How To: Recover a lost BIOS password
Applies to: Any Windows PC
Description
All PCs have an option that allows a password to be set to prevent unauthorized changing of the BIOS settings. These settings are normally accessed by pressing a function key or the Del key when the computer is starting, The settings are critical to the operation of the computer, and should not normally be tampered with, but changes are sometimes needed when memory or hardware is added.
If you have set the password and then forgotten it, or if your computer manufacturer set the password, then you will be unable to access the BIOS settings until you discover the BIOS password.
Solution
Ask the manufacturer
If you are certain that you did not set a BIOS password, then it may have been set by the manufacturer. In this case, the first thing to try is to call the manufacturer's support desk and ask them. If they did set the password, they will have used a standard password on every computer, so they should easily be able to tell you the password to use if you provide the exact model number.
Use a password recovery tool
If you cannot obtain the password from the manufacturer, then you can try using a BIOS password recovery tool. This will try and read the password from the BIOS CMOS memory.
Because there are many different makes of BIOS, the password may be stored in different places. Therefore it will help if you can find out the type of BIOS used in your computer.
Use Spotmau PowerSuite
This tutorial illustrates using the Spotmau PowerSuite CD to recover the password. This is a useful system utility with many disaster preventive features, as well as a number of tools to make disaster recovery very easy.
Get Spotmau PowerSuite nowand recover your BIOS password in minutes!
- Insert the Spotmau PowerSuite CD and start the computer. The main menu will appear.
- Click 5. Password Recovery.
- On the Password Recovery menu click Find BIOS/CMOS Password.
- A console screen will appear. Type 2 and press Enter. This will retrieve the BIOS password for computers with an AMI or Award BIOS, used in most computers. If you know that the BIOS in your computer is not either of those, try option 3 instead.
- The program will display possible passwords read from the CMOS memory. Write down all of the passwords listed (for example, 1033 and 000100 in the above screenshot.)
- Restart the computer, and try to access the BIOS using the passwords that were recovered.
- If you are unsuccessful at gaining access to the BIOS, try option 3 next, then option 4.
Get Spotmau PowerSuite nowand recover your BIOS password in minutes!
