[Derek Long]

please help : i have an Acer Aspire 3000 series laptop which ive never had problems with until now.When i switch it on it is giving me a black screen and asking for a PHOENIX BIOS password .I dont know what it is as ive never come across it before.Any ideas?....please.....

[Cew27]

this is a hard password to bypass as it is in the bios (basic input output system) and initiates everytime the computer starts,
if you haven't set the password i would say someone else has
if you want to reset it there are certain programs you can get off the net that you mount to cd and it deletes the bios password or you can take the battery off of the motherboard to drain the power and the password will be deleted however it is very hard to get inside a laptop

[Hybr!d]

On laptops if you get asked for a password instantly after turning on the machine then that is a system lock not a BIOS password.

The only way round them is to send the laptop to the manufacturer with proof of purchase as the password is embedded on an eeprom, gone are the days where you remove a CMOS battery to reset everything, which is irrelevant anyway as that is for BIOS passwords which this is not.

[Cew27]

oops
is there any documentation on this so i can get up to scratch
and by the way you can get cd's that work the hard-drive kill cd i used had on and it worked on my acer

[Hybr!d]

There are 3 types on laptops, system, hard drive and BIOS.

You cannot get round the system one, at all.

Remove the hard drive and try again, if it still askes for one it's the system lock.