How To Reset, Remove, Clear or Reveal CMOS BIOS Security Password

There are times that we need to reset the computer’s BIOS security password. Yesterday I was at the local government technical school facility and the person who is in charge of the computer told me that they are not able to reinstall Windows because they are not able to get in the BIOS to set the boot order as it is password protected. The lecturers do not know the password as it is not set by them, but by some unknown student.

The most common way that most of us know on how to reset or clear the BIOS password is to physically remove the power from the computer by disconnecting the power plug and then removing a battery for 30 minutes from the motherboard. Another way is to reset the clear CMOS jumper on the motherboard itself. Both of the 2 methods mentioned works because most motherboards use a battery to sustain the BIOS/CMOS settings for the motherboards PROM chip. So by cutting off the battery power, the BIOS/CMOS settings will be erased.


If for some reason you’re unable to reset the computer’s BIOS or CMOS security password by removing the battery or clearing the CMOS jumper (using a laptop), here are few tools which you can try to use it to clear the BIOS password.

AMI Backdoor or Default BIOS Passwords

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

Award Backdoor or Default BIOS Passwords

589589
589721
595595
598598
1322222
_award
ALFAROME
ALLY
ALLy
aLLy
aLLY
aPAf
award
AWARD PW
AWARD SW
Award SW
AWARD?SW
AWARD?SW
AWARD_PW
AWARD_SW
awkward
AWKWARD
BIOSTAR
CONCAT
condo
Condo
CONDO
d8on
djonet
HLT
HLT
J256
j256
J262
j262
j322
j332
J332
J64
j64
KDD
KDD
lkwpeter
Lkwpeter
LKWPETER
PINT
pint
SER
SKY_FOX
SYXZ
syxz
szyx
TTPTHA
ZAAAADA
ZAAADA
ZAAADA
ZBAAACA
ZBAAACA
ZJAAADC
ZJAAADC

Phoenix Backdoor or Default BIOS Passwords

This is probably the most up to date and popular CMOS decryption tool. CmosPwd decrypts password stored in cmos used to access BIOS SETUP. It works with the following BIOSes: ACER/IBM BIOS, AMI BIOS, AMI WinBIOS 2.5, Award 4.5x/4.6x/6.0, Compaq (1992), Compaq (New version), IBM (PS/2, Activa, Thinkpad), Packard Bell, Phoenix 1.00.09.AC0 (1994), a486 1.03, 1.04, 1.10 A03, 4.05 rev 1.02.943, 4.06 rev 1.13.1107, Phoenix 4 release 6 (User), Gateway Solo - Phoenix 4.0 release 6, Toshiba and Zenith AMI. With CmosPwd, you can also backup, restore and erase/kill cmos. You will have to logged in as administrator, run ioperm -i command and then run cmospwd_win.exe

Download: Download CmosPwd 5.0

!Bios by eleventh alliance

!Bios is a tool originally developed for a brute, blunt removal of passwords from BIOSes. Through its development it has been severely extended. !Bios can decrypt the passwords used in some most common BIOS (including various bioses/versions by IBM, American Megatrends Inc, Award and Phoenix). !Bios can do crude, brutal attacks (blasters) which removes password from a lot of Bioses. A bit dangerous though, can give unexpected and unwanted results.

Download: Download !Bios

PC CMOS Cleaner

PC CMOS Cleaner is an easy-to-use tool to recover, delete, decode and display the superior passwords stored in BIOS whatever the brand is. Most types of BIOS such as AWARD, AMI, Compaq, Phoenix, Samsung, IBM, Compaq, DTK, Thinkpad, Sony, Toshiba are supported. It’s an bootable CD that runs on x86 and x86_64 computers. It can display the superior passwords of the BIOS, remove BIOS password(will set the BIOS to default status, need reset date).

Download: Download PC CMOS Cleaner