Impress me with your techno wizzery

[judgefloyd]

I have this little medion akoya e1222 netbook and I'd like to make it dual boot with ubuntu.  I can install the thing alright, but can't do the booting because the system asks for a password and I don't know the password.  My father bought the machine at ALDI and passed it on to me.
  So far, the internet can't tell me how to get around this.  Can anyone here help?

yours optimistically,

Floyd

[von Boom]

Is this a BIOS password? If so you could remove the CMOS battery, press the power on button for a few seconds to drain any charge and then reinstall the battery. This may reset the password (along with all the date/time settings).

Another possible option would be to install LILO on the boot sector to overwrite any windows based password.

[TordelBack]

What Windows is on there at the mo, Floyd?  I did something similar recent with a Windows 7 machine, and used a Linux bootable Repair CD to reset the Windows password(s).  I can't for the life of me remember which one, but if you get no joy from the other suggestions, I'll dig out the disk over the weekend and find you the name.

[Noisybast]

Dogbert's blog has helped me get into more than one password-locked BIOS in the past. If you have a dig, there's a nifty little tool you can download which works the password out from the "failed login" error code.

http://dogber1.blogspot.co.uk/?m=0

[judgefloyd]

I am triply impressed!

- It's windows 7, but I don't think that's relevant, since I am dealing with the bios password

- I'm not sure how to remove the CMOS battery - the thing seems to be sealed tight.  I found a video on youtube in which a German bloke removed the keyboard easily but I'm stuffed if I can do that on my machine

- I'll check out Dogbert's blog, thanks for that.

cheers, yours doggedly,  Floyd

[The Doctor Alt 8]

Have you tried cheese?
If that fails then its child sacrifice at the next new moon...

[TordelBack]

Oi Kermode, in the unlikely event that the panacea of cheese doesn't work, it turns out the fing wot I used wuz Trinity Rescue Kit:

http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?content=TRINITY_RESCUE_KIT____CPR_FOR_YOUR_COMPUTER&front_id=12&lang=en&locale=en

I see no explicit ref to BIOS password in the summary docs there, but I burnt it to a disk and used it to clear the passwords from a Windows 7 laptop and then install a dual boot of Ubuntu with no problems.  Not saying it'll work for you, but its a handy bit of kit to have nonetheless.  Good luck!

[judgefloyd]

Gura mie mooar ayd* but I've found something better than that or cheese.  I have found a friendly Ubuntu whiz who is prepared to do it for me.  Turns out I didn't need that password, but did need an inordinate amount of faffing around (something I've come to accept as inevitable in the world of Ubuntu/Linux stuff). 

thanks all for your help,

yours still feeling unjustifiably happy to be typing this on ubuntu,

Floyd

*thank you

[The Doctor Alt 8]

It WAS the Child sacrifice ... wasn't it?