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I recently purchased a decent laptop from a pawn store for $100 (ASUS K56CA). The BIOS is locked. I was told that the pawn store has some tech guy touch-up the laptops and install Windows 10 before they put them out for sale. I am trying to figure out if this guy has the BIOS password or not. I haven't heard back from him yet.

Is it possible that the BIOS password was already set before they got there hands on it? How would he have installed Windows 10? Right now, the BIOS is locked to boot from hard drive first and then CD. I suppose he could have removed the boot flag from the hard drive and it would then boot to a CD. Is that possible?

I am anxious to get rid of Windows10. (Asus is lacking many Windows 10 drivers and it takes 5 minutes to boot and other issues). I am tempted to try the same thing, although I am not sure yet what is the simplest way or utility to remove the boot flag (if it is even called that still) that is compatible with Windows10 and UEFI.

If this fails and Win10 is bricked, then my only option left will be to call Asus and pay $60+ for a BIOS reset. I'm trying to avoid that and eventually, maybe, I will find a BIOS hack.

EDIT

I reset the system admin password by changing the system date and using the passwords here

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jayd0gw
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2 Answers2

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Here's a list of top five rescue disks by MakeUseOf, of which I've had good experience with UBCD, Hiren’s BootCD, and Knoppix for working safely on re-flashing. You also may wish to make a backup of your drive before doing anything drastic so check out the answer I posted on bitcoin.stackexchange for general instructions on what to do before and after something goes awry with your saved data.

Side note here, seems kinda shady that they've a techie loading Windows on pawn merch and this is a point of failure that if exploited by determined minds would be very profitable... just seems to me that what this pawn shop is doing maybe very damaging to their customers' networks.

Really they should wipe the drives securely and flash the boot loader to stock and sell without loading any OS, if they need to display that hardware still works then the pawn shop should USB boot it, in store only, for stress tests. Maybe a pain in the butt for shop owners but doing it the way they are is asking for more pain in the future.

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S0AndS0
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You may not need to reFLASH your bios, unless it's hard locked (rare), pulling the CMOS battery wil reSET it to factory defaults, ie,No password. It does involve splitting the case, some laptops are easier than others. Search for instructions/vid for your specific model.

user657451
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