Phoenix Bios password bypass?

[Leland]

Hi All,

Ive got a customers Dell 3000, Phoenix rom bios plus v1.10 ao2 that came in the other day. She tells me it all of a sudden started asking for a password. I figured ya no problem I can just reset the bios and we will see where to go from there. That is not the case.
Ive removed the battery for 2 hours, used the jumper to reset bios. I have a list of bios backdoor passwords that wont work because the keyboard wont respond to keystrokes but just makes a beep noise. Ive tried multiple key combinations such as ctrl+alt+s. I cant use a program like !BIOS because I cant get that far into the boot sequence, and putting in the restore Cd doesnt work either because I cant get past the password.
Im leaning towards corrupted bios? mobo went bad?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[WinDrop]

Hi,

Have you tried any of these:
Phoenix BIOS Backdoor Passwords:

• phoenix
• PHOENIX
• CMOS
• BIOS

?

 

[Leland]

Well although I am aware of these backdoor passwords as i mentioned in above post the keyboard wont respond to keystrokes. Infact my last attempt brought up "diskett drive 0 seek failure/ keyboard failure" This looks like a failed mob to me. Bios chip died?

 

[Leland]

After thinking about this a moment the disk 0 error is the bios looking for the floppy drive? So mayby the bios has been reset and this is a hard drive password? The keyboard failure only occurs when i repeatedly press a key (etc. f8) to try and get in bios. But if its a harddrive lock shouldnt I beable to get in BIos?

 

[MotzTech]

If it is indeed a hard drive PW, you should be able to get into the bios. Try disconnecting the drive and getting into the bios.

 

[Leland]

If it is indeed a hard drive PW, you should be able to get into the bios. Try disconnecting the drive and getting into the bios.

Thanks for the response however im still at the password screen. I guess this means it is indeed a bios pw. So back to square one...

 

['putertutor]

Sounds like someone got in there and set a password and the user is either unaware or too embarrassed to admit to it. Regardless, you might try pulling everything out of that unit, drives, modems, all cards, etc and try a different keyboard. See what that gets you. I've never had any luck with a Phoenix back door password. I've never had the need to short the battery terminals, as opposed to using the jumper, but as a last resort you could try that as well.