Can't get into an old laptop

clarabella23

Hello! I'm currently sat puzzling over an old Toshiba laptop, hope someone can help! It's my stepdads, and has all of the grandkids baby photos on. It is a Toshiba EA60- 152, about 6 years old. It hasn't been used in a couple of years, last time it was used it had a virus, so it all got wiped, and taken back to factory settings. The pictures were added to it. Hasn't been used since then.

Come to go on it today, and the battery is completely drained. It works after being plugged in, switched on, and flashes up with a toshiba screen. Goes straight on to a password screen from there, but not the windows one, a balck screen, says password in the top left hand corner, anything typed comes up in stars. After 3 password attempts it goes to a plain black screen and needs restarting. None of the old passwords work.

Tried opening in safe mode, none of the F options are working, either repeatedly tapping or keeping hold. Have the master discs, but this will wipe all the photos and we can't find the discs of them. Any ideas?

Figment

Sounds like it might be a system password, set in the BIOS.

One way to get the images off would be to take the hard drive out, pop it into a USB caddy, then connect it to another PC

clarabella23

Thanks, is there any way to get/change the Bios password? We will do that with the hard drive if we can't get in.

sillygoose

Yes I think BIOS password, possibly because its been unpowered for so long the internal backup battery has gone flat and the defaulted to a set password or existing one has got corrupted. This is different to any login passwords you have for windows. Some suggestion HERE such as possible backdoor passwords, or holding left shift during boot up, or setting DIP switches to disconnect the backup and reset it. You need to get into the BIOS setting screen and switch off password protection eventually.

clarabella23

Just tried all the options on that website, nothing so far! Holding down shift key doesn't work. Haven't tried all the dip stuff yet as we don't have stuff to do it here, and we're likely to break it!

clarabella23

Woohoo, he remembered the password! We're on! Thanks for the help, we're going to take off the bios password I think.

Figment

So none of the old passwords work, apart from the correct one, eh? :laugh: