mate turned off his pc and now it says he has not permission to use it. is locked and needs a password. he has to be an administrator to access it. any ideas please why this would happen. hes starting to pi$$ me off now, every day something happens.

when does it ask for a password? Soon as you turn it on, or after the Windows loading screen has been displayed?

tunnie wrote on 27. Nov 2009 at 14:24:

when does it ask for a password? Soon as you turn it on, or after the Windows loading screen has been displayed?

when you turn it on, and its vista by the way. what would he of done when he shut it down for this to happen.

Richie London wrote on 27. Nov 2009 at 14:26:

tunnie wrote on 27. Nov 2009 at 14:24: when does it ask for a password? Soon as you turn it on, or after the Windows loading screen has been displayed? when you turn it on, and its vista by the way. what would he of done when he shut it down for this to happen.

Somehow he has set a password in the BIOS, in the olden days you actually had to go into the BIOS to do this, now you can set a boot password from Windows itself.

He needs to be careful entering the passwords you only get so many attempts, if he cannot remember it, would need to be stripped down to get to the jumpers on the motherboard.

Unless anyone else has a 'quicker' way?

CMOS battery out and jumper to clear CMOS and leave for half an hour. Jumper back, battery back in and off you go. Set BIOS to optimal settings and see how it goes :y

he didnt set a password, he wouldnt know how to even if you explained it to him. hes as thick as susan boyles thighs  ;D ;D

So just to clarify, the password prompt is appearing as soon as the laptop is switched on?

If so, it is highly unlikely that removing the CMOS battery will reset the password (that assumes you can actually remove it yourself) because just about all lappy manufacturers ensure the password is stored elsewhere in non volatile memory.

There are however quite a few utilities out there that will reset the password (both CMOS and Windows)......PM me and we'll discuss further so as not to upset Admin  ;)

Richie London wrote on 27. Nov 2009 at 14:36:

he didnt set a password, he wouldnt know how to even if you explained it to him. hes as thick as susan boyles thighs  ;D ;D

Richie London wrote on 27. Nov 2009 at 14:36:

is locked and needs a password.

Yes he did.

wrote on 27. Nov 2009 at 14:41:

So just to clarify, the password prompt is appearing as soon as the laptop is switched on? If so, it is highly unlikely that removing the CMOS battery will reset the password (that assumes you can actually remove it yourself) because just about all lappy manufacturers ensure the password is stored elsewhere in non volatile memory. There are however quite a few utilities out there that will reset the password (both CMOS and Windows)......PM me and we'll discuss further so as not to upset Admin  ;)

Nothing beats a PC mobo and a flat head screw driver to get that battery out  ;D

Must confess never reset the jumpers on a laptop, too much of a pig to strip that far down