Hard drive password??

StickyMcGinty · 22-09-2005 7:50am #1

lads,

my girlfriend is in spain at the moment and her laptops after goin mad - she switched it on last night and it asked her for a "hard drive password" on her Dell laptop! I'm only going by what she sais to me over the phone, but she sayd thst it has "Dell Inc." on the screeen with "administrative password or primary password required" coming up on the screeen. She never set a hard drive password so she hasnt a clue, and its my only means of contact with her for the next year so i'm lookin to try and fix this fairly quickly!

have any of you had this prob before??

Cheers

Vinny

AdrianII · 22-09-2005 8:00am

it sounds like a bios password.

Is the screen just sitting at a white dell screen - awaiting a password.

If it is, then a bios pw is required

see if you can get if off her, or else you wont get very far

StickyMcGinty · 22-09-2005 8:05am

she actually went in to the bios, set a password, saved and exited. wen the screen came back up she typed in this password and it just said "a administrator or primary password required". thats all the info i have anyway.

whats dells international support like anyway? she's in madrid, think she just has the standard 1 year warrenty how does that play out abroad?

CyberGhost · 22-09-2005 12:11pm

there are 2 passwords

the bios password, and a hard drive password

she probably changed both

when you start up white screen comes up asking for a bios password, when you enter it, another white screen comes up asking for a hard drive password.

if she changed both, she should enter the same password in both screens.

snappieT · 22-09-2005 2:57pm

If she only changed the BIOS one, and she can't remember it, there are techsheets on the Dell website as to how to change a jumper inside the PC, which sets the BIOS (including the password) back to defaults.

andy1249 · 22-09-2005 3:02pm

Just throwing this out there in case its been overlooked , but on laptops the bios and harddrive passwords are usually case sensitive , so try the password in upper and lower case in the offchance that the caps lock button was hit by accident when entering the password !
Cant remember how many times ive actually seen this happen.

StickyMcGinty · 22-09-2005 4:20pm

cheers for the help lads, but this screen came up when she never even entered a password before!

i know its mad but she didnt even set one and it just started askin her for it. THEN she set one but it still doent work. is there a default dell password??

cheers lads hope ye understand me situation i'ts the main way i keep in contact with her!! cheers!

electric69 · 22-09-2005 5:10pm

try entering "Dell" as the password.

Many BIOS manufacturers have provided backdoor passwords that can be used to access the BIOS setup in the event you have lost your password and the above is what dell set there default to.

StickyMcGinty · 22-09-2005 5:34pm

is that case senstive electric69? "Dell"??

i've been on the phone for the last 15 mins on hold for dell.... brutal

electric69 · 22-09-2005 5:41pm

as far as i am aware it is not case sensitive....i can remember that "Dell" is the manufacturer bios password.....there are other ways that it can be unlocked such as using password cracking software,Overloading the keyboard buffer or simply bring it to a professional who can fix it for her.

StickyMcGinty · 22-09-2005 9:53pm

i rang dell, was on hold for a good 20 mins, talkin to an indian chap who sadi i've to email an invoice over to them, the computer code thing that comes up on screen, and he'd send me the master code. cheers for all the help lads!

Hard drive password??

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