[Relayer]

did you try Toshiba for the password?


I also found this:

Key Disk for Toshiba laptops

Some Toshiba notebooks allow to bypass BIOS by inserting a "key-disk" in the floppy disk drive while booting. To create a Toshiba Keydisk, take a 720Kb or 1.44Mb floppy disk, format it (if it's not formatted yet), then use a hex editor such as Hex Workshop to change the first five bytes of the second sector (the one after the boot sector) and set them to 4B 45 59 00 00 (note that the first three bytes are the ASCII for "KEY" followed by two zeroes). Once you have created the key disk put it into the notebook's drive and turn it on, then push the reset button and when asked for password, press Enter. You will be asked to Set Password again. Press Y and Enter. You'll enter the BIOS configuration where you can set a new password.

 

[sharkeeper]

did you try Toshiba for the password?


I also found this:

Key Disk for Toshiba laptops

This is a HP product!

Cheers!

 

[gsellis]

Some of the HP laptops have a reset jumper. No online help for it though that I could find at HP.

 

[Insane3D]

Update:

I took out the battery for awhile after I was able to lift off the kb, but it didn't seem to clear the password. I ended up taking the whole thing down to the bare motherboard, and there is no jumper or anything on the board. The best I did was find the bios chip. Anyway, I now have a pile of parts and like 70 screws and I hope I can put it back together...