Bought a 1998 laptop at a flea market in Tucson, the BIOS password broke my brain

Picked up a busted ThinkPad for $12 thinking I could just wipe it and run some DOS games. Got home and the thing demands a BIOS password I obviously dont know, and every default trick online is dead. Tried shorting the CMOS pins with a paperclip after 3 hours of forums, and it actually posted. Now I'm wondering what else old hardware hides, anyone else got a weird gatekeeper like that?

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1 Comment

faith_lopez4821d ago

Honestly, I gotta push back on the whole "gatekeeper" thing. That BIOS password is not some hidden treasure chest, it's just a cheap lock that kept you from messing with a machine that was probably destined for a dumpster anyway. The real weird gatekeeper is the guy who sold you a $12 laptop that barely posts, and you're out here acting like the paperclip trick was some kind of victory. Ngl, I think you've got it backwards. Old hardware hides bugs, dead caps, and failure points, not secrets worth unlocking. You spent 3 hours on forums for a machine that'll probably die on you next week, so maybe the password was doing you a favor.