Bought a second-hand laptop and got fucked over

TL;DR version:
Bought used laptop with dead HDD, replaced the HDD and discovered that the laptop's BIOS has Master password and refuses to boot from anything.


I'm a poorfag student that bought used HP Compaq 6735B with a dead HDD. It was pretty cheap and came even with the original bag and charger. I was kind of desperate to get a new laptop since my old Asus F5R's screen died, it took a ton of beating with the screen bezels falling out and attempts at repairing it failed (Currently it's sitting in a box in my room halfway taken apart). I also got a laptop with a dead HDD because the HDD from my old laptop still worked. Also the guy I bought the laptop from is not picking up my calls.

What the hell am I supposed to do now? HP won't help me because the laptop is out of warranty, CMOS battery reset and discharging doesn't work and I already tried every keyboard boot combination. Also tried the so called BIOS password removers.

I even looked into reflashing the BIOS chip but my soldering skills are shit tier and I don't have heat gun or EEPROM with adaptor for small chips either. I already spend too much money on this laptop so I can't afford investing 60 Eur more for that stuff.

sorry user if thats an hp "business" laptop you cant reset the password. You must buy a new bios and swap it which requires some soldering skills. Need more info whats the model number.

sorry i see the model number

give it back, jamal

So laptops don't have jumpers on the motherboard? Look up the OEM manual for that laptop and see if you can reset the bios. If not, it's to the doddering board with the motherboard.

There's only CMOS reset listed in the service manual and the password is apparently stored in the BIOS' EEPROM

I deal with tons of off-lease and usually if there's a BIOS password, it belong to an employee who works on the field or anyone with a risk of losing a work notebook with company data.

You won't be able to do anything if the BIOS doesn't let you install anything. Sell it on eBay as a parts notebook and try to make back some of your money.

Refund it if you got it on ebay.

Sorry, to elaborate, if you can't contact an owner then file a dispute/claim on ebay.

unplug and plug back in the CMOS battery if possible to remove the BIOS password

should've bought a thinkpad
/thread
In all seriousness I recommend you to get a (extra) job and spend something like 200 Euro on the new ACER Aspire ES1. And then later buy a desktop computer for the more serious work.

Heya, is that Adam Kovic?

I love funhaus!

Ebay buyer protection it is.

Is there a way how to find out to which company this laptop belongs to with the service tag or serial number? I'll at least get the person that sold this laptop to me into trouble with his company


I got it on bazos.sk, it doesn't have anything like that and I can't find the user nor the listing anymore so I can't even report him for scamming there. Also buying anything from eBay results in shipping cost being around $40 or $50

Tried that, didn't work

I was actually going to use this laptop for a summer job I landed. I'm supposed to work as an L3 intern and was basically told that the company utilizes BYOD policy. Hopefully they'll have a spare laptop or something

>Also buying anything from eBay results in shipping cost being around $40 or $50

And you just lost how much on this laptop?

Dispute on your credit card?

120 Eur

>Eur
Well it's tanking so at least it's not worth that little anymore.

I personally met the guy and paid in cash in the city. I always either buy something with cash on delivery at the post office or pay in cash personally so that I can save on bank transfer fees

Perhaps installing the OS on another computer and transplanting it to the new one would work?

Post the sellers phone number. If 20 anons call him to ask for the bios password I'm sure he'll take the call eventually. But first send the seller text message asking for the password.

That's basically what I did
I took a hard drive from my old F5R into the HP laptop and the HDD had OS already installed on it

I'll doubt that he will pick up since the number was unreachable after the deal was done
+421902264720

Also I just remembered that there's a FAB Lab in my city
Is there a chance that they will have a heat gun and an EEPROM reader if they have stuff like 3D printers, ton of Arduinos and laser cutters?

Replacing the bios chip would work but it's probably more expensive than buying another laptop. If you could do it yourself it would cost you 20 dollar.

well, i cant explain to you all the stuff. but there is i some little tools developed to get the root rights on blocked ROM BIOS. its all depend on your BIOS manufacture. for example, for Award BIOS you need a tool called "Mobdin", for AMI BIOS need "AMIBCP". this little tools are DOS based in most cases. so all need to do is to find right tool for your BIOS and follow instructions to experiment. nothing to lose. the second option is to take to lab, and pay only for unblocking BIOS and the rest make yourself. after all this, you will have to look for drivers for OS. I know that it is very problematic to find HP drivers for Windows, so good luck. Other option for OS? Try Ubuntu. I use Linux OS Ubuntu more than Windows and I love it.

You got straight up scammed. The guy who bought it almost certianly knew that it was locked with a BIOS password and sold it to you anyway. The fake/disposable number pretty much confirms it.