"Deep in the sea are riches beyond compare.
But if you seek safety, it is on the shore."

Hacking your CMOS/BIOS

Your CMOS holds a lot of important information so before you go messing
around with the battery WRITE DOWN YOUR SETTINGS, I can't stress that
enough. When you pull the battery it will set your cmos back to factory
defaults, so you'll need to know how to put everything back.

There are a few different ways to reset the cmos, here's a few:

1. there are many default common passwords,
such as:

At boot-up note the BIOS provider (Award, AMI, Phoenix, IBM, etc.)

For Award BIOS' try these backdoor passwords:

AWARD_SW
j262
HLT
SER
SKY_FOX
BIOSTAR
ALFAROME
Lkwpeter
j256
AWARD?SW
LKWPETER
syxz
ALLy
589589
589721
awkward
CONCAT
d8on
CONDO
j64
szyx

For AMI BIOS' try these backdoor passwords:

AMI
BIOS
PASSWORD
HEWITT RAND
AMI?SW
AMI_SW
LKWPETER
A.M.I.
CONDO

For PHOENIX BIOS' try this backdoor password:

phoenix

there are too many to count here's a list
http://www.phenoelit.de/dpl/dpl.html
(search for PC BIOS)

2. On some older PC's pressing the insert key upon startup will clear
the CMOS, make sure you hold it down till it's done booting.

3. Another way which we pretty much already covered, was to pull the
metallic nickel looking battery that supplies power to the CMOS.

4. Some times there is a small three pin jumper used to reset the bios,
just move the black little pin cover to the opposite two pins.
(Make sure to read the motherboards manual before this)

5. If the battery is soldered in you can take a soldering iron to it but
I don't recommend it unless you are a professional.

Diablo-x / Phlux