Resetting BIOS Password

Ain't if funny how passwords complicate our lives? My land-lord has an old HP Pavilion with Phoenix BIOS and sometime ago installed boot-up password to make her feel secure, and then - she forgot it.

So, brute force approach says that you have to take out CMOS battery and wait for 12 hours. But disassembling laptop takes time and imposes unnecessary liability. So, after trying list of default back-door passwords [1], time came to either declare defeat or use Google for another 15 minutes :)

In result, please consider dogber1.blogspot.ca [2] and its Web UI [3].
BIOS in question was showing check-sum after third invalid password:

 

Dogber1 provides .py script [2] to be run on your box, or you can try your luck with online tool [3]:

It took me 3 attempts to enter the BIOS and reset password.
Question that is left unanswered - if I was able to enter the system in 15 minutes... how much time it takes for gentlemen doing that for living?


[1] List of known back-door BIOS passwords
http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/reference/biosp.htm

[2] BIOS reset password solution
http://dogber1.blogspot.ca/2009/05/table-of-reverse-engineered-bios.html

[3] Web UI for dogber1 generator
http://bios-pw.org.ua