I’m trying to fix a friend’s second-hand laptop. I need to re-install the OS (WIN XP) but can’t access the BIOS to get it to boot from the CD. No idea what the password is and no practical way to contact the original owner, who’s now living in another state.
I know I can try clearing the CMOS battery, but I’m unsure how to disassemble this brand of laptop, as nearly all of my prior tech work was with desktop systems.
I’ve tried google and gotten nothing useful.
If anyone can suggest anything useful, I’d appreciate it.
Otherwise, I’m going to tell her to bite the bullet and take it to a repair shop and have them deal with it.
1 Restart the system.
2 The instruction "Press <F2> to Enter BIOS" is shown at the bottom
of the screen, during POST.
3 Press <Alt> + <F10> at the same time to enter the recovery process.
4 The message "The system has password protection. Please enter
000000:" is displayed.
5 Enter six 0s and continue.
6 "Acer Self-Configuration Preload" window appears.
7 Use the arrow keys to scroll through the items (operating system
versions) and press "Enter" to select.
Setup password and exit
Press "F3" to setup password or press "F5" to exit the system recovery
process when "Acer Self-Configuration Preload" window appears.
If "F3" is pressed, the next screen shows "Please enter new password:"
enter one to eight alphanumeric characters. You will be asked to reenter
your password for confirmation before continuing.
The screen will display "Password has been created. Press any key to
reboot...", hit any key to reboot your system.
If "F5" is pressed, the recovery process will be terminated and the system
will reboot and start normally.