I don't know if this would work or not, but since you can boot from
the floppy have you tried to see if you can update the BIOS? If a
newer BIOS is available and can be updated from a floppy, that might
clear the password and reset everything to the factory default.
--- In Laptop_Repair%40yahoogroups.com">Laptop_Repair
yahoogroups.com, "Adrian Jones";
<LaptopRepair...> wrote:
>
> A further update...
>
> Installing Win98 was a bit of a problem. The OEM disc (which has been
> sat in its sleeve on the shelf for several years) failed in the
> middle of the install. I'm not sure being able to see through the
> disc is a good thing. :-/
>
> As I was unable to boot from the CD on the laptop, I was installing
> to a spare 2.5" drive on my spare desktop. Win95 and ME couldn't
> detect all of its hardware (probably too new) so I fished out a
> FreeDOS CD and installed that.
>
> This got the laptop running and I tried the password extracting tools
> I'd found on the web. All they came up with was gibberish, the BIOS
> password could only be alphanumerical, everything found by the
> programs had punctuation or international characters.
>
> Since I'd got it running in DOS, I was able to test the floppy drive
> and optical drive. The floppy works (in fact it's now booting from
> that, oddly enough) but the DVD/CD-RW combo drive isn't. It has power
> and spins up when the disc is inserted, but doesn't read a disc.
>
> Either the drive is faulty, or possibly the BIOS settings have been
> wiped and it doesn't recognise it. Which means I still need to get
> access to the BIOS. :-/
>
> Although some of the sites I've found reckoned that it was possible
> to get at the password, others suggest that the only way to change it
> (other than de-soldering the EEPROM and reprogramming it) is by
> calling Sony. (And haven't been very complimentary about their
> support!) Since I was given the laptop and have no receipts or other
> proofs of purchase, I suspect they'll refuse to help.
>
> I think this laptop may end up as spare parts for others.
>
> Thanks for the suggestions, anyway.
>
> Adrian
>
> On 15 May 2008 at 15:08, Adrian Jones wrote:
>
> > Hi Ardel
> >
> > I pulled the hard drive and plugged it into a USB port on another
> > machine, which identified it as un-formatted.
> >
> > I've now got a 3.5" to 2.5" adaptor for my desktop test machine which
> > allowed me to add it as a slave.
> >
> > The BIOS identified it as ~30Gb.
> >
> > According to Windows XP, it's got one partition, no file system and
> > is 7.88 Gb in size. :-/
> >
> > I'm in the process of installing Win98 on my spare 2.5" drive (in the
> > middle of formatting it at the moment) and I'll see if that can get
> > the machine up and running.
> >
> > Then, hopefully I can clear the BIOS password
> >
> > I'm downloading UBCD4Win as suggested by Jerome, and will give that a
> > try on my test desktop. I shouldn't need to add the laptop's drive as
> > a slave, I can just install it as the master and see if that makes it
> > possible to clear GoBack.
> >
> > I did wonder whether someone had tried a wipe and format on the drive
> > and GoBack had survived it.
> >
> > It's quite likely that I'll end up replacing the drive anyway, it's
> > only 30Gb and *very* noisy. (My 100Gb spare drive is so quiet it's
> > difficult to tell if it's powered on or not!) But for the moment,
> > cash is limited and 30Gb will do.
> >
> > Adrian
> >
> > On 13 May 2008 at 22:59, Jerome Deyle wrote:
> >
> > > I agree with Ardell that GoBack is a sorry excuse pretending to be
> > > software.......
> > >
> > > I often run into issues with GoBack when replacing damaged
drives, or
> > > upgrading to larger drives. The only sure fire way to remove it
is to
> > > uninstall it from within Windows. Of course, if Windows is damaged,
> > > that's a bit hard to do.
> > >
> > > I have had some success with the GoBack Removal tool that is
included on
> > > the latest UBCD4Win. Success rate has been about 50%. I haven't
tried
>; > > using it on a slaved drive.
> > >
> > > I haven't taken the time to figure out how GoBack hooks into a
drive.
> > > It's strange though. I've had a couple of cases where traces of
GoBack
> > > survived a wipe and format. Had to rewrite the disk signature,
zero fill
>; > > it, and then proceed with Windows install. And trying to recover
data
> > > from a corrupted GoBack drive is another batch of fun.......
> > >
> > > Bottom line is that its probably less expensive to pitch the
drive and
> > > replace it with a new one. Rebuild Windows from scratch, and
keep Norton
> > > products far, far away from your machines.
> > > Jerome
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, 2008-05-13 at 16:55 -0700, Ardell Faul wrote:
> > > > Hmm. I don't know what that all means. I would have pulled the
drive
> > > > and put it as a slave drive in my computer if I was working on
this
> > > > unit
> > > > to see how it is configured. Pretty hard to tell the way it is
now.
> > > > If
> > > > you can;t get into bios to change the boot order, or even know
what
> > > > it
> > > > is, putting the drive in another machine to format it or clone an
> > > > operating system in it is about the only way to get it going.
I run
> > > > into this sometimes with laptops that don't have a built in CD
rom
> > > > drive. Makes it very hard to install an operating system. I
sometimes
> > > > have had to clone a copy of windows 98, which is not very
picky about
> > > > the hardware environment and will boot up and find the needed
drivers
> > > > etc to get the unit going. Then it is usually possible to upgrade
> > > > from
> > > > within windows 98 to XP or whatever operating system I want to
put in
> > > > the unit using an external CD player. So if your unit already
has an
> > > > internal CD rom but you can't boot from it to get things rolling,
> > > > that
> > > > might be an option to get it started.
> > > >
> > > > Ardell Faul
>; > > > Computer Monitor Service Inc.
>; > > > Ardell's Laptop and PC Repair
> > > > 10816 E. Mission Ave.,
> > > > Spokane Valley, Wa. 99206
> > > > ardell...
> > > > 509-891-5188
> > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>;
.
