Precision M4400 Biometrics

Apologies for my first post being a bit of begging post, but I'm in need of some advice regarding a Precision M4400 we have in office.

To cut a long story short we have been shafted by our senior architect who has emigrated over the Christmas period to Brisbane (we're in the Isle of Man) without telling anyone (basically she had a fling with the boss, they fell out, she took the hump then took off).

Anyways, the problem we have is she was using the above laptop for her CAD work but instead of working on projects from the Server she did it on the Hard Drive in order to work from home. Obviously when she took off she forgot to leave her finger behind so we could access the projects on the laptop so we're kinda at a loss, I've got her projects that need finishing and no way of accessing them. I've already tried removing the HDD and taking the projects directly off that but I need to use her CAD programme (Allplan) in order to export it to the CAD programme I use (AutoCAD).

I suppose the question is: How can I bypass/reset the biometrics so I can get access to it? I've spoken to a chap that we normally get in to do our computer bits and he's suggested that there's a reset button or something along those lines on the Motherboard, is that right? Any idea where about I would find it? Took the back off it earlier to take a peek and it seems to be more involved to other laptops that I've stripped, if I've got a good idea what I'm looking for it'll make life easier.


TL;DR Collegue left, can't access laptop, help!

 

Just to add, I can't seem to access the BIOS without having to use the finger scanner either. Also tried disconnecting the scanner (in hope) but obviously that hasn't worked.....

Searching on here & Google isn't throwing anything up either so I'm hoping she's not left us with a rather expensive paper weight....

 

Ripping out the hard disk seems the best option to me. 'No way of accessing them' seems drastic - did you try running 'Allplan' directly from the disk you tore out of the laptop? Reasonably likely it would work. Guessing you don't have a license for it (I've never even heard of it and I do use software packages from that 'world' a fair bit).

Otherwise, send a hitman to post back a finger? Dunno..

Are you 'the boss'? C'mon you can tell me..

Back to the story... I haven't used the fingermajigger but I assume it works similarly to a normal bios password / windows password (probably generating a normal text string from the print and passing that to bios/windows...)
With most older laptops it was quite easy to reset bios passwords but I believe it has gotten harder. There are a few links about with people selling magic codes, this chap...
- Dell Precision M4400 HDD Password | Laptop Schematic | Laptop Motherboard Schematic | Laptop Motherboard Diagram | Notebook Schematic | Laptop Circuit Diagram | VGA Board Schematic | Laptop Master Password | Bios Password | HDD Password
... says he won't charge you if it doesn't work, $12 might be worth wasting depending on the data you're trying to get at. This other site...
- BIOS Password LaptopTips
... suggests Dell can use some kind of skeleton password to unlock laptops, maybe get in touch with Dell Support. For 'pro' machines like this the support is actually really bloody excellent most of the time, not like the kind of support you would get with a crappy inspiron or similar. If you explain your story, and perhaps you have a receipt or somesuch, maybe they can help you.

I dunno what else to suggest, other than wishing you luck!


edit: also there may well be a text 'backup' password, so you could resort to begging this lady to have mercy on you...

 

Cheers for the reply. Should have said "Can't access the files successfully", we can see them and view them on an Allplan reader but that seems to be as far it goes. Allplan seems to structure drawings different to AutoCAD so all we can see is essentially a snapshot of the full drawing but no layers. Ideal world I need to access it so I can figure out this 'Allplan' nonsense and export to DWG format.

Thankfully I'm not the Boss either as she's taken their kid without his permission.....juicy stuff eh?

Contacted Dell this morning to see if they can sort some of passcode out, guy I spoke to mentioned it might be a new motherboard job but is going to call back later after speaking to a colleague, if he doesn't have a solution I'll have to give one of those links you posted a try.

Many thanks!

 

Mate, your a godsend. Went to that first link you posted, did a google for the programme he uses and found a download for it on someone's blog (Dogbert). It's worked a treat, looks like I've got a busy day ahead exporting drawings now!

Cheers!!