I have a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11 laptop that has a BIOS Supervisor Password that I did not set. This password is preventing me from making critical security changes, like enabling Secure Boot and disabling remote access.
Since the Supervisor Password is stored in the EEPROM chip, simply removing the CMOS battery will not reset it. I need to manually modify or erase the BIOS firmware stored on the chip to remove the password. The chip on my ThinkPad is a Winbond W25Q128JVS SPI flash memory chip.
Since the Supervisor Password is stored in the EEPROM chip, simply removing the CMOS battery will not reset it. I need to manually modify or erase the BIOS firmware stored on the chip to remove the password. The chip on my ThinkPad is a Winbond W25Q128JVS SPI flash memory chip.
- I’m using a CH341A SPI programmer with an SOIC8 test clip to connect directly to the chip.
- This allows me to dump (read), modify, and write back the BIOS firmware.
- Step 1: Use software (NeoProgrammer) to detect and read the BIOS chip.
- Step 2: Make a backup of the BIOS dump before making any changes.
- Step 3: Open the BIOS dump in a hex editor (HxD) and locate the password section.
- Step 4: Remove or modify the stored password data.
- Step 5: Flash the modified BIOS back onto the chip. I completed and reboot my system only to have the BIOS self-heal and restore a back-up of the BIOS and restoring the crooks password. I attempted to short pins 5 & 6 of the EEPROM chip during boot, but laptop would not even try to turn on and trying during boot only made the laptop turn back off immediately. Am I missing a step or 2? Any help would be nothing less than greatly appreciated.
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