Trying to bypass heavy system security

[mikemcd]

Hi guys. My employer is preparing to relocate the entire office and I've been tasked with doing an equipment audit, figuring out what old equipment we have that is still useful and what we should get rid of. We have this old IBM ThinkPad that was setup with some heavy duty security that I don't recognize or know how to deal with. Basically what I see when I try to startup the ThinkPad is the prompt shown in the attached image.

It gives you 2 tries to enter some sort of password, and then locks up. Obviously I don't know the password, and I think this thing may actually be using randomly generated passwords from a pass key (the thing you push a button on and it generates a code every 30 seconds). And of course, the pass key is nowhere to be found.

So I have no idea how to get past this security, don't have the pass key, don't know who set up this machine like this or why. And it seems like a waste to just chuck the thing, plus I don't know what's on it so I wouldn't want to just toss it or donate it.

Any thoughts? I'd be happy to just wipe the hard drive if I could access it to do a format. Just not sure if that's even possible.

[catgate]

I think I am right in saying that what you are asking for would not be given to you on this forum, for obvious reasons....even if a method were known.

[-pops-]

Windows Forum Guideline #27:

27) Windows Forum cannot and will not permit any post, topic or link on how to reset the Administrator password on any computer system. Whilst such a request may be perfectly legitimate there are times when discussions on this topic can be used for an illegitimate reason. Windows Forum does not have the ability to determine the validity of any request and therefore we cannot allow such discussion on this topic.

Having pointed that out, if you are prepared to reformat the computer this should be possible in the usual way.

[mikemcd]

Yeah, I guess I should have figured that. Although there's no malicious or illegal intent here, which is why I guess it didn't seem immediately obvious to me that I shouldn't ask this in a public forum, it does make sense now as to why no one can answer.

Thanks, folks. I'll keep working on it and see what I can do.