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Need help dumping/imaging Lenovo laptop BIOS

Red_Machine

Red_Machine

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Software Microsoft Windows 11 Pro | Microsoft Windows 98SE
Was given a 2016 Lenovo laptop with a password protected Insyde BIOS. I'm pretty sure I've found several ways I can find out what the password is or remove it, but I'm struggling to get to the point where I can actually do it. I need to dump the BIOS to a file so I can either hunt through it for the password, or modify it to remove it entirely, but I can't find software to dump it for love nor money. I've tried a few different utilities, but they either couldn't detect my BIOS, didn't do what I needed, or require compiling from source. Can someone point me the way of a utility that can get me a BIOS dump?
 
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Sure brother! It isnt sticky'd here but this should get you on the right path.

www.techpowerup.com

Guide: Flashing with a hardware programmer

Lets get physical So; you tried flashing your GPU and you didn't backup. Now you have some dude on the forum linking you a BIOS but you have no way to apply it because you don't have a spare GPU either. Well no worries friend. In this guide we are going to cover the simple procedures of...
www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com

I have dumped from laptops and its usually SOIC8. Its possible thats its part of the EC though.

In either case the guide works for any chips, should help out!
 
Solaris17 said:
Sure brother! It isnt sticky'd here but this should get you on the right path.

www.techpowerup.com

Guide: Flashing with a hardware programmer

Lets get physical So; you tried flashing your GPU and you didn't backup. Now you have some dude on the forum linking you a BIOS but you have no way to apply it because you don't have a spare GPU either. Well no worries friend. In this guide we are going to cover the simple procedures of...
www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com

I have dumped from laptops and its usually SOIC8. Its possible thats its part of the EC though.

In either case the guide works for any chips, should help out!
Click to expand...
Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm specifically looking for a piece of software that can be run on the laptop (it has a working copy of Windows) to image the BIOS. They do exist, but I can't find one that works with this laptop.
 
Red_Machine said:
Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm specifically looking for a piece of software that can be run on the laptop (it has a working copy of Windows) to image the BIOS. They do exist, but I can't find one that works with this laptop.
Click to expand...
That’s going to be a lot harder since it is generally done through a driver. You could try RWeverything though. Just be careful. If you do get access and direct write via the bus and it doesn’t like it for my reason you have no physical backup and are probably up shits creek.
 
Red_Machine said:
Was given a 2016 Lenovo laptop with a password protected Insyde BIOS. I'm pretty sure I've found several ways I can find out what the password is or remove it, but I'm struggling to get to the point where I can actually do it. I need to dump the BIOS to a file so I can either hunt through it for the password, or modify it to remove it entirely, but I can't find software to dump it for love nor money. I've tried a few different utilities, but they either couldn't detect my BIOS, didn't do what I needed, or require compiling from source. Can someone point me the way of a utility that can get me a BIOS dump?
Click to expand...
Have you researched that particular Motherboard to see if there is a PWD jumper or points to short to clear it?
Many Motherboards have them.
 
Caring1 said:
Have you researched that particular Motherboard to see if there is a PWD jumper or points to short to clear it?
Many Motherboards have them.
Click to expand...
Agreed. I would also try removing the laptop battery, cmos battery, and unplugging the laptop from the wall for a while to see if that resets the BIOS and removes the password. Of course that could be a dangerous thing if the password is somehow not forgotten, everything else is forgotten, the laptop is unbootable for some reason, and you can't access it. But it's unlikely they would, by design, have the password remembered when forgetting everything else, AND make the defaults unbootable.
 
Caring1 said:
Have you researched that particular Motherboard to see if there is a PWD jumper or points to short to clear it?
Many Motherboards have them.
Click to expand...
Doesn't appear to be, no. I tried to short the legs of the CMOS chip together, which is another method often used, but it didn't work.
ty_ger said:
Agreed. I would also try removing the laptop battery, cmos battery, and unplugging the laptop from the wall for a while to see if that resets the BIOS and removes the password. Of course that could be a dangerous thing if the password is somehow not forgotten, everything else is forgotten, the laptop is unbootable for some reason, and you can't access it. But it's unlikely they would, by design, have the password remembered when forgetting everything else, AND make the defaults unbootable.
Click to expand...
Tried that first, it did nothing.
 
https://bios-pw.org/

Try this. Fail the bios password until it locks you out, then input the code it give you here. Worth a shot.
 
CMOSPwd or KillCMOS?

A bit older, but might work.

UEFITool should allow you to dump/image it.
 
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