Arch Linux

janga7

Member

Registered: 2013-10-02

Posts: 4

no usb boot support

Hi, I am new to these forums and have recently got a second hand dell latitude. On my home computer I have an existing arch installation and would like to install arch to this as well.

But the person I bought it off set a BIOS password he can not remember and had USB botting turned off. (I do not know why.)

It has no other way of booting apart from the hard disk which has windows 7. He did however, give me the windows password.

Is there a way to live boot a USB from this computer? I have researched and found plop boot manager but I am not sure if this is what I need. Is it possible that I can use that to boot from a USB?

Thank you in advance

MW

Member

Registered: 2007-07-27

Posts: 127

Re: no usb boot support

Rather try and fix the prevailing problem than trying to work around it. A quick Google search came up with multiple ways to clear the BIOS password, I'm quoting one solution, since you were not specific with your model number:

I have two things for you to try. It is a bugger to get the password out on the dell Laptop. Here is a couple of things that I have tried with some success.

Next power the machine to boot into windows. If your drivers are in for the wireless or Lan card open internet explorer and navigate to dell Laptop.com and select suppport, select downloads and enter 6530b. it will take to to page to select the Operating system your using. Select your Operating system and on the driver page you need download the fingerprint reader driver, dell Laptop ProtectTools Security Manager 4.10 and dell Laptop ProtectTools BIOS Configuration. Install the fingerprint driver (if needed) dell Laptop Protect Tools software and dell Laptop ProtectTools BIOS Configuration . After reboot run dell Laptop ProtectTools Security Manager For Administrators and choose Bios configuration. You will see at the top a place for you to enter a password for the BIOS however BIOS will not give you this option alone so set your new BIOS Password and when you restart the machine press F10 to get bios setup, enter your password and choose "User Management" delete the user under Protect tools User. select reset fingerprint reader and under TPM select "reset to factory defaults".

DESCRIPTION:
If the BIOS administrator password is not set, and dell Laptop ProtectTools security is enabled in Security Manager, then you may not be able to enter the Computer Setup utility at startup as a BIOS administrator. You will only be allowed to enter the setup as a ProtectTools user with limited access.

SCOPE:
The specific notebook PCs affected by this issue are listed in the Hardware Platforms Affected section at the bottom of this advisory.

RESOLUTION:
To resolve this issue, create a BIOS administrator password and delete previous ProtectTools user logs by following this procedure:

1. Download and install the latest SSM utility (dell Laptop System Software ManagerVERSION: 2.10 Rev.A SP42536

2. Navigate to c:\Program Files\dell Packard\SSM .

3. Access biosconfigutility.exe to reset the BIOS administrator password.
a. From a command prompt, navigate to the SSM folder.
b. Type biosconfigutility.exe to start the utility. A list of commands displays.
c. Type /newsetuppassword:"password" to create a new BIOS administrator password.
d. Close the command window.

4. Restart the notebook PC and press F2 at startup.

5. Log in using the new BIOS administrator password.

6. Choose User Management and delete any previous ProtectTools users.

7. Save the new settings and exit startup.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index … 853AAfsxoY

janga7

Member

Registered: 2013-10-02

Posts: 4

Re: no usb boot support

thank you, big help