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Can't clear CMOS Password
I bought a used motherboard from a company online (I've actually been to their retail store in Sunnyvale California before so it's a company I trust). The motherboard has a bios password on it that I cannot reset. I have tried everything from removing the battery, and the power supply, changing the clear cmos jumper, and even trying a software tool calls cmospwd. None of these items worked. I've even left the clear jumper on over night hopeing that would clear it and no such luck.
It appears that there are several dos programs that have been created to hack the password but lucky as I am the bios has been setup to boot only from harddisk and I don't have a working dos harddrive anymore. I can get the system to boot into Mandriva and it runs fine (although at the incorrect processor speed etc...) I believe I'm down to four options here...
1. I can try to flash the bios with a newer version (can anyone confirm if flashing the bios resets the passwords, it's been a while since I've had to flash a bios and I never use bios passwords...) Questions about this are, is it possible to flash an award bios in linux? Or, do I need a DOS disk, and will a Win2K safe mode, command prompt only be a safe environment to flash the bios from?
2. Find a linux software utility (any suggestions) that can either crack the password, retrieve it or clear it...
3. Try all of the manufactures backdoor passwords (I've tried a few of the main ones and no such luck, although I haven't tried all of the Award variations yet).
4. Return the motherboard. I'm already working to do this, I'm just hoping that there might be a quick and easy way that doesn't involve several days of waiting for the board to get shipped back and forth.
Any help would be appreciated.
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