[Nuke]

ok, today i just scored an old and beat up and filthy HP Pavilion N5420.the price was right too, $0.00. its a piece of **** and i hate hp. but it passed pc check and thus works. it had a copy of xp pro on it, but it was loaded with warez and viruses and several documents about joining particular cults, sence none of them were satan cults i decided to format the drive. im currently installing fedora 4 on it (id perfer ubuntu but i dont have a 32 bit version on disc at the moment).

it has some quirks, first being it doesnt have a battery. it requires a battery with a 7 pin connector and its gotta do 11.1 volts. seeing as i dont intend to spend any money on this thing, cept maybe a wireless network card. i have a battery but its a different configuration, ive peeled the case from it leaving only the 8 cells and the controller board. it has an 8 pin config and puts out 14.8 volts. sence i recently also aquired a full soldering kit, i figure i could hack the 2 together.

the laptop is a complete mess. half the screws are missing, as if someone disected the thing. theres a screw or something floating around in there. any odd flexing of the case causes a reboot. and the ac adapter port seems abit busted. i have no network interface (though i could use a serial cable if i really needed to get to the net). i cant get into the bos, there seems to be a password. i was able to clear it by crossing the terminals on the bios battery, but the password remains. it must have been put in by the manufacturer. i can still reach the boot menu for os install, but id like access to the settings.

its probibly not worth fixing up, and its definately not worth using without being portable. cept maybe for programming. i havent anything to loose by screwing with the thing. but it works so theres no point in throwing it out. so what does everyone think?

[jr2]

Check out CMOSPwd from MajorGeeks.

[Davros]

you should do this :
http://www.geardigest.com/2004/11/13/supersize_your_tv_for_/page2.html

[Nuke]

you know ive seen the video of that mod before. damn cool. i think i could score the overhead projector from the local state surplus warehouse for hella cheap. ive gone over there to pick up tech parts like mad lately. thought id rather do that mod with regular flat panel so i could use it on this haul ass machine.

i found enough of the right size screws to seal the laptop up to where you can carry it around without the power going out, save of course from the problem with the loose power connector. i "peeled" my old battery down to the cells and controller board. a small slab of dense circuitry i presume regulates voltage and detects overheats and power levels. sense i have zero interest in running a safe rig, im gonna hackichly assemble a power converter from spare parts and **** from radio shack. if i can match the pins good, if not il just solder wires directly to the pins. either way i need pinouts of both sides. a simple crossover of the correct pins might work.

[Stormkeeper]

Can I have some screenies. Just curious about how bad it really looks.

[Nuke]

i already cleaned it up considerably and put new screws in, to hold it together better. it looks pretty much like any ****ty hp laptop from 2000.

i seem to be having a problem getting it to boot from cd again. it booted fine when i installed fedora 4. cant seem to boot to any of the diagnostic tools i used before. was gonna put win 98 on it so i could run that bios password finder thing. the previous owner was stupid and shadowed the bios. so much for using it to play old games. less i can crack the password.

i looked up the battery for this thing and aparently i can order a replacement from china for about 50-60 bucks. though im not sure i want to throw money at a computer running an 800 mhz celeron (makeing it the slowest of 4 machines that i own, none of the others run slower than 2.2 ghz). hackery pokery is a must!

[jr2]

Hmm, what socket is the CPU?  Also, does it have a floppy drive?  If so, go to www.bootdisk.com and under "DOS/Windows9X/Me/NT/2K/XP Excellent Bootdisks", get the "Windows 98 SE Custom, No Ramdrive" bootdisk.  Run that .exe from another computer running any version of Windows, and get yourself a boot disk.  Yes, I have all of the bootdisk.com bootdisks and they are safe.  (Well, I don't have the 2K / XP boot disks, I've not use for them at the moment.)

[Nuke]

the cpu is a p3 i think. it has a floppy drive, but i dont have any floppies or any other floppy drives, and i dont know if it works. funny enough, i was able to get one bootable cd to run, unfortunately it was windows vista and thus was totally useless. i could disect the machine and remove the hd, i have another laptop hd that i could instal, which has 98 0n it.

some good news, it has some 3d accel. a SuperSavage IX chipset with 8 megs of its own ram. its about equivelant of a voodoo 2. it wont be runing no freespace scp but il be able to do some older games.

[jr2]

Umm, get an external USB floppy drive (from TigerDirect, newegg, zipzoomfly or somewhere).  Or pick up an internal one for one of your desktop PCs.  You should have floppies; they will still be indispensable until they create a bootable replacement that everyone agrees to adopt.    It's stupid, I know.  Actually, does it have an option to boot from USB?  If so, you could use that.  The P3 bit doesn't help much... see if you can run CPU-Z on it & get the socket type... or I can look it up, hang on...

Check here for batteries: (check www.ressellerratings.com first to see if it's listed).
http://www.cheap-laptop-batteries.com/laptop-battery/hp-n5420-1001041.htm

Get this BIOS update, which will, as a side effect, clear the password.

A BIOS update replaces the previous version, so it is important that you follow
these instructions exactly. Otherwise, the computer may be damaged. The BIOS
update process resets the configuration settings in the BIOS Setup utility, and it
erases any BIOS passwords.
1. Remove any PC cards.
2. If the notebook is docked, undock it.
3. Connect the AC adapter to the notebook.
4. Insert the BIOS update disk in the floppy disk drive.
5. Restart the computer.
6. Press Esc when you see the HP Invent logo and select the floppy drive as a the boot
drive.
7. Follow the onscreen instructions. Once the update process begins, do not interrupt it.
8. When the process is completed, remove the BIOS update disk from the floppy disk
drive and reboot the computer by pressing the system-off button on the left side of the
notebook.
Note Your HP notebook is configured to boot from the hard drive first. If you want to boot
from a floppy disk or a CD-ROM, change the boot order under the Boot menu in the
BIOS Setup utility. You can also select the boot drive at startup by pressing Esc when
you see the HP logo.

HP's site for your laptop. (There are several WinXP upgrades that you might need!)

[Nuke]

like hell, the reasoning behind this endevour was to not spend any money. anyway i finally got a windows xp desktop up. i had to use 2 linux partitioning utilities in addition to delpart and fdisk to get rid of the linux mbr.  but it booted and everything seems to be ok for now and it only cost me $0.16 for 2 cdrs.

i found batteries on ebay for about 60 bucks and ive seen wireless pc cards for around 20. though i dont see the logic in spending money on this piece of **** laptop when in all likelyhood i could score a better laptop for less at state surplus. that all remains to be seen.

[jr2]

Ya, ya...

i looked up the battery for this thing and aparently i can order a replacement from china for about 50-60 bucks.

I was just trying to help if that was the route you chose.  Anyways, like I said, you can now erase the password via BIOS update... just need to get a floppy disk.  Staples or Radio Shack would still carry those, I think.  If not, check online.  Or use an old software disk.  THE ONLY THING I CAN SAY FOR SURE IS MAKE DARN WELL SURE THAT THE FLOPPY IS GOOD, RUN A FORMAT COMMAND FROM XP'S CMD PROMPT BEFORE FLASHING A BIOS WITH IT.  Last thing you want is to screw it up with a defective floppy disk.  (Even if it's brand new, format it... I've seen some Imation floppy disks where like 2/15 of the brand spanking new floppies were bad.)

So, once you format, as long as no bad sectors are reported, you're good to go for the update / password clear.

[Nuke]

i refuse to dirty myself by buying floppies

the cmospwd utility was as good as useless as well. unless i want to buy a rom programmer. unless i want to disect the whole unit again and possibly break something in the process (breaking down a laptop is a tedious and often risky process do to the fact that the person doing the disassembly would most likely grow impatient and chuck the computer into a wall or at the first person or feline that bothered him).

[jr2]

Get this BIOS update, which will, as a side effect, clear the password.

and it
erases any BIOS passwords.

Good morning!!!

[Nuke]

know if theres a way to run a virtual floppy drive? then i could create a fake floppy, extract the bios and flasher, and create a bootable cd, which all sane people know is the proper way to flash a bios, without becoming dirty for using ancient technology.

edit

i got a boot cd with the phlash util and bios and havent a clue about the command line referance for the util. the internet didnt help either. stupid internet!

[redsniper]

floppies are kvlt.

[jr2]

I'll figure it for you... stand by.  Just do a CRC check on that BIOS file...

EDIT: Oh, how'd you get the bootable CD?  You should've been able to make an image file of the floppy, and use that for the CD bootsector source... as long as you found that virtual floppy util.

EDIT2: Actually, you should've been able to create a virtual floppy with the CD boot, using C:\SWSetup\SP29774\BIOS.IMG

EDIT3:  Umm... and once you did that, you'd see that the autoexec.bat file had the command script listed right there.

EDIT4: Created an ISO boot image for you.  Unzip & burn this, boot off of it, and all should be well.  http://files.filefront.com/New+Compilation+zip/;8136681;;/fileinfo.html

[Nuke]

i tried that but the setup script was anal about the drive not being A:. hp has to dumb everything down so only their incompetent tech support guys know whats going on. there for it ****s up before i even get to the flasher. but i found the phoenix bios flash utility, phlash.exe, but i seem to be having a problem with the usage. cant find any documentation on the infernal thing. i dont intend to take any flashing precautions im just gonna do it, and if i fail, spare parts.

[jr2]

Umm... It is drive A: when you use my CD.

[Nuke]

which bios is on it, the 1.63 version or the older 1.14 version?

it looks like the current version installed on the laptop is the 1.63 version, so thats the one i tried to use. i used magiciso to generate my disc, but that didnt work to well. il give yours a try. im not spending any money on this thing unless i know i can tweak the bios in the future.

edit

i dont think it worked. it ran alright but i think you put the wrong bios on there. i get a for notebook gf only error. i think im running the gc variant. the actual bios installed is gc.m1.63, so thats the one i want to re-install. though its entirely possible that the bios installed on the thing by its previous owner was the wrong version (though not wrong enough to cause a failure, ive seen situations where the wrong version still at least partially works enough to boot). what did you use to build that iso? magic iso seems to suck.

[jr2]

CD Burner XP Pro 3.0.116 (freeware).  I had to re-create the image from the floppy disk that was created by the util from HP, as C:\SWSetup\SP29774\BIOS.IMG seems to be some sort of odd format that doesn't work except with their image writer program.. so I made the floppy, and then used Roadkil's Disk Image (freeware) to create a new image from the floppy.  I burned at 1x speed to minimize the risk of error, because it's only 2 MB so it finishes fast anyways.

I got the BIOS from HP's Download site for your model, the number you mentioned in your first post, Pavilion N5420.  Is that the model number on the bottom of your laptop? 

EDIT:  If that is the correct BIOS for your laptop, I know of a program that can usually force it to flash... let me know if it's the right model #; if it is, it should be safe to do.