CF-30 Fingerprint Password?

Hi everyone.

I am new to the world of Toughbooks. Have just bought a very nice one off eBay and had it shipped from the USA.

Overall I am very pleased with it. The problem I have is with the Protector Suite software. Very briefly, I scanned my fingerprints, filled in the fingerprint backup password, enabled start up protection then rebooted.

Upon rebooting I am asked for my fingerprint then asked for a fingerprint password. I cannot get past the fingerprint password. I have tried everything I can think of. Luckily I was able to disable the fingerprint protection in the BIOS otherwise I would be writing this from another PC!

I contacted the seller who said he never entered any passwords when installing the software. All he did was scan his thumb then delete it. He then tried the software on another Toughbook he was selling and said at boot he was not asked for a fingerprint password.

I have tried re-installing the Protector Suite only to discover it is a one time only installation; my prints and windows logon were still stored.

Has anyone any idea what the fingerprint password could be?

Thanks!

 

until someone with more experience shows up ...
the simple stuff first : did you try without entering a password ?

what year is your copy of "protector suite" ?

 

i did some recon ...
there are a few bogus "remove protector suite" listings .
the upek site itself is down or at least will load nothing but a dark purple screen .
have you tried "revo uninstaller" :
http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html

use it in the "advanced mode" when actually performing an "uninstall" .
in some cases , there are registry entries and other stuff "hidden" ... in certain cases , the specific removal tool is needed , or you need to know where stuff is stashed and remove it manually .

 

I am going to GUESS that you will need to do a complete reinstall of the OS and Protector suite.

Here is an informative thread.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/cf-30-fingerprint-reader-drivers.705637/

 

Thanks for your replies...

The simple suggestion from CWB32 worked! It never occured to me to simply press Enter. I think it was because there were little stars showing where characters should be; as I typed, each one would blank out, if I entered too many there would be a warning sound.

I did use the advanced Revo setting. I do not know why it asks for a non-existent password.

Thanks for your help everyone, I now know where to go if I have any more problems. These machines seem very interesting, not like other laptops.

 

You have no idea...next thing you know you will have another and another.......

Protector Suite software was bought by Apple and then closed. I understand Apple is going to or already has used the software on the IPhone.

 

I do not guarantee the exact details I am about to post up, it has been a while...

But first, using the Protector Suite and UPEK software or hardware is dangerous. If your using it for ANY form of "real" security. I believe it was the Blackhat group that discovered the vulnerabilities in the software platform. Whatever the case, hacking the whole platform (to those who excel in such things) is easy enough.

The vulnerabilities were dangerous enough, that anyone using the hardware and software was forced to completely ditch the whole shebang. UPEK was going down the toilet. Then Apple stepped in. They only wanted one small thing. The hardware patents.

What did UPEK have that Apple needed? Well most fingerprint scanners work as you swipe your finger OVER them. The UPEK chips worked when you just put your finger ON them. A big difference, and Apple wanted it for their home button.

With the iPhone 6, you hold your finger on the button and it is actually a fingerprint scanner!!!!

After all of this went down, finding the Protector Suite software (made by UPEK) became impossible to obtain from, reliable sources. And since Apple had no interest in the software, the vulnerabilities (AFAIK) were never fixed.

Again I am not an expert on the above. I simply know the gist of it since I went through the trouble trying to find the information myself. And also I have owned many of Apple's products including the iPhone 6.

If you still want or need the software, PM me. I have it stored somewhere on one of my data drives.

 

i read some of the things that twlk mentioned (while i was researching) .
from what i gathered , the problem reared its ugly head back in 2005 or some such thing .
there is evidence that new yearly versions were put out (a search i performed) right up until a couple of years ago .
sooo ... one would be lead to believe that they had fixed the grand canyon sized hole in their software .
evidently this just aint so ... they just kept putting out crap software (evidently ?) .
i did read the part about apple snarfing upek up .

i did not mention these things in my post as i was lead to believe that the problems had been resolved .

is "other" software that uses that scanner available ?
what about the 'nix side of things ?

 

I have looked but no luck. My girlfriends Dell has one but the software would not work on them. I tried it a few years ago.

 

I have been meaning to search, but other things got priority.

 

I have had the readers on my CF-51 and 52 but what I don't like about them is you must put a password on your BIOS for it to work. The reason is if you can get into the BIOS you could disable it which makes sense. Also when it worked it was a cool feature... when because it never always worked right on any of my Toughbooks. Some days it was a pain in the A$$ and it also slowed down the laptop when booting up. Not sure how it works on the CF-30. I never had one on any of mine.

 

With THAT much time after the incident, one would think so... But my research indicated it never had been fully fixed. (Or possibly it hadn't been fixed on the specific software I was trying to use?) Again it has been a while, so just be aware of the potential issues and do your homework.

And honestly on a consumer "home" use, I doubt the holes in security would matter. The average person trying to gain access to your email, will be stopped by this.

My understanding is that for installs where security was top priority, UPEK devices were deemed insecure, and removed from service. Even if they patched the holes, it would seem the damage had been done. And with such a major loss of business, I suspect many of their various software platforms were never updated and fixed.

THIS! I was playing with USB based devices (still have them in a box) and they slowed the CF-T7 down and would cause boot hangs now and then. That was almost manageable, but the random pop ups where it gave me a "bad fingerprint scan" warning that had to be x-ed out of, when I wasn't even using it, was not.

If I could have gotten the software to function stably, then I would have taken the next step and modded a scanner into one of my Toughbooks.

And again, all of my knowledge on this is 3-4yrs out of date. I do not know what changes, if any, have been made since then. And since the only thing I really need to protect is my eBay "purchased" list from the wife...

 

Ha Ha...yes I think we all have that problem

 

UPEK did issue a replacement program.
I am working on finding it and then test it to work on a Toughbook.