Compaq Presario 1230 Laptop Accessing BIOS Setup

Hi,

I service TVs, etc. Once in a while, I service my own computers, one of which is a Compaq Presario 1230 laptop with Windows 98se I bought second hand a few years ago. You may consider this obsolete, but to me, it is very useful.

Recently, during power up, I saw "Error, O2BO: Diskette drive A error". I removed the floppy drive, but I got the same error, which could be it's controller?

I inserted a bootable CD rom hoping that the boot sequence might start at the CD rom, but it didn't. It must be A: drive first. Note: The HDD is fine because I removed it and checked it on anther PC.

If I can change the boot sequence, I can do without the floppy drive, but to get into the settings by pressing F10, I have to enter a password. I don't have the phone number of the person I bought it from who lives out of town.

I removed the RTC/CMOS battery (soldered in) and waited 24 hours hoping that it may "clear" the password requirement, but it did not. Maybe I should wait longer?

Pressing F10 presents a screen that says, "Phoenix BIOS Setup Utility" followed by a prompt for a password. I tried some by guessing, but it didn't work. I hope the password isn't stored in the BIOS.

Do you know a technique to bypass the password requirement so I can change the boot sequence?

Thank You in Advance, John

PS, Remove "ine" from my email address

Hi Geoff,

I downloaded the SM (THANKS), but that procedure on page 21 has to do with the power on password.

My issue is the BIOS Settings password. However, I tried that procedure, but waited longer than 30 seconds to be sure of the "clear". Unfortunately, it did not work. I am still faced with the BIOS settings PW prompt.

I searched the .PDF for every occurrence of "password", but the only ones I found relates to power on password. I also checked "Computer Setup" (press F10), but there was no information regarding a password, only power management, etc.

The screen I see after I press F10 is: "PhoenixBios Setup Utility". Below that is the slot for a password.

I also searched the .PDF for "Phoenix" (not found), "Bios" (found, but no information on a password).

Apparently the PW is stored in the BIOS which no doubt is a "flash" BIOS.

Aga> snipped-for-privacy@veriz>

Hi,

Laptop is "Working"!

I have system information regarding all my old computers so I decided to look for one that has a Phoenix BIOS made around the same time as this 1230. I found one in my Fujitsu laptop. I have the OM for the Fujitsu, so I looked for information regarding BIOS setup. On that page I saw, if I press Esc key during boot up (Fujitsu), I will be presented with an option to boot from a different drive.

I decided to try that on the 1230, but I was not presented with this option (pick a drive). Instead, I saw a message that stated "configuration was restored" (not exact words). Not only that, my floppy drive is "working"!

I don't know if pressing Esc key restored parameters, but I made a note of that should this event happen again. That's not all. Now I can press F10 during power up and get into BIOS settings without a pass word! Note: I searched the SM (.PDF) for "Esc" (whole word), but no information was found.

Of course I changed the boot sequence to CD drive first.

Again, Thanks to everyone, John

Hi,

It was too good to be true. The next time I turned it on, I have the same problem. I decided to put it with my other "dead" laptops for parts. I paid $25.00 for it in 2009, and I got my money's worth.

Once again, thanks to everyone, John

PS, I will not check here for more responses.

I don't...

Hi, i'm from Italy, once in a while i put my nose in the US repair ng, but it seems incredibly DEAD!! Why??? It's the wrong one? There are many? It's my provider? bah..

U have 2 ways to fix the problem, crack the passw or fix the floppy problem, but since u maybe will have to access the bios in the future it's not bad starting to crack it.. i know the pass is stored in many laptops in a chip that if i remeber what i have read is common to many producers, so if u want, start to find the chip name or dismount the laptop to see, if u find that the chip is the same as the Ibm thinkpad T2x (T20 etc..) series u can find in internet a little project to crack it, with a very little homemade hardware and a little software to read it's eprom and decode it to pull the passw. Bye