Vista - S.o.s

I need some serrious help please from anyone that knows what I should do. I have a gateway laptop p6860-FX. The problem is that I thought when I put a password on the BIOS that if the laptop was stolen the person would have to go thru alot of trouble to crack it. I just found out at Gateways site that all I have to do to clear the BISO password is 1) tun laptop off 2) set a the number one jumper to set three for a whole two seconds, retun the jumper back to set one and then tun the laptop back on BAM the BIOS pw is gone. CAN i do anything to the laptop to make it worthless if it is stolen? This is absurd in a whole two seconds my 1,300 laptop if stolen can be fully used as if it was never password protected. help please im begging for any suggestions. I use it as a game laptop when I travel. help

clearing the cmos isnt even the easiest way to reset the the password , most bios's have a backdoor password set by the manufacturer , They are freely available on the net , or a simple bios flash will sort it.

Unfortunately there is no way to ensure your laptop will be useless to anyone who steals it , its annoying but thats how it is


edit........... look *** REMOVED ***

That is what I thought, again thank you for responding.

Hi FLE,

Physical security for laptops when traveling is a perennial problem. The security of the data on the machine may be protected with Bitlocker, (if you have ultimate), but the best physical security is common sense and probably the use of a good quality locking device which may be used to secure the laptop to an immovable object.

The professional quality security devices do work as a deterrent, as brute force removal tends to leave the laptop unusable, but of course if someone is determined and has access for long enough, then there is not a lot you can do.

Thank you for the help. IDK what bitlocker is but I will find out. Again thank you for the help as I am a nooblet.

Bitlocker is Microsoft's disk encryption software that is included with Vista Ultimate, As you have Home premium, you may want to have a look at the open source alternative Truecrypt, which can provide data security for free

TrueCrypt - Free Open-Source On-The-Fly Disk Encryption Software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X and Linux

If you're worried about having laptop lost/stolen and info compromised...


1. Create a password to sign-on to system

2. Create a task that " if 2 or 3 wrong passwords, install virus then start format of C drive "


I don't know if this would ever work but I'm sure others will correct me.

If it could work, how to set up tasks?

Carmine

Devious, but it won't work, and even if it did it wouldn't keep data safe from expert prying eyes

- You can't format the OS partition from within the OS. That would be like cutting off the tree branch on which you're sitting.

- Even if you could format the partition, everything would still be there. There's plenty of freeware with "pretty" UIs that can recover supposedly-deleted information.

- Logon and BIOS passwords don't matter at all. One of the basic tenets of security is that having physical access to a machine means administrator/root status. There are plenty of ways to defeat logon passwords (again, given physical access), which is why Shawn Brink is so busy removing all the links to l33t Haxx0r resources


In the end, what barman58 suggested is just about the only way to ensure data security on a stolen machine - full encryption of the partition(s).

Well said.

Thanks

I did not know of these programs and I thank all for the imput