Is it a good idea to use a boot password for laptops?

MarkBargain

Thanks for the responses above. I think I will steer clear of the boot (BIOS) password then. I don't have any sensitive data on the laptop as such and just wanted to protect against anyone stealing my laptop, so installing Truecrypt probably isn't worth it. I could go for a Windows password, recognising the limitations of that, or just stay password free meaning I can load up my PC quickly!

Linbox

On my netbook I have 3 different passwords.

1. master Password for the bios - you cant change any thing in the bios without this password. Difficult to guess and about 15 characters long.
2. User password - you cant boot up without this one. Not too dificalt but youd have to be part of the family to know this. 7 characters long.
3. windows password - Win 7 wont boot without this one. Again not too dificalt but youd have to be part of the family to know this. 8 characters long.

I figure that I want to stop access to my equipment and any documents and/or web passwords on my equipment - any casual thief (or finder) will have a brick and no access to my info.

If you don't put a bios password on a machine it can easily be wiped and a new OS put on to the machine. By using a bios password to stop startup you will even stop the ability to boot with another disk/cd/usb.

If you are taking your lappy outside your home its better to be safe than sorry.

mr_fishbulb

Linbox wrote: »

On my netbook I have 3 different passwords.

1. master Password for the bios - you cant change any thing in the bios without this password. Difficult to guess and about 15 characters long.
2. User password - you cant boot up without this one. Not too dificalt but youd have to be part of the family to know this. 7 characters long.
3. windows password - Win 7 wont boot without this one. Again not too dificalt but youd have to be part of the family to know this. 8 characters long.

I figure that I want to stop access to my equipment and any documents and/or web passwords on my equipment - any casual thief (or finder) will have a brick and no access to my info.

If you don't put a bios password on a machine it can easily be wiped and a new OS put on to the machine. By using a bios password to stop startup you will even stop the ability to boot with another disk/cd/usb.

If you are taking your lappy outside your home its better to be safe than sorry.

Unless you're using EFS or Bitlocker alongside your Win 7 password, none of those passwords will stop a thief from accessing your data. Putting the hard drive into another machine will make those passwords redundant.

robt_2

Linbox wrote: »

On my netbook I have 3 different passwords.

1. master Password for the bios - you cant change any thing in the bios without this password. Difficult to guess and about 15 characters long.
2. User password - you cant boot up without this one. Not too dificalt but youd have to be part of the family to know this. 7 characters long.
3. windows password - Win 7 wont boot without this one. Again not too dificalt but youd have to be part of the family to know this. 8 characters long.

I figure that I want to stop access to my equipment and any documents and/or web passwords on my equipment - any casual thief (or finder) will have a brick and no access to my info.

If you don't put a bios password on a machine it can easily be wiped and a new OS put on to the machine. By using a bios password to stop startup you will even stop the ability to boot with another disk/cd/usb.

If you are taking your lappy outside your home its better to be safe than sorry.

That is a very poor setup if you are trying to protect your data (which I assume you are by having a minimum or two passwords to start with).

pstones578

It's better than not doing. Smack head scallies would probably struggle to get past it.

fred7777

It depends if you can remember the password. If you can then you won't have any problems.
However I'm not sure how secure BIOS passwords are. Some manufacturers used to have backdoor passwords intended for technicians to use when customers forgot their passwords, these tended to leek out to the public eventually. I don't know if they still do this though.

mazz1953

I wholehearted agree with pstones578

I use a boot-up password just in case my laptop gets stolen. This may not get me my laptop back, but it would make it very difficult to sell on. My daughter also has a boot-up password on her laptop.
I would recommend that all students have to a boot-up password on their laptop as student accommodation gets targetted for laptop thefts and this also happens at universities etc.
Make the password something that is easy to remember ie family pets name, birthplace etc and you should have no problem remembering that.

mr_fishbulb

mazz1953 wrote: »

I use a boot-up password just in case my laptop gets stolen. This may not get me my laptop back, but it would make it very difficult to sell on.

I don't get it. What do you gain from this?

It doesn't make the laptop any less likely to be stolen.

robt_2

mr_fishbulb wrote: »

I don't get it. What do you gain from this?

It doesn't make the laptop any less likely to be stolen.

Or any less likely to be sold on.

mr_fishbulb

robt wrote: »

Or any less likely to be sold on.

Once it is stolen, it doesn't matter if the thief can sell it on or not. It's still gone. They don't bring it back and say "I couldn't sell this because of the password so you might as well have it back"