I have an HP Pavilion HOPE that someone password protected the BIOS. I have pulled the battery for 15 minutes. I have done the jumper swap. No success on either. Is there anything else I can do?
On laptops BIOS passwords are usually flashed to memory. They cannot be easyly removed just by resetting the CMOS. Its a theft protection measure.
You need to produce original proof or purchase (merchand recipe) and then approach HP support to ask them to recover it.
But it costs money, Im not sure how much.
TunerML
Based on what I'm seeing over at the HP forum you may be able to give them the halt code and they'll give you a code to unlock the BIOS.
It was a BIOS password. I tried taking the battery out for 15 minutes and that didn't work (I didn't have a couple of hours, the client was rushing me). 15 minutes didn't work. I did 30 minutes the second time and that did work. Simple tip I'll not forget. I'll likely never run into the same problem either. Thanks all for the help.