AOA 150 harddrive locked

My computer now turns on with Acer screen and then says harddrive is locked and wants me to put in a password. Well I have no password and never put one in ???? Can anyone help with this problem. Acer says they can fix it for $100 plus shipping. But they will not tell me if I can reflash the bois and get rid of this problem ? Or maybe short some jumpers somewhere ?? I'm willing to try anything. Thanks for your help.

 

Wow....no repleys. I guess this stumped everybody. Well I took the bios battery out for 12 hours and that didn't work. Then I reflashed the bios with a memstick and that didn't fix it. It still asks me for a hard drive password. Is there anything I can try ????? Thanks in Advance.

 

yes, extremely easy, it has been mentioned multiple times on the forum (that's the reason why no one answered)

There's a cmos reset jumper pad on the motherboard. which is located extremely close to the touchpad's connector. The shape of the jumper is a double triangle. That's the only solder pad on the motherboard with 2 triangles.

 

thats for the bios password and settings. they have a locked hard drive.

you're not going to unlock a hdd. some hdd manufacturers have a master key that will allow you to do a low level format and clear the password.
or you could replace the bottom circuit board of the hdd with a spare one from ebay of the exact same model (if you can find one).

or you could save your self time and money and just buy a new hdd.

 

Yes I tried all that Bios stuff but it didn't work. And yes the HDD password is separate. If I ever get rid of it I'll post. Thanks for all the help

 

Hi there,

Just had a quick Google around and have the following which may be of use to you!
http://www.rockbox.org/lock.html

edit: I've found the following also which may work!!
Please be advised though, that this is not something I have done and I do NOT take any responsibility for any damage caused to your hardware/software/person/data... basically, if this goes wrong don't blame me! TRY AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Anywo, now that's out the way, here's what I found:

You'll need 2 HDD for this to work. The
lock one, and one that's not locked (or if you know the password).
First you put in the unlock drive. Boot up to the bios and go to
where you can set a HDD password. Set a password. Then after doing
so, reboot the laptop and go into the bios again. At this point, the
system will ask you for the password you just set. Type it in and go
to the set password page again in the bios. This time, you are going
to change the password to none BUT not to this drive, but to the LOCK
drive. Here's how it was done exactly: To clear/change the
password, you have to input the old password first, then after doing so,
it will ask youto input a new one. At this point, you yank the HDD out
and stick the LOCK HDD in WHILE THE SYSTEM IS STILL ON! On this one, it
did not lock up or anything. You press ENTER 2 times (might be
different on your laptop) to clear the password and that was it! Then
reboot with the 80GB still inside and it shouldn't ask you for a password
anymore!!!

Let us know how you get on.

Paul :ugeek:

 

Anyone try this? I have a locked 160GB and would love to know if this worked or not. Got a spare 60GB that I use in an external case I could use for the "good" drive, just don't want to screw it up

Thanks,
MM

 

P.S. It works!

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: