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Can't install Linux without BIOS password (feddit.uk)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/techsupport@lemmy.world
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Hi, I was hoping someone may be able to advise me. I have an old Acer laptop that's a bit delapidated but I thought this would be an ideal chance to try out Linux as the laptop is basically of little value anyway so if I mess something up, nothing will be lost.

I've backed up everything I want to keep and I've written the Linux Mint image to a USB stick. I can get into the BIOS screen by pressing F2 but I'll be dammed if I know what my password is. I'm not sure if I ever did.

I read that updating the BIOS driver should allow me to remove the BIOS password but after a somewhat risky decision to run a driver I found on the internet (Acer refuses to recognise my old laptop so won't provide me any driver files), the BIOS still requires a password to open. Is there anything I can do with this old laptop? Is there any way to remove the BIOS password?

Edit: should have pointed out that the laptop uses UEFI rather than BIOS.

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[–] 7 points 1 month ago (1 child)

Have you tried pulling the CMOS battery?

Depending on how old the laptop is, that should work fine. Just find a manual or guide to help you locate the battery, and remove it for 30 mins (main battery too, of course). This will cause a full BIOS config loss and it will reset to defaults when you replace the batteries and reboot it.

This will not work if the laptop is a newer UEFI 'bios' though, and you're stuck trying to flash firmware with a password reset, as you've been doing. Acer shouldn't need to identify your laptop to give you bios files I'd think - you can usually bypass those automatic searches and instead search for your laptop model manually. I've not updated an Acer laptop in a long time though, they may have enshittified the process.

Good luck on your adventure

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 month ago

    Thanks, I can confirm that it is a UEFI. It's about 13.5 years old so it's not super ancient. I downloaded a UEFI driver from a third party site to take it from v2.14 to v2.21. I haven't actually confirmed that it installed correctly so I will do that later. Acer requires you to input any one of three identifying numbers in order to give you this driver update but even after downloading their tool to get accurate system information, it refuses to recognise the information I've copy-pasted from their own tool. It's not very user friendly.

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