I was given a very old Acer inspirion laptop, windows 7 Vista and I reset it to factory settings when I first got it and that was almost a year ago and now it's so full, out of date and giving me problems I need to do it again but it keeps saying I don't know the current password. Now I can't do anything without it asking for the password. Even tapping F2, F12, and the alt/F10.
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FAQ & Answers
Retry the Alt+F10 coldboot recovery method ***exactly*** as shown in this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2xoMEPfiPQ
Jack E/NJ
>>>I was given a very old Acer inspirion laptop, windows 7 Vista >>>
Just to be clear (1) Is this an ACER 7720Z or a DELL Inspiron? (2) Is its operating system Windows 7 or Windows Vista? Jack E/NJ
The safest method to remove a BIOS password is to try to drain, short or remove the BIOS chip's coin battery on the mainboard.
We'll try draining first. Remove the charger & main battery. Then press & hold the power button for about a minute. Then press & immediately release the power button a half dozen or so times. We're trying to drain all charge on the BIOS chip so that it goes into a default state.
Reinsert the charger and battery. Press the power button once to see if the BIOS password has been removed.
Jack E/NJ
OK. The 2nd easiest method is to see if the memory module compartment on the mainboard has any BIOS re-set jumper pins. If so equipped, they'd be located somewhere around the periphery of the memory modules so they wouldn't have to be removed to access the pins. Jack E/NJ
Remove 4 or 5 screws holding a rather large irregularly shaped panel with ventilation slots on the bottom of the laptop. Jack E/NJ