Changing windows XP boot manager to boot from CD. [cannot boot from CD directly]

[t10]

My dad just bought a new laptop and gave me back my ancient VAIO T150 that I gave him 2 years ago. I was going to format it, and keep as backup laptop, unfortunately BIOS has a password which I know my dad did not put in. Chances are I set up the password years ago, I went through every possible combination that I could have used still without luck.

I gave up on that route, and simply ran windows install from within windows, the problem is that windows installer does not let you format the drive when you start windows install from within windows, saying that temp files are stored on the hdd. Windows recovery console is also of no help, as it does not let you execute setup.exe

I could pull the drive, format it, install DOS on it, put it back in, and then get the installer going, but as it is a subnotebook, disassembling it is a pain.

Does anyone have any idea how to run windows setup installer when you are locked out of bios boot order options, but have full access to the actual machine? Lol, no the laptop is not stolen.

 

[Demon10000]

You've got a couple of options.

First, you can try to force boot to the CD. Lots of computers allow you to press a key to modify the boot sequence for that boot. Try hitting keys like F8-F12 and see if any of them bring up a boot menu. If that doesn't work, try to cancel any GUI boot screen to see if you can find what key you need to press.

Your second option is to clear the BIOS password. You might be able to get away with flashing the bios to a new/old version, but there are utilities out there that will help you clear the BIOS password. I've never actually had the need to use them, so I can't comment on how good they work, but they shouldn't be too hard to find.

 

[t10]

requires the password to select boot order.

Cant flash official sony firmware, as I already have the latest, and the utility does not allow to flash older bios.

For those interested, I used this: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/CmosPwd#CmosPwd_Download
run ioperm.exe -i as admin, it grants you full io read/write, then cmospwd_win.exe /k to kill bios settings.
On my machine, it did not remove the password, password is still required to enter the bios, but it reset it to default settings, so now the machine boots from optical drive first.

The instructions explicitly say not to do it on laptops, as you may end up with an expensive brick, but regardless it did work for me. If I get bored enough later, since now I can boot from optical disk, to dos/linux, I can reflash the bios.

Cheers

PS. quick edit, apparently on older sony notebooks it is a somewhat common issue, where bios would flip a bit, and lock itself.. well by itself. Did a search, and quite a few people saying that bios is now password locked, and they never had a password before. Go figure, maybe I am not crazy after all.