As Matt mentioned; the CMos battery could be the culprit .. or the solution.
More likely the CMOS battery being good is allowing the machine to save the BIOS password (the DOS screen mentioned in OP).
Without this battery power it won't store said password.

Removing the battery, waiting a couple minutes for all memory to clear as battery power fades away, then rebooting may work. It should forget it has a password stored.
But AGAIN as Matt mentioned; if you haven't disassembled a laptop in a while (to get to this battery) you are better off paying someone who is comfortable doing it. It's easy to break something physically. Then it's a doorstop at best.

If you do this and it works, you will have your computer back working, but when you shut down (preferably right after solving) and put the battery back in (meaning re-assembly, probably for the second time) you will need to reset your system clock and maybe adjust a couple other system settings.
It's not for the faint of heart.

http://superuser.com/questions/568747/laptop-is-asking-for-password-which-i-never-set-even-when-without-hard-drive

https://www.technibble.com/how-to-bypass-or-remove-a-bios-password/

/to make it worse, I'm not vouching for the above links. Try at your own risk
I personally reference a knowledge base our techs have approved before trying something like this, but it's off limits publicly .. plus I'd likely just bring it in to them in the first place

Then again, since it's worthless now you may have nothing to lose
You can always yank the drive and recover your data in another machine..


Last edited by rharv; 02/13/17 03:27 PM.
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