Making a bootable cd for a laptop

[Jimmy Little]

Making a bootable cd for a laptop

I need to make a bootable cd for a laptop that does not have a floppy drive as I need to go back from WinXP to win98, the problem is that the laptop has a password set in the bios and we don’t know what it is… so if I make a bootable cd, how will I get it to read if I can’t get the cd drive to boot first?

[chiyau]

you can open up the laptop and remove the cmos battery?

[TiG]

Simple answer, is you can't.

IF the boot order is not set to CD rom first i'd say you are probably stuck with a laptop you can't use.

EDIT to answer Chiyau: - you can open up the laptop and remove the cmos battery? - Surely the BIOS password is stored in the NV memory (where the factory defaults are stored, otherwise they wouldn't be much point in a bios password would there??)

TiG

[Jimmy Little]

i thought this was the case... my mate brought a laptop from ebay that has winxp installed... the USB ports won't work with WinXP as stated on the HP website, and he has no floppy drive... so with no floppy drive no cdrw and no usb he can get files to and from! - so he needs to buy a floppy drive for it then?

[TiG]

Well i'd suggest he goes back to the seller and asks for the Bios password, if he doesn't get this he's going to have grief from this for a while tbh. Thats the best solution imo.

TiG

[Jimmy Little]

yeah he reckons the guy has lost it! i told him to cut his loses and by a floppy drive, maybe a cheap one from ebay if he is lucky!

[da_ging]

firstly what laptop is it?

second removing the battery might get rid of the password but might not but its worth a shot

[Agent]

What laptop / BIOS is it ? (Use SANDRA if you dont know).

There are quite a few app's to reset the BIOS from within windows.
If the worst comes to the worst, Dump the BIOS from within windows, and reflash it (using the switch's to reset it at the same time).
Flashing in windows isnt too risky provided you quit everything running. Yes, its better done in a "pure" environment, without a doubt, but if you have no other choice, you should be able to do it this way.

[Jimmy Little]

Hewlett Packard Laptop Help needed…

HP ‘OMNIBOOK 4150’ and is a Pentium 2 364mhz with 128mb of ram… running windows XP! Surprisingly fast!