Acer Aspire 5000 need assistance

I have been given the task of removing the boot up password. disgruntled person left the password on the laptop.
but no help from Acer, no specs on where to find the cmos battery without dismantling.
can anyone help?
It may be there is nothing worth the 99 dollars on the hard drive for Acer to pocket. would it be harmful to pull the hard drive and try to boot it in an Acer 3002LCI laptop? my concern is would it mess up the bios or anything else in the 3002 laptop?

I simply want to find out what files are on the hard drive copy them if they are important. and if not do a restore on the 5000 to get it up and running for someone else to use.

Thx

 

Try : http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/CmosPwd

 

k
I read the notes and it won't work. need a c prompt and I don't have that.

what if I took the hd out of the 5000 and installed it to a working 3002?
(not as a second hd, but the main) just to get the files off of it before restoring the os to the 5000.

or would it make my 3002 go wacko?

thx

 

Which OS you using? - anything up to WinXP can be booted to "C" prompt.
I.e. Safe mode with command prompt.

Or in windows <Run> <CMD> (<command> for pre- Win2K)

I think the Passwords you're talking about would be stored in the BIOs not on the drive so moving drive to another PC probably won't help.

Rather than move the drive into the 3002 - add it via a external USB drive case ($30 - worthwhile investment). You can then access all files via existing OS on 3002, but given point above not sure that will help with your issue.

 

it would be perfectly fine to install the hard drive on the aspire 3000 as they are essentially the same unit with different processors.

 

its win xp home edition

thanks for your help

I finally got a tech at ACER that would talk and he said a restore won't clear the pswd. it's a matter of dismantling and removing the cmos battery. but I can't get the back off some of the crews refuse to budge and then I got one side and part of the plastic around the screw disintegrated. this was after I did get one of the doors off and the tech told me that was the cmos battery but it apparently was not after I broke the plastic piece around it trying to get it out.
I give!
after all this it will be easy to tell the boss it'll cost 99 dollars to clear the pswd !
thanks again for your help

 

http://shopping.microbattery.com/Pa...abe1f597d983f1ff.e3eSbNqNc38Le34Pa38Ta38Lbxj0

it will look that i hope you did,nt break that off board else be preapired to spend alot money if send to acer get resoleder

if you did remover the battery right then make sure remove power adapter and the battery from laptop or else it won,nt clear it