Have a client that uses yahoo mail. They pay to host it like gmail. No idea that was a thing. Anyway, she opened an email that said your email and computer had been compromised and that even changing your password wont help. She though it was a scam. She did a virus scan she said. Nothing was found. She shut down her laptop and went to bed. Yesterday morning she turned it on and had a bios password. The computer is 2 or 3 years old. Never had a bios password. She lives alone with her severely handicapped brother. I have removed the cmos battery ram and hard drive, and battery overnight. Still has the bios password. Any ideas would be great. its a toshiba satellite l875d-s7332
Possible bios virus
- Thread starter Rosco
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sapphirescales
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Resetting the BIOS is quite easy on Toshiba laptops. There's usually a couple of contacts located under the memory slot underneath the sticker that has the motherboard model # on it. Simply short those contacts and it should reset the BIOS. You may have to turn the computer on WHILE shorting those contacts in order for it to work.
any idea to which jumper it might be
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Larry Sabo
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sapphirescales
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It's probably one of those. You need to power on the unit WHILE jumpering the connections.
I did that and still password in place. Both of those 2 larry pointed out and the 2 next to them.
Porthos
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I don't have any ideas on fixing your current issue but... I do not think you got the full story about how the BIOS password was set.
"Someone" had to go into BIOS and set it. The email that was mentioned could not have caused any damage to the computer.
Because of Faststart, It could have been done days or weeks ago and the computer had not actually shutdown or restarted in all that time.
Just food for thought.
"Someone" had to go into BIOS and set it. The email that was mentioned could not have caused any damage to the computer.
Because of Faststart, It could have been done days or weeks ago and the computer had not actually shutdown or restarted in all that time.
Just food for thought.
i have thought of this. I would find it highly unlike she is lying about it. She has had me fix for embarrassing than forgetting a password and been honest about being the one to mess it up. Not saying it isnt possible
Larry Sabo
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Yeah, it didn't work for me on one, IIRC. Don't remember the specifics or how to find that case in Quickbooks (since it doesn't allow compound searches). However, have you tried the suggestions a Google search suggests?
frase
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Have you removed the RAM when shorting the jumpers? Try this, restart again without ram. Then insert RAM
i have looked at almost ll the page in the google search you suggested even before writing here.
Will try this later
talked to Toshiba and they siad based on the serial number it was purchused in Great Britain. i dont even know how that is possible. It has an american keyboard and possible supply. They said it needs to be serviced to be reset. I am starting to believe them. No matter what i short password is still there.
ComputerRepairTech
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Theres no bios virus that sets a password, No one is going to make something that specific and that advance these days.
Edit: last virus to my knowledge that wrote to bios was back in the late 90's
Edit2: seems im mistaken about the late 90's i see some mentions of one in 2011-2012 but i didnt experience it
Edit: last virus to my knowledge that wrote to bios was back in the late 90's
Edit2: seems im mistaken about the late 90's i see some mentions of one in 2011-2012 but i didnt experience it
Porthos
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On top of that, The scammer would have to give you a way to pay them to "unlock" it. Malware is all about making money. The email she recived was "toothless" and is just looking to see how many would fall for it and send the bitcoin and has nothing to do with the current situation period.
Markverhyden
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Toshiba has been famous for being difficult on something like this. Unless there is a challenge code I doubt that any method, short of a chip level exploit, will work.
Porthos
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I see 4 choices.
Replace the bios chip.
Replace the motherboard.
Replace the computer. (My Choice)
Pay Toshiba to do it. (might be impossible without proof of purchase)
Possible replacements. (Same Computer)
https://www.ebay.com/p/Toshiba-Sate...-6GB-Notebook-Laptop-Mercury-Silver/129872999
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Toshiba-Sa...752905?hash=item33f8845009:g:PPsAAOSw41Jb2iGL
Replace the bios chip.
Replace the motherboard.
Replace the computer. (My Choice)
Pay Toshiba to do it. (might be impossible without proof of purchase)
Possible replacements. (Same Computer)
https://www.ebay.com/p/Toshiba-Sate...-6GB-Notebook-Laptop-Mercury-Silver/129872999
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Toshiba-Sa...752905?hash=item33f8845009:g:PPsAAOSw41Jb2iGL
PcTek9
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on some of the very very old ones i had a parallel port key i could plug in that would remove the bios pw. i've heard rumors of usb pw key removers for toshiba satellites. i do know you can if you absolutely have to, unsolder the pw security chip, plug it into a chip socket, plug that into a chip password dumper and hook it to another pc, and read the pw, sometimes it's encrypted, but it's a lot of trouble and incurs a high degree of liability. my thoughts? the entire situation is highly improbable regarding the story you've received, but not impossible. I had one that randomly did this out of the blue to itself, unless of course you think someone broke into my house, changed the bios pw and powered it off without stealing anything or leaving any evidence.
NJW
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Before you reach the end of the road, you might want to have a look through this raymond.cc article. The suggestions there can certainly work on older machines – you might just get lucky.
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