Having Some Problems....

[Nater43]

Is there any way to have Linux Mint boot from an external drive without having to set BIOS to boot from USB first? I'm currently having some BIOS issues with it asking for a password that I never set, and the PhoenixBios defaults are not working.

Thanks.

[lagagnon]

I'm currently having some BIOS issues with it asking for a password that I never set

If you can get at the motherboard there will be a small jumper somewhere on the motherboard to reset the BIOS password to nothing. The jumper is sometimes labelled "PSWD" or "BIOS RESET" or something along those lines. You put the jumper over those 2 connectors for about 5 seconds and you can overwrite the password lock on the BIOS.

eg:

[Nater43]

I'm currently having some BIOS issues with it asking for a password that I never set

If you can get at the motherboard there will be a small jumper somewhere on the motherboard to reset the BIOS password to nothing. The jumper is sometimes labelled "PSWD" or "BIOS RESET" or something along those lines. You put the jumper over those 2 connectors for about 5 seconds and you can overwrite the password lock on the BIOS.

eg:

I was thinking that, but I'm on a laptop. I don't know if that option is still available, and even so, I'm not sure how easy it would be to get the the CMOS.

[lagagnon]

It should be easy to at least get to the BIOS backup battery - read your computer manual. You could then remove the battery for 10 seconds or so, that should remove the password - it will also reset your BIOS to default so you will have to re-do the date, time, etc...

[Nater43]

Well I went through the manual, and it really doesn't seem like a problem. That is assuming that the CMOS battery is the same thing as the RTC battery?

[lagagnon]

Yes.