Extensa 5635/5635Z/5235 Service Guide - Acer Support

Remove HDD/BIOS Password Utilities
To reset a hard drive or BIOS password you require an additional PC. The utilities run on a DOS prompt on the
second machine.
This section provides instructions on how to remove a HDD password. If you enter the wrong hard drive
password three times, the system reports the following error code:
To reset the HDD password, run HDD_PW.EXE on a second machine as follows:
1. At a command prompt, type hdd_pw 15494 0
2. Type 2.
3. Write down one of the two strings (in this example, OKJFN42 or UVEIQ96).
4. Reboot the system and type the selected string (in this example OKJFN42 or UVEIQ96) for the HDD user
password.
34 Chapter 2