What type of password is this

C

copiman

Member
When I boot the Dell Inspiron 530S, I get a black screen with a rectangular box in the center of the screen. Inside the box it says: Enter Password. Nothing else on the screen. What type of password is this? HDD password? Boot password? Have not seen this before.

I just attempted to enter the BIOS and its asking for a password as well. So I'm assuming its a BIOS password, but not confident, so I still ask what type is it?
 
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Yes, its a bios/system password. You can't boot the system without entering the password.
 
As stated those are BIOS passwords. You can also set up the same or different passwords between booting the system and accessing the BIOS menu.

If you needed to clear the PW then you can clear CMOS which will remove the configuration.
 
I set a ATA password on the hard drive and so long as the hard drive is connected you can't enter BIOS with it attached. But the screen isn't black, it's white. So this is more than likely a BIOS password. You would have to prove ownership of the computer to Dell support to get it unlocked or I listed some programs on my forum that might help.

Just for the hell of it, what is the service tag when you see the screen? It will look like this: LSSPJ3J-595B.
 
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Thanks everyone. Your right, its the bios password. I cleared it but the hdd is bad. Its an old PC (2007) with a Maxtor hdd.

My friends nephew was using it and probably started messing with it. It will not boot from the hdd even though it is set to. I attached the hdd to my PC and can't do a thing with it. I'll just put in another hdd and load Windows 7 (it had vista on it).

I get confused with passwords outside of user accounts. I do know that you can set hdd passwords and bios passwords but have never done so. Maybe I need to play around with that to get myself more familiar with them. Thanks again for your help.
 
If the BIOS password is enabled using a different HDD won't do anything. Unless you misspoke and this is an ATA password on the HDD.

If that Dell doesn't have Windows 7 drivers you could use Vista 32 or 64 bit drivers.
 
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