Acer aspire one with a locked hard drive, help anyone?

I bought a acer aspire one ZG5 in perfect condition
and the prick that sold it to me locked the hard drive
i have the password for the bios
and all the reciepts and junk
but i need to be able to access the harddrive that has the windows and all the drivers

Anyone have any suggestions ?

 

Most manufacturers have a 'back door' procedure for bios lockouts. It's painful, requires proof of purchase and an act of God usually.
When I got my first Aspire, it was a 'never used display'. It had a boot password on it, tech support told me to return it, they could not help.
You say you have the bios password, where is the machine locking up at?

 

You can always "emergency flash" the bios. That will wipe out the password.

 

the hardrive is locked
so no access to windows
only using linux


and i used the flash and it did not remove the password



i phoned acer and the fact that i bought it of someone
and not from a store they denied me :cry:

 

Try calling them back, and omitting that detail. You lost the receipt, remember? For some reason, they don't know when the machine was bought, just that the serial is valid or not. Tell them it was a gift??? Then have your wife/gf claim to be the gifter. If the PO never registered it with Acer, they should be none the wiser. I would definitely try again, if you can't get anything else to work.

 

tryed man lol

 

i take it the system is not lock at the bios stage.

You cannot get past the windows log on screen?

Do you have a usb cd or dvd drive? There is software that you burn onto cd and it allows to remove windows logon password.

 

There is an option in the BIOS to set a password to access the HDD. So, his problem is that he cannot access his OS at all; he can't even get to the Windows logon screen...

 

i thought he said that he can use linux? but not windows

 

By booting it from a USB drive...

 

Locked drive means that u can't read/write to disc until you type a correct passowrd. There is no back door or anything like that. It's the one of the most powerfull security tools that prevents your data to be used by an accident user and it's the best way to piss off theft. You can delete the password but it recuires to unmount the hard drive from the device and make a little mess in the hardware. It's impossible to remove it just by some little-software-magic.

Sorry in case if it was legally bought laptop..

 

I think its worth taking out the bios battery to reset the bios and see if that works. Failing that, any chance you can contact the person who sold it to you?

 

Try using KillCMOS from a bootable USB drive. Get it herehttp://www.majorgeeks.com/download2969.html.

 

CMOS tools are not going to help. This is an ATA-Password. It is not stored in CMOS, it is stored on the controller board of the drive itself. To my knowledge, the cheapest solution is to buy a new drive. Personally, I'd track down the seller and return it... such that he'd be walking funny for a couple weeks.

 

Aspire one Service Guide he say this:
Remove HDD/BIOS Utility
This section provide you with removing HDD/BIOS method:
Remove HDD Password:
• If you key in wrong HDD password three times, Hdd password error code displays. See the image below.
To reset the HDD password, run HDD_PW.EXE as follows:
1. Key in hdd_pw 15494 0
2. Press 2.
3. Select one upper-case string from the list.
4. Reboot system and key in the selected string (0KJFN42 or UVEIQ96) on the HDD User
Password screen.

(Image extraction and uploading to here too much of a pain in the neck, sorry.)

Another version of the Service Guide he say this:
Remove HDD/BIOS Password Utility
This section provide you with removing HDD/BIOS method:
Remove HDD Password:
• If you key in wrong HDD password three times, Hdd password error code displays. See the image below.
To reset the HDD password, perform the following steps:
1. Run UNLOCKHD.EXE from a DOS prompt
2. Enter the code supplied by the system (76776356 in the example).
3. Press <Enter>.
4. The unlock program displays an unlock code (69654998 in the example).
5. Reboot system and key in the displayed string to unlock the HDD.

So you only have to find a copy of the relevant unlock program, if you can determine what
it's called. This is known as "security by a modicum of obscurity and a dollop of scarcity".
It would be interesting to know what Acer support or their agents scattered all over the globe
charge for unlocking an HDD. Presumably a hunk of old rope, a.k.a. an arm and a leg or money
for jam (ditto the out-of-warranty OS reinstall charge if the PQSERVICE partition or MBR gets
clobbered). Anybody been mugged for these 5 minute "support" jobs care to post what degree
of damage was sustained by their bank account in the process?

To adapt an aphorism, there are Bankers, Investment Bankers and Acer Support Services.

 

Repartition/format the HDD and reinstall Windows? Why you want to use his used one anyhow?

 

Seems kind of sketchy, on your side Mongolian, or the seller you bought it from. I would probably think that this AA0 was stolen, by either you or the seller. And I would suggest everyone to stop helping till proof is shown that it is not a stolen AA0. Just how hard is it to contact the seller and say, "Hey dude whats the password on this? "

And if this is not the case Mongolian, by deepest apologizes.

 

PMs and email help individuals - if someone seems dodgy, refrain from
helping him or her in those formats. Forums, on the other hand publicly
disseminate mis/dis/information - just like newspapers, even the "agony
columns" in them, forums, however their component threads start,
are not really about helping individuals because they are individual-neutral,
or more exactly individual-ignorant: so, having first passed judgement on
Mongolian you have then implicitly acknowledged that ignorance by extending
a pre-emptive apology to him - because like everyone reading here (except
Mongolian) you just don't know.

In that context, is your point that information about security strengths,
weaknesses and methods should not be disseminated?

 

use FlashIT and reflash, bios settings shoudl be gone. Other than that there is a service tool available for AAO which can math you a new password.

 

The BIOS does not include HDD passwords, just provides the opportunity
to enter one (if it has been set) during the POST. HDD passwords live on
the magnetic medium itself along with all the other info that the drive uses
internally, like the relocation table and so on. You can't access this stuff
(except the S.M.A.R.T. data) with any openly documented method or API.
If it won't be done for you by Acer and you can't bribe one of their underpaid
support staff to drop Acer's program off the back of their lorry, you can use
an independent unlocking service or buy your own software unlocker on the
Internet. Some unlocking programs clear all the data off the drive in the
process, others preserve the data. Guess which costs the most.