In reply to a post by john2007:

.... In my limited experience getting to laptop internals is fiddly, time-consuming, and error prone. If you haven't done it before I reckon I'd set aside 4-6 hours to disassemble/reassemble a laptop to find the cmos battery. I'd only try it on a laptop I was going to junk.....

The HD password cannot be unlocked without certain software and an in-depth knowledge of how to use it. Most BIOS passwords cannot be removed by removing the battery as these are written to a seperate chip on the motherboard. Some very few laptops have DIP/jumper switches which when correctly set will remove the password but I would think that these are now largely obsolete.

As it's for recycling, the hard drive could simply be removed and kept. They're always useful in a 2.5" caddy as unlike their larger counterparts, they'll easily slip into a pocket.

Edited by Deadbeat (Thu 21-Jun-12 17:21:33)

Your actions make a lot more sense once we know the machine is for scrap and not for reuse.

What you've done so far is more than enough to stop prying eyes stealing your data.

Mind you if it's working then selling it on eBay is more environmentally friendly than recycling it.