Recently I had someone call me asking if I could get past a windows administrator password. She informed me that her daughter and configured the account without her knowledge. Now that they needed to install something the daughter no longer could recelect the password. I have had to do this so many time and told her that I would be on my way soon. I still had the necessary disks in carefully placed in my bag. I had only used them one week before on a simular call.

Upon inspection of the computer it was clear to me that this was not a Windows password. In fact this was a BIOS password. This particular BIOS would not load up any OS or disks prior to the password being entered. The password had to be reset, cracked or bypassed. Since any software disks were out of the question no utility in the world would help me. 

The only remaining option were the following: locate a jumper switch on the motherboard, remove the battery for several minutes. Locating the jumper switch is usually easy especially with a Dell desktop. However this was a laptop. After remove 21 tiny screws no jumper was visiable. However, removing the battery proved to be no problem at all. After leaving it out for 15 minutes I put everything back in it's place. Now here are the steps for removing the battery. If your laptop is under warranty then you should take it to an authorized repair center to make sure you do not void the warranty.

Supplies. Antistatic mat, small screw driver (if its a laptop),

Steps 1. remove the battery. 2. remove the memory. 3. remove the harddrive 4. remove all screws carefully putting them to the side. 4. carefully pry the top and bottom of the laptop off. (if you should never have to force anything in a laptop. If you are then you missed a screw somewhere. You may even have to remove the keyboard.) 5. If your battery is not soldered in then you can take it out and leave it out for 10 - 15 min. 6. Now put everything back together.

If you are looking for the jumper. In most cases it is black and about a quarter of a pinky  nail size. It covers two metal prongs. All you have to do is remove it. Boot up the computer. Reset BIOS password and you can put the jumper back on. Easy Peasy.