Re: Boot CDrom from grub

[Kyle Moffett <mrmacman_g4@mac.com>]

On Apr 17, 2006, at 13:41:59, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> If you have enough physical access to boot the machine from a CD,  
> you have enough access to work around the BIOS password problem.   
> In almost all cases, cracking the case and changing/removing a  
> jumper on the motherboard will bypass/reset the password, and  
> Google will tell you which jumper it is.

This is true; with the exception of some incredibly poorly designed  
HP desktops I once had the misfortune of administrating.  For some  
insane reason HP decided to store the BIOS password in flash RAM and  
declined to provide any method for resetting it.  In the manual, they  
specified "If you for any reason forget your BIOS password, please  
ship the computer to a certified service station to have it reset".   
The only other known way is to unsolder the surface-mount flash chip  
from the MB and place it in a flash writer.

We've since managed to lose the passwords for a few of those  
desktops; is there any way to get linux to overwrite the flash RAM  
soldered to the motherboard?

Cheers,
Kyle Moffett