ThinkPad Mini 10 netbooks
you have to open up the back, and short the Eprom Bios reader use a
magnifying glass, find it, and it is pin 5 and 6 on the eprom, (SDA)
and (SDL) the eprom is the first selection of the motherboard that
when booted, it checks security on the system, be carefull powering on
the Notebook with the back cover off, turn the laptop on it's side,
boot the power on button, look for Circuit print (U46) that should be
the Eprom, (see pictures Below of the two different eproms you may
have) usually the eprom is adjacent halfway next to the hard drive,
some other thinkpads they are located under the ram, or next to the
BIOS battery.
So With your Thinkpad rear cover removed, check to see if you can see
the bios battery and the chipsets, if so, it should be there on that
side of the circuit board....if not....then it's on the other side
which means you have to remove the entire back cover to get at it, i
would suggest you just remove the rear slide cover first or palm pad
screws, and check before removing your entire back cover for no
reason.
What we need to do, is.... while booting up turning the power button
on at the same time holding a fine screwdriver to both pin 5 and 6
(the right hand two pins solders on the top end of the eprom.. doesnt
matter which way your looking at your circuit board, it will still be
the top last two in the right of the eprom, as they correspond and
switch over inside the eprom chip so you will be shorting either the
two "in'" or the 2 "outs"of the eprom chip....so doesn't make a
difference, you will still be shorting the circuit before or after it
goes to the next chip along the circuit board down th track, as long
as it's the top right two prong solders your touching on the eprom
chip (SEE PIC) ......do this short for only 2 seconds max.... this
should fail both the security Supervisor Password, and power on
Password and reset your Cmos.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Image/meta/vcViHyoEXCYvRwmD
What your initially trying to achieve by doing this is to make the
System forget to check Security settings during a few attempted boot
ups this way.....all you need is the System to forget once and your
in.
an eprom is the tiny chip that has 4 inbound solders and 4 outbound
solders on the Eprom chip, ("again inside this eprom chip they switch
over so they aren't a direct pass through to the otherside of the
eprom chip"), so just make sure your touching the two top right end
solders of the eprom located on the circuit board, usually marked with
a fine print stamp on the eprom saying (Ps4508) or something like
(ATMEL G 282) orsimillar. Usually on the thinkpads it is located next
to the yellow Bios Battery cable under the tape, or under the ram, if
it is under the ram, take the ram out, you wont need the ram to get
into Bios anyway, once you think you have acheived it...check your
boot Bios menu whilst the pc is still on its side and select along
into the security settings and see if Supervisor and Power on
passwords are enterable to change.....if so you were succesful.
Most of the Lenovo Thinkpads can be cracked this way....but be warned
you only need to create a short circuit for just a second.... and by
short circuit i mean strike those pins i mentioned for just a second
on reeboot, (only a low amp of 3 watts from the bios battery comes
through it) holding the screw driver any longer than 5 seconds will
fry your ALTMEL Chip on your motherboard.....you only need to
basically strike or swipe those pins for a second a during reeboot.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Image/meta/Gl5NfaQ4TdwVFFnp
you may need to do it roughly 3 times....i usually get it on the 3rd
boot attempt. just make sure your not stupid and panic and strike your
fine screwdriver through the rest of the motherboard.
There is no backdoor or secret password or Boot CD software or
anything like that can break this or unlock it with the click of a
mouse or keyboard, most of the thinkpads are like that also, you will
have to replace the motherboard if your thinkpad is locked if you
don't wish to try this proceedure. Lenovo do however charge you to
unlock the Eprom, but a proof of purchase or reciept either new or
second hand is nessecary.
i should also mention another type of lockout on these , another which
many students get is the HDD LOCKOUT.......this happens when too many
wrong passwords are entered, if you don't know the BIOS passwords DO
NOT TRY AND GUESS IT...You only have 3 attempts in one session.....if
you have entered too many times you will see the boot icon lock has a
number 1 or 2 on boot up, this it is not your BIOS, but your Hard
Drive that is locked, best option is taking out your HDD and putting
it into another laptop that fits the hard drive and get in and unlock
or remove the Hard Drive lock and then put it back into your thinkpad.
also the ThinkPad Mini 10 netbook was mass produced by Lenovo for
Australian Schools in 2013
they have since disregarded these and moved onto a simillar small
laptop with DELL.