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David Murphy
Hi folks. A while back I aquired an old 486 AST Advantage 6066D, and I
decided this weekend to tinker with it a bit. I should say right away
that I never booted it up in its original configuration. At one point
I pulled the floppy drive to use on another PC, and before I tried to
start it today, I swapped out the hard drive with a slightly larger
model.
When I start the PC, immediately after the memory check I get a
message asking for a "user password". I'm positive it's not related to
anything on that hard drive, so it must be the BIOS. I've tried a
whole host of passwords from a master BIOS password list I saw posted
in a NG, but to no avail. The PC's previous owners are not
computer-saavy enough to have ever ventured into the BIOS, so it must
be the factory preset.
I removed the CMOS battery (as well as system power) and shorted the
connector terminals out for about an hour to no avail, so it would
appear that the password is set in some sort of non-volatile memory
somewhere.
It appears that AST (or whatever they are now, if they still exist in
any form) is not inclined to help anyone get into the BIOS, so I'm
afraid this is my last hope before I just give up and scrap the PC.
Does anyone happen to know what the AST BIOS password is, or know of
some other hack to clear it?
Thanks,
David Murphy
decided this weekend to tinker with it a bit. I should say right away
that I never booted it up in its original configuration. At one point
I pulled the floppy drive to use on another PC, and before I tried to
start it today, I swapped out the hard drive with a slightly larger
model.
When I start the PC, immediately after the memory check I get a
message asking for a "user password". I'm positive it's not related to
anything on that hard drive, so it must be the BIOS. I've tried a
whole host of passwords from a master BIOS password list I saw posted
in a NG, but to no avail. The PC's previous owners are not
computer-saavy enough to have ever ventured into the BIOS, so it must
be the factory preset.
I removed the CMOS battery (as well as system power) and shorted the
connector terminals out for about an hour to no avail, so it would
appear that the password is set in some sort of non-volatile memory
somewhere.
It appears that AST (or whatever they are now, if they still exist in
any form) is not inclined to help anyone get into the BIOS, so I'm
afraid this is my last hope before I just give up and scrap the PC.
Does anyone happen to know what the AST BIOS password is, or know of
some other hack to clear it?
Thanks,
David Murphy