[ltp] BIOS password prob.

[Billy Harvey]

 > I'm running Debian on an A21p and, generally, it's great. Yesterday I
 > upgraded from Debian Stable to Testing and now have *major* problems.
 > Somewhere along the line a new kernel was installed and
 > /lib/modules/2.2.17 got messed up and the system won't boot. The only way
 > out I can see is to boot from a floppy and fix it - trouble is I disabled
 > the floppy as a boot device in the BIOS. I've also set BIOS passwords and
 > can't work out how to get back in!
 > 
 > I'm 100% sure I know the passwords (I only use about 6 different ones)
...
Justin, if you're positive you know the passwords then the system has
gone nuts if it won't take them, and you shouldn't have to pay for the
new board, as it should be covered under warranty.  Unless you tried
to flash your BIOS under Linux, there's nothing Linux would do to lock
things up as you describe.  It sounds very much like a hardware
problem that IBM should fix on their nickel (tuppence?).

I had similar problems with my system (A20P) in that the RFID decided
to lock me out.  That capability has never been activated on my
system, so it was obviously a BIOS problem.  It took quite the
conversation on the phone with IBM to convince them that running Linux
was irrelevant to the problem, since it wasn't a "pre-loaded" version,
but they finally agreed to fix it under warranty after a heated
discussion.  Regardless, I kept the hard disk here when I sent it to
them - Toshiba wiped mine once when I had one of their systems
claiming they couldn't fix the problem otherwise, which made no sense
in replacing a defective LCD.

BTW, how do you like the screen at 1600x1200?  I really like the
1400x1050 of the A20P, but wonder about the even tinier pixel size of
the A21P.

Regards,
Billy


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