Hello, new here - need help with BIOS

Ok, so my hdd is failing with SMART ("Smart failure predicted") - glad I'm on warranty for 2 years still, but that's not the point.
The point is - I thought "hey, I can just probably disable the nagging text of smart thru BIOS". I go there "F2" - password required. Beats me why there's a password, since I don't remember putting one. I believe it was cleared out the last time I formatted my hdd (I THINK, being key).
I tried looking for a way around it, backdoor passwords, hacks, progs, tricks, debug in cmd (none of them worked - I read about that later @_@).

I don't want to take my laptop apart to get to the cmos battery for 5 secs, because I don't know where to look for it and my manual didn't show it at all. UNLESS, there's a really easy way to it, which I doubt (I'm not sure removing it for said periods of time would clear the password to get into setup anyway).
So I stumbled onto this board (this site) where people advised to actually just flash the bios to a newer version and it'd clear the password just like that.
http://nicram.sytes.net/lang/en-us/projects/compal-fl90-bios-disc/

I downloaded the thing off of the site above, but I'm curious as to if it will work and what's the risk. I doubt anything could happen when my battery is in, im plugged into ac and not smashing my pc as well.

Would this help me get into setup by F2 without a password if it flashed correctly?
Any other ideas?
Please help.

 

Yes, probably that one should work... But here is the one that I know it's correct.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=457424

Still, IDK about the password...

 

What about my other questions, ideas?

Btw, what do you mean by "should work" and "correct"?
What about the password? Doesn't flashing mean it's gonna all be rewritten from scratch to a new version?
If the password stays then I will have unnecessarily flashed my bios.

Also, could I just contact someone at Compal to actually help me with this? Like maybe get my password cleared or get a tool to see it? Is that possible?

My rig is of Compal IFL90. Hope thats understood.

 

Probably your reseller protected the BIOS to prevent you from changing something, even though there isn't much to change. You can try and conntact them.
Anyway, the password is not on HDD, it's in CMOS, so it might be the old one. I found some backdoor password for Phoenix BIOS, try them, maybe they'll work - BIOS, CMOS, phoenix, and PHOENIX, Pheonix, 1234567, or xinoehp.
Also there are tools that can try and recover the password.

Your IFL90 and JFL92 use the same BIOS.

I'm not sure if flashing would erase the password.

 

I know the password isn't on the hdd, but I could swear that (well, like I said - I think) formatting the hdd erased the password too last time. Enough of thinking.
Ok, so my bios is the same as that - ok. The link you gave earlier - is that newer than 1.18? It sounds like 1.19S (what's that S supposed to mean? XD)

I have tried the 4 first backdoor passwords. I'll try the last 3 now.

I would appreciate it if someone would point me to a cracking password program (even email it to me or smth) that actually would work (show the pass, erase the pass and so on).
I'd like to think it'd erase the password (flashing).

EDIT: OK, tried all backdoor password - none worked.

BTW, would flashing bios actually alter any settings that could prevent me from using my machine correctly and/or destroy smth (make it not work or not recognize smth)?

EDIT 2: ALSO
I'd like to know if I can update the bios from windows xp interface (through a prog), since I hate the command prompt looking interface like hell (who actually likes it? I'll kill you) and I don't trust that crap.

 

Ok, sorry for doubleposting here and etc. but could I get some sort of file + explanation on how to properly update this bios? I think in this day and age this cant possibly fail, crash or w/e since it's a stable enough environment. 1.18 would suffice and some help.

 

HEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!

I cleared the CMOS now with the help of a screwdriver head next to the RAM stick (where the memory is - ram removed, ac unplugged and battery out) where it says J5 (cmos jumper) and I finally had a chance to get into bios settings (cleared like this http://www.asimobile.com/nb_faq_fl9x_bios_clearing.JPG), but now I have a BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG problem.

Windows gives me a blue screen error which I am unable to read, since it goes by in a nanosecond, but I caught a glimpse of smth "hard drive" error.
I am unable to start windows, so I tried using my WinXP disk to go to the recovery console, but when I press R or enter (for WIN setup) it gives me an error of a hard drive:

Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer - supplied diagnostic or setup program.

WHAT DO I DO?

Sorry for triple-post, but I need this thing to work for university. Please help

 

See, this is why one should not mess with the BIOS unless something is genuinely broken. There are quite a few things that could go wrong. First, make sure that the BIOS actually sees your hard drive. I don't remember whether this is an option in the Compal BIOSes, but take a look. Given the reason for this whole mess:

it is entirely possible that your HDD picked an interesting time to die.

If the hard drive is there, but Windows won't boot (or if you can't figure out whether it is there or not), check the AHCI settings. Your new BIOS may have enabled AHCI whereas before it was disabled or vice versa. Windows XP doesn't like it when you do that without doing a bunch of other things in advance. If you know your way around UNIX, you can also try booting from a Linux live CD and try to figure out what is wrong with your hard drive from there.

 

Ok, I got around this on my own by looking up on exactly AHCI. I disabled it and now I know how to go around bios, cmos resetting, what ahci does and now my pc is working fine. Still has the hdd drive failure prediction, but nothing can repair that, so anyway - I'm good. I fixed my own problem. Thanks for the help.

I won't update bios - no need to risk it now that I have the password removed. Jumper 5 worked like a charm.

 

AHCI off for xp, AHCI on for vista/W7. I got scared of blue screen before realizing AHCI was on lol

I would sugget run HD Tune to get a health status report for your hard drive, to get an idea how bad is your hard drive right now.

 

It's almost dead by computer standards. But it works, so I will use it until it dies completely.

05 Reallocated Sector count:

Current 9
Worst 9
Threshold 10
Data 847
Status: Failed

Everything is shown as ok. There were also 2 pending sectors at risk, but HDD Regenerator fixed those and it's now shown as ok there. 05 RSC is still failed. Oh well.