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acer extensa 4620z question

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alright, so i bought this thing off ebay. it’s not a bad machine, but i bought it knowing it had a bios password on it (unknown), i’ve tried everything i could think of to clear it (no os installed on HDD but i did boot from a live disk and tried to use a couple utilities on it). I know there is the policy against posting such info, but i was wondering if anyone could shoot me an email with a couple tricks, maybe even hook me up with a service manual for it (acer claims not to have them, lol). i’ve never dealt with a machine that had phoenix’s trustedcore bios and security chip on it. i’m at a loss now and would really rather not have to send it to acer and spend $100 to have them reset it. if anyone would be so kind as to help a low budget it student out, it would be very much obliged! (if your worried about me having stolen it i can provide proof that i just bought it from ebay seller: sold_broken last week if you’d like)

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In reply to acer extensa 4620z question

Clarifications

If it were easy to crack it would not be very secure, now would it?

In reply to acer extensa 4620z question

Most laptop security chips are doing real hardware encryption in microcode.

Are you are well versed in soldering in data connections to the motherboard, reverse-engineering microcode, and writing controller software that can read the data off certain pins of a micro-controller, then attempting to decrypt the output….??

If the answer is no, than save your beer money and send it to acer.

If you could just unplug the bios battery or pull a jumper, that would not be very secure…and what would be the point of all the engineering work and money that went into designing the security chip??

The latest laptop motherboard passwords are designed to ‘brick’ the unit without the right password. Hard drive passwords are exactly the same. No password, and it’s no more than a paperweight or movie prop.

you have…

In reply to If it were easy to crack it would not be very secure, now would it?

a very good point about the security aspect. but i know there must be a way around it without me having to spend $100 to have acer do it. and i’m willing to bet that it will take less than 30min to do when i figure it out. so i’m sure you can see why i wouldn’t want to pay acer to do something that probably takes about a half hour. i’m not paying anyone the equivalent of a $200 per hour bench fee for anything ever. it’s simply ridiculous! i know it’s probably a simple override that’s just hidden from normal trains of thought.

If you knew it had an unknown BIOS password, why buy it?

In reply to acer extensa 4620z question

That suggests to me that the seller did not have REAL or LEGAL ownership of the computer before they sold it to you. Where did they get it from? In other words, you’ve probably purchased stollen merchandise. If it had been YOUR system that was stollen and then resold on EBay, would you want anyone to be able to break into it? Security chips have a purpose.

Remember, you get what you pay for. You’re now stuck with an expensive boat anchor.

…

In reply to If you knew it had an unknown BIOS password, why buy it?

i bought it from an seller with dealtree, they sell alot of best buy store returns (the best buy outlet is also an affiliate of this seller i believe). knowing how geek squad does alot of their support with best buy, i’ve seen alot of machines with trivial problems like optical drives and whatnot that basically get scrapped.

NOTE: considering the fact that i got it with all the original documentation, the warranty information, the original box and all original packaging, i highly doubt it was stolen!! especially since when i called acer to find out about it i gave them the serial number and it came back clean!! so get off my back, i may have bought something that will be a b!tch to fix, but i consider it to be a challenge and accept it fully (especially since i’m a broke, full time IT student trying to get something together for school for cheap). i don’t need some know-it-alls berating me saying “oh it’s stolen” so i would appreciate it if you would not treat me as if i am a theif.

You still won’t find any help here…..

In reply to …

You got yourself into this mess knowing what the consequenses would be. Now, you’ll have to get yourself out of it without help from any of us here. Of course, you knew that when you asked the question.

well…

In reply to You still won’t find any help here…..

i don’t deny i have myself a predicament with this machine, but i was hoping to have someone with atleast an iota of decency, unlike your snobbish self, would possibly have something constructive to say. but unfortunately it appears that this forum is as useless as anything else i can find when it comes to something that’s actually challenging.

well.. well…

In reply to well…

Oh, we have lots of constructive things to say. But, we’re professionals and won’t play that childish game.

The fact still remains that we know the answer to your predicament and you, due to your lack of experience, do not. You’ll have to search for your answer elsewhere.

How did you boot a live disc without the BIOS password?

In reply to acer extensa 4620z question

The BIOS password is required before any boot option is possible!

If the Acer was advertised on Ebay as ‘BIOS password unknown’ then I would suggest to you that all you have done is pay money for something that was previously stolen!!!

Clearly, the original owner would have informed Acer of the theft, so your option to send it back to Acer for the BIOS to be reset has just evaporated.

You send it to Acer and Acer will send the cops to the return address.

However, I’d still like to know how you got past the BIOS password in order to boot from the optical disc! 🙂

DUH…it’s the HARD DRIVE password, not the BIOS password

In reply to How did you boot a live disc without the BIOS password?

so get a new hard drive and enjoy your stolen laptop.

DUH…he’ll also need an operating system

In reply to DUH…it’s the HARD DRIVE password, not the BIOS password

Being that he doesn’t fancy paying Acer anything he’d probably opt for a flavour of Linux.

actually…

In reply to DUH…he’ll also need an operating system

it came with vista, so i am going to put that on there (to give myself a little more experience with the latest POS microsloth os), but i am also going to be toying around with sabayon 3.4 (64bit edition) as a secondary os as well as xp pro (tri-booting is much cooler anyways). and anyways, who said there was anything wrong with linux. i bet my old inspiron 4150 running on a loaded version of mandriva 2007 will outrun my acer running vista, and the dell only has 256mb of ram in it!

As a student, you had better get a quick grip on reality …

In reply to actually…

If you’ll pardon me, a bit of dissection is required here:

“[i]actually…
it came with vista, so i am going to put that on there (to give myself a little more experience with the latest POS microsloth os), …”[/i]

ACTUALLY, you’re NOT gonna do anything with it due to your password problem!

“[i] …but i am also going to be toying around with sabayon 3.4 (64bit edition) as a secondary os as well as xp pro (tri-booting is much cooler anyways)…[/i]”

This is where you require a steadfast grip on reality. For one thing a dual-boot (not to mention your StarTrek triple-boot dream), is hardly likely on a system with only ONE HDD. No matter which partitioning system you employ, I would suggest there is a strong possibility of your OS corrupting. Linux will not co-exist happily on the same HDD as any other OS.

“[i]… and anyways, who said there was anything wrong with linux. i bet my old inspiron 4150 running on a loaded version of mandriva 2007 will outrun my acer running vista, and the dell only has 256mb of ram in it![/i]”

My mobile phone could outrun your Acer, until you solve the password problem.

Keep on dreaming! 😀

wow…

In reply to As a student, you had better get a quick grip on reality …

this reply is even more useless than the last, i suppose i might need to think inside the box like every other corporate slave out there. i suppose you’re the type to say that microsoft is more secure and less prone to virus problems as well. i have a piece of advise for you buddy. pull your head out of your a$$ and you might get some needed oxygen to that so-called brain you just might have. i have successfully dual booted multiple machines on one hdd. and i fail to see how you think tri-booting is some sort of “star trek dream.” i guess it makes me an idiot for thinking about something different than the same old garbage. maybe you should go let bill gates, steve jobs, steve wozniak, and paul allen know that they need to conform to YOUR antiquated way of thinking. last i heard innovation came from people who did things differently. i guess i must be wrong!

oh and as far as your cell phone goes, well i think you know where it NEEDS to go! 😉

your both wrong…

In reply to DUH…it’s the HARD DRIVE password, not the BIOS password

i said bios password, not boot password, i cleared that by pulling the cmos battery out for a few minutes. it is a bios password. i need to be able to get into the bios setup to change some settings so i can install something besides vista. and also, you don’t need the bios password to boot off of a cd if the boot priority is already set to look for a cd first. but the trouble now is the fact that i was trying to see if a couple different linux distro’s would boot and install but after i tried fedora (which was the only one that successfully got to the installation menus) it will no longer boot from a cd. i find this to be quite odd considering it should not have affected the bios settings. oh well, my girlfreind is getting her brand new laptop on monday so i’ll throw my HD in her machine and put a basic os on it so i can once again atleast boot my machine.

Ah – the ol’ Goalpost Relocation Method, huh ? …

In reply to your both wrong…

I should have seen that one coming! 😀 😀 😀

… oh, wait, I did – it was in that StarTrek triple-boot dream! 🙂

please…

In reply to Ah – the ol’ Goalpost Relocation Method, huh ? …

refer to the above reply!!

Good luck….. You’ll need it………

In reply to your both wrong…

You said: [i]oh well, my girlfreind is getting her brand new laptop on monday so i’ll throw my HD in her machine and put a basic os on it so i can once again atleast boot my machine. [/i]

Good luck…. You’re in for a very rude awakening. When you put the HD back into your own machine, it won’t boot because the hardware will be different. You’ll need to be able to boot from the CD to repair it.

now…

In reply to Good luck….. You’ll need it………

now now, i didn’t specify which os, so your making a big assumption thinking that it’ll need a repair cd. anyways, if you know how to install drivers it would even work with xp! i’ve done it before. i said it before and i guess i have to say it again, you people have no imagination. your to busy kissing the all holy certifiers’ a$$es to realize there are actually multiple work arounds on most problems. i guess you never heard the old saying “more than one way to skin a cat.”

alas, this will be my last reply/post on this site, as it is more than useless. hope you all have wonderful times on your knees for the poor unfortunate sods you “work” for.

BYE!!

Bye!!! Don’t let the screen door hit you in the @$$ on the way out!!!

In reply to now…

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