Hello,

I have been trying last couple of days to unlock my ancient Alienware 14 (2013) on which I do remember the system password but I forgot the admin password.

So I can boot into windows and occasionally use the machine to watch movies but cannot change any settings in the BIOS.

What have I done so far:
1. Desoldered the BIOS IC (W25Q64FV), dumped it and started examining it through UEFITool. Trying to find NVRAM that would be storing the pwd itself (or its hash) or efi package that is responsible for the pwd check / set / clear but I did not find anything useful.
2. Flashed a dump from another machine which did not have pwd set. After CMOS clear, 5 beeps and restart, the machine posted with the service tag from the other machine without any issues BUT both passwords were still set. So, I concluded that the password is in fact not in the BIOS IC.
3. So I also dumped the EC from my machine and compared it with a dump from another one (found on internet and the dump was from a different IC, but the data was the same, just offsets were different).

In the end, I am wondering if the pwd is in fact stored in KBC, which I unfortunately have no programmer, nor socket for. Plus I do not have SMD rework station (so, the soldering of BIOS IC was done with heat-gun that has adjustable temperature + narrow nozzle) which makes it impossible to remove the KBC without either ripping some of the traces or cooking the living heck out of it with a heat-gun :/

Therefore, I would like to ask for any help or suggestions.

Is there a way to cut out the pwd check on boot from the BIOS, then set a "new" password so it is overwritten in the KBC, flash stock DELL bios and then clear the passwords?

Or maybe something even more elegant that I do not know about?

Note: I have very limited experience with bios mods so please consider me a novice :)

Also, I tried master pwd generators and even had one generated directly by Dell support. Unfortunately, none of the keys worked. (I just hope that I am not dumb enough to enter them in incorrect sequence thinking that the code does not work)

Any thoughts on this situation ?

Any reply will be greatly appreciated :)

-Frank.

P.S.: Happy New Year!

Zitat von FrankCastle im Beitrag #1

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Desoldered the BIOS IC (W25Q64FV), dumped it...
I can send my dumps

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Well, apparently new users need at least 3 posts before they can share external links and since the size limit of attachment per post is 6MB, I cannot attach any of the files :/
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Zitat von DeathBringer im Beitrag #2

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Zitat von FrankCastle im Beitrag #1

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Desoldered the BIOS IC (W25Q64FV), dumped it...
I can send my dumps

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Show results.

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No, I can't help.

@Lost_N_BIOS
I hope I am not bothering you with this but I just wanted to make sure....

Is there really no hope of the password removal then?