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We bought my 87 year old mother a Toshiba laptop. She uses it to check emails and do crossword puzzles.

After about 6 weeks, she turned it on and a weird screen came on and it asked for a PW. I was told by a friend that it wants a BIOS password.

There is no way that she set this up. She can barely put in her regular password. Spent 2 hrs on the phone with a foreign lady at Toshiba who insisted that it's a software problem and not under warranty.

Toshiba said there is a charge to do this. I have to also pay to send it to them and they don't know the cost 'til they actually fix it. All this for a $400 laptop for an old lady. The computer isn't booting at all

I've tried all of her passwords, none work. Is there a way that I can find out this password?

RedGrittyBrick
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stacey
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  • Check for a Virus. – Xavierjazz Apr 16 '15 at 19:57
  • Sounds like you need a CMOS reset, but I need to know the make and model before going into detail about how to do this. On the other hand, it could also be a bootloader virus. – Jarmund Apr 16 '15 at 19:57
  • its a toshiba C55-B5270, – stacey Apr 16 '15 at 20:38
  • dont really think its a virus... I had remote access to her computer, and had checked everything out the night before all of this started... – stacey Apr 16 '15 at 20:39
  • its unreal that this happened to a 6 week old laptop and now its a brick, and neither toshiba nor staples will fix it – stacey Apr 16 '15 at 20:43
  • if its faulty toshiba firmware... shouldnt they fix it free?? – stacey Apr 16 '15 at 22:22
  • @Stacey, is it possible you or a relative closer (geographically) could confirm if its a supervisor or user bios password ( normally if the later hitting f2 or f12 still gets to bios BUT changes are unavailable)? if its the later merely pulling the main battery and the cmos battery (normally under the main battery but connected to motherboard) for 4-5 minutes are reinserting SHOULD reset it – linuxdev2013 Apr 16 '15 at 23:01
  • i tried the F2 and F 12 and still get the same screen... it wont let me post the pic here... BUT- the screen is blackish with a white rectangular box that says password. if i enter a pw it says it needs validation... if i dont enter one, the laptop just shuts off after 30 seconds... – stacey Apr 16 '15 at 23:19
  • @stacey you can post a link to the picture in the comments and we'll add it to the question. If it is indeed a BIOS password, I don't see any other way of going about fixing this without pulling out the CMOS battery. – Vinayak Apr 17 '15 at 05:34
  • we pulled the main battery, and were going to remove the small cmos one... but were afraid of damaging it... so- we got a repair order from Toshiba... brought it to microcenter near us.. they shipped it for us and the guy was nice... said he'd figure out a way to make them fix it free.... – stacey Apr 18 '15 at 05:14
  • I love MicroCenter! So awesome they got it fixed for you. – Moab Apr 18 '15 at 18:16
  • well, microcenter didnt fix it... but just sent it out for us, lets see what happens... – stacey Apr 20 '15 at 04:52

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