Thinkpad A21m BIOS Password

Hi everyone.
My dad's got a Thinkpad A21m and i can't access the BIOS because it's password protected. Since he doesn't remember which password he's put there, I thought opening up the laptop and disconnecting the small battery would be enough to reset the BIOS, but now it's worse! Now he's asking me to recheck time and date settings in the BIOS, still asking me for a password! So, basically, now i can't even access the OS. Is there any way i can reset the password? Or have i done that and now he's asking me for a default password, which i don't know?
Could anyone please help me out on this?
Message Edited by ejmoreira on 05-02-2009 12:03 PM

ejmoreira, welcome to the forum,
your father will need to remember which password was set, removing the bios battery has prompted the request for the supervisor password. There are no default passwords which will help.
The only other suggestions we can offer you here are that you look in the Maintainance Manual, which explains about passwords, and replace the mainboard, or contact service or a service partner in your area.
I'm sorry; this subject is not allowed to be discussed here as stated in the forum rules and I have to lock the thread.
No posts shall include instructions or directions intended to subvert security measures, including passwords, locking mechanisms, fingerprint scans, etc, nor shall any posts provide descriptions to the location of, nor direct links to content related to these topics.
Thanks for understanding
Andy ______________________________________
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Empty password means no password. The discussion you reference is for an older machine where there was an option to make the bios settings visible but not changeable when there was a pw. I am not going to get into a discussion of how passwords are stored, but I will say that the data stored is encrypted and the date depends on the scan code of the key, so that a password can be entered on one type of keyboard and cleared on a different one. The data stored for an empty password or no password is all zeros.

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adolf15,
I've not seen a Lenovo implementation of BIOS password that would permanently disable the system after X number of failed attempts. On older ThinkPads that I have used, you got 3 tries and if you got it wrong 3 times it was locked until you powered off and then you could restart and try again 3 times, etc.
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Can you try setting it back to default?
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Thanks for posting the solution to your situation, I'll mark your post as the solution.
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Andy ______________________________________
Please remember to come back and mark the post that you feel solved your question as the solution, it earns the member + points
Did you find a post helpfull? You can thank the member by clicking on the star to the left awarding them Kudos Please add your type, model number and OS to your signature, it helps to help you. Forum Search Option T430 2347-G7U W8 x64, Yoga 10 HD+, Tablet 1838-2BG, T61p 6460-67G W7 x64, T43p 2668-G2G XP, T23 2647-9LG XP, plus a few more. FYI Unsolicited Personal Messages will be ignored.
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Message Edited by snowbuk on 08-06-2008 09:19 AM
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hi snowbuk,
try this:
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"No posts shall include instructions or directions intended to subvert security measures, including passwords, locking mechanisms, fingerprint scans, etc, nor shall any posts provide descriptions to the location of, nor direct links to content related to these topics."
Andy ______________________________________
Please remember to come back and mark the post that you feel solved your question as the solution, it earns the member + points
Did you find a post helpfull? You can thank the member by clicking on the star to the left awarding them Kudos Please add your type, model number and OS to your signature, it helps to help you. Forum Search Option T430 2347-G7U W8 x64, Yoga 10 HD+, Tablet 1838-2BG, T61p 6460-67G W7 x64, T43p 2668-G2G XP, T23 2647-9LG XP, plus a few more. FYI Unsolicited Personal Messages will be ignored.
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“I am an HP Employee“
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