How can I recover anything off this hard drive that fails low level scans at 86%? [more inside]
posted by patrad on Dec 24, 2009 - 5 answers

My friend's only Admin account on Windows has been ripped to shreds by a virus, an uninstaller program, or both; his CD drawer won't open or shut manually at all; and his BIOS settings, which are protected by a password we don't know, are to boot from a CD in the drive before anything else. Help me to not destroy his computer with an axe. [more inside]
posted by Acheman on Nov 14, 2008 - 20 answers

I have a desktop that is located in a semi-public place. I have a bios password and a windows password on it. Sometimes I leave it logged out of windows so that I can leave in the middle of a project without restarting everything again. I was wondering how hard it would be to get my data? Short of stealing the actual hardware, is there a way to get past a bios password and access my data without me knowing? (From what I understand, resetting the cmos would clear the password so I would know if someone got in.) Also, is it possible to get in if I leave it logged out of windows with a password? How safe is my data?
posted by D Wiz on Jun 5, 2006 - 28 answers

I've got a tower (AMD 3000+ with a gigabyte motherboard, 3/4ths of a gig of ram, etc.) that I'm trying to set up for a media center. The thing is, the first screen (where it's checking the ram) the keyboard works fine. I can go and edit my bios settings, save and exit, etc. However, on the next screen (where I have the option of booting from CD and such) keyboard input ceases to be. [more inside]
posted by TrueVox on Apr 22, 2006 - 10 answers