Removethe RTC battery, the main battery and the adapter. Hold down the power button for 30 seconds and leave the laptop sit for at least 20 minutes before inserting the RTC battery back in. Install the main battery and adapter.
Have tryed this solution on my HP Elitebook 8540P without any sucsess.. It still wants a password, even though I unplugged everything for a good 5 hours including the small battery under the ram memory hatch.
If anyone have a sollution to this problem, no one would be happier than me. I know I am not allone with this issue, so any working sollution would serve many more than me I am sure. searching the web is not helping much. Bougt this used laptop without knowing that it was restricted with secret password, Why HP, APPLE and others like this so much, is probably spelled money, but for the average user its headache!
If you can get into the BIOS and reset the factory defaults, then I am going to say you don't have a BIOS pass word, if you did you wouldn't be able to even get that far to reset the defaults. To confirm this, do you have what's in the screen shot when you start tapping the f10 key on boot up ?
thanks for your reply. Let me start with this, I bought this computor from a serious person, have it registered at HP, bought it with charger, and allso got the HP W7pro and a rescue disc with all the neccesary drivers. Naturally I booted the computor before buying it, it is not the problem. (did not have any reason to press F10, did not know it was an issue at that time)
I restored BIOS like this: unplugged the charger, removed the battery, removed the connector from the CMOS battery located under the memory hatch, and pressed power on button for 30 seconds left the laptop for 5 hours to make sure that no power remained, this procedure should clear the CMOS and restoring the password and set the BIOS to factory default, normal acces to bios with F10 key is restricted with the very Password I am trying to bypass or brake...
The BIOS did change to factory default, and since I at the same time changed the harddrive to a brand new Samsung 830 128Gb SSD it confirms that BIOS password aint on the harddrive for sure! It is like buying a new car and not be able to open the hood, or buying an apartment and have one room locked for access. very frustrating. Do not know what settings BIOS is using for my new SSD since I can not access BIOS. I belive that this password is set by HP from factory, and reason for this is probably as simple as this: HP sells the computor with a 3Yr warranty and dont want you to "brake" anything, also they want you to buy hardware from HP and not any "inferior" hardware that HP do not approve. It is all about the money, as usual.
There are different workarounds on software base, but have not found anyone that have a 100% working sollution. To use CMD at windows do not work, you need to boot it without Windows, and for this you will need some good software on CD- disk, since the only Boot option except HDD, is the upgrade bay, where the CD drive is, or optional second harddrive.. Since you can't access BIOS no other options, like moment 22.
Have been around computors since mid 80s, have both built and owned several systems, both named and clean desktop PCs, have never encoutered problems that did not have an sollution avilable. This laptop is my very first laptop, bought this particular model, because it met most of my demands, it will never win any design awards and it is quiet heavy, but over all I like it.
So with all this I hope that the main problem now is clear, BIOS password, or some software based workaround is what I am looking for, have not spoken to HP about this, but I am quiet sure that they will not give me the password just like that.
SOLUTION: This is what I did and worked like a dream. Contacted HP, told them the problem. They "escalated the case," took my info. The next day I was emailed a file called SMC.bin. It is formatted specifically for my machine, has to match the UUID. Copied file to FAT 32 formatted jump drive, booted it as per the email instructions, reset bios password.
To get the latest driver, including Windows 11 drivers, you can choose from the above list of most popular HP downloads. Click the "Download driver" button next to the matching model name. After you complete your download, move on to Step 2.
If your driver is not listed and you know the model name or number of your HP device, you can use it to search our driver archive for your HP device model. Simply type the model name and/or number into the search box and click the Search button. You may see different versions in the results. Choose the best match for your PC and operating system.
If you don't know the model name or number, you can start to narrow your search down by choosing which category of HP device you have (such as Printer, Scanner, Video, Network, etc.). Start by selecting the correct category from our list of HP Device Drivers by Category above.
Once you download your new driver, then you need to install it. To install a driver in Windows, you will need to use a built-in utility called Device Manager. It allows you to see all of the devices recognized by your system, and the drivers associated with them.
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