ThinkPad™ Password Solutions to recover or clear unknown or forgotten Supervisor Passwords and Repair CRC1 and CRC2 Errors.

Since early 2002 this site has been dedicated to ThinkPad™ (TP) owners who find themselves locked out for whatever reason, they may not know the Power On Password (POP) or Supervisor Password (SVP) or Hard Disk Password (HDP) or encounter a BAD CRC1 or CRC2 ERROR on their TP. 

TP owners will have subsequently discovered, to their absolute amazement, that the manufacturer of their beloved TP offers no economically viable solution. The manufacturer does not have a policy to help genuine legitimate owners out of this predicament without paying, in some cases more than the TP is worth, to replace for no sane or logical reason their perfect and fully functional System Board!

Joe in Australia offers the only Affordable Fully Assembled, Programmed and Tested unlimited use USB based ThinkPad Supervisor Password [SVP] Recovery or Clear Tools in the world. 

Joe's KeyMaker X1 [KMX1] provides the elegant convenience of a dedicated, fully assembled and tested, Ready To Use USB based ThinkPad SVP  Recovery or Clear tool which unlocks an unlimited number of TPs together with detailed illustrated step by step instructions which everyone can understand and follow.

KMX1 can Recover or Clear Supervisor Password from most current IBM and Lenovo ThinkPad models with the exception of those models which do not store the Supervisor Password in an EEPROM, not supported models are SL300 SL400 SL500 G550 T*40 T440 T450 T540 X*40 W540 W541 X240 X250 X1 Carbon (Gen 2) and (Gen3) Helix Gen3.

KMX1 is the latest state of the art innovative ThinkPad SVP unlocking tools from Joe in Australia

Joe's KeyMaker X1  [KMX1] 

Unlimited use ThinkPad (TP) Supervisor Password (SVP) removal tool which can be powered by the USB Port of the supervisor password locked ThinkPad itself, it does NOT require a second PC when using the Zap SVP button or when used together with the KMX-LCD can also be used with a another unlocked PC or Laptop to Display Recovered Supervisor Passwords. 

KeyMaker LCD [KMX-LCD] option is shipped from USA fully assembled and tested, works with all KeyMaker models

KMX-LCD Convenient Joy Stick control for all unlocking operations

Works with ALL KeyMaker Boards, simply connect/join KMX-LCD to any KeyMaker board.

KMX1 and KMX-LCD

KMX1 and KMX-LCD

The KeyMaker board [underneath] supplies the signals to drive the LCD board [on top] operation is controlled by the user input via the KMX-LCD Joystick, operation Status and Recovered Passwords are displayed on the LCD. The LCD does have a backlight making it easy to read. 

Upgrade   any existing KeyMaker Board to X1 firmware features

TRANSLATION to other languages 

To translate the information on this website to other languages, you may try the following links;

http://www.freetranslation.com/    translates entire web pages, practically unlimited.

I know this may all be very exciting and you are ready to start ordering KeyMaker board and stripping down your TP and jump into it, but WAIT! read all of this first.

Most people are absolutely certain they have a Supervisor Password (SVP) set .

There is a chance you may not have a SVP set in your TP.

I have exchanged emails with many people who have gone through all the SVP unlocking thing read the EEPROM, wasted days,  only to discover there is no SVP set at all.

How is that possible, are these people really dumb or something.

The answer is NO, these are all perfectly sane intelligent people. 

The real problem is IBM/Lenovo and their warped sense of humour.

When you really do have strong security, you challenge people to try and defeat it, you invite peer review  to make sure it is in fact secure.

When you have flimsy security and obstinately pretend it is so secure even the manufacturer cant unlock it, well you have to get all secretive and vague about it all praying customers wont find out, in other words an illusion of strong security which is what we have here.

Clearing a Supervisor Password (SVP) from a TP is fairly straightforward.

Once you know how to avoid all the TRAPS IBM/Lenovo have set for you the customer.

Trap number 1, the Hard Disk Password (HDP)

If at any time you see this Password prompt icon

That icon with the small number 1 (it may be a small number 2 or 3 if you have more than one Hard Disk] means the HDP is set. You will not be able to easily recover or clear the HDP, KMX1 will NOT recover or clear HDP.

It will cost you more to clear the HDP than a new reliable Hard disk with warranty is worth.

Clearing a HDP is only worth the expense and effort if there is valuable data on the Hard disk that MUST be recovered.

If HDP is set then remove the Hard Disk [HD] before continuing so that you can determine which other passwords (IF ANY) you need to recover or clear.

There may not be any other password set!

Ok, you removed the HD and you see yet another Password Prompt icon.

Trap number 2, the guessing game - is it  SVP or POP -

The trap is that IBM/Lenovo in their wisdom chose to have THE SAME PASSWORD PROMPT ICON for BOTH SVP and Power on Password (POP)

The password prompt icon pictured above
Does NOT define which PASSWORD it is asking you to enter.

It can be either POP or SVP

Note: On some Lenovo ThinkPad models under some circumstances a Supervisor Password prompt icon looks like this 

I have only seen this distinctive SVP icon on one ThinkPad, so it is RARE for now, almost all ThinkPads to date use the same icon to prompt for POP and SVP.

Only ONE way to find out for sure which one it is and maybe save a LOT of time.

1. Identify your TP model
   

2. Download the Hardware Maintenance Manual (HMM) for your TP model

Spend the time to read the first part of the HMM which deals with Cautions some of which like for example Shock Sensors  are very important, you would not want to roughly handle your System board to find out when you power it up to unlock it that in fact you have ruined it.

Read the HMM section dealing with Passwords and become familiar with how to remove Power on Password [POP] 

WARNING:

If you have a ThinkPad that can boot even though it has a Supervisor Password set

Removing Power On Password [POP] will render it unbootable Until the Supervisor Password is removed AND the correct Date and TIME are set in BIOS setup

Having first READ AND UNDERSTOOD THE WARNING ABOVE YOU DECIDE if you will follow the instructions for POP Removal 

NOTE - IMPORTANT - make sure you do read this !!

The instructions in the IBM/Lenovo HMM regarding POP removal are easily misunderstood.

The CMOS backup battery [small single cell lithium battery, usually yellow colour] must be disconnected.

Main battery MUST be removed.

AC Adaptor MUST be unplugged from the ThinkPad.

In other words the ThinkPad must have absolutely no electrical power, no CMOS battery - no main battery - no AC adaptor connected.

Then with NO ELECTRICAL POWER at all to the ThinkPad WAIT A FEW MINUTES just to be on the safe side.

Confirm that POP has in fact been removed;

After POP removal, connect the CMOS battery, install the Main battery, connect the AC adaptor.

Switch the ThinkPad ON and you should see an ERROR MESSAGE about Date and Time needing to be set.

That error message is your confirmation of a successful POP removal.

That is NOT a real error, it simply means that once you can go into BIOS setup you need to set the correct Date and Time, so it is not something that is of real concern, nothing is wrong, this is normal.

If you do not see an error message that means that you DID NOT reset POP. Main reason is usually that you have not removed ALL POWER from the ThinkPad, read the "NOTE - IMPORTANT" paragraph above and try POP removal again.

After performing POP Removal 

if there is no password prompt icon displayed, you are done, your TP is unlocked, go to BIOS setup by pressing F1 when switching ON [press ESC key to continue past the error message] and set Date and Time then press F10 to save.

if you have performed POP Removal and you continue to see this password prompt icon

It does NOT mean you didn't perform POP Removal correctly

It means that with POP removed, you have now absolutely confirmed that you do indeed have a SVP set and you can now put the time and effort into removing or clearing it.

I didn't know there was a Supervisor Password (SVP) set - did the ThinkPad (TP) set one all by itself ?

Lots of TP users are not aware that their TP has a SVP set.

A TP with a SVP set does NOT prompt for the SVP when switched on and is allowed to boot normally.

This is exactly how I got involved in SVP password recovery.

My TP worked perfectly for many months until one day I needed to change a setting in BIOS setup.

It was only when I pressed F1 to enter BIOS setup that a SVP prompt appeared.

If the CMOS battery goes flat or is disconnected for even a very brief period the Date and Time are reset, next time the TP is switched on it absolutely insists that you go to BIOS setup in order to set the correct Date and time, if there was a SVP set [even though you had no idea a SVP was already set] then it prompts for the SVP.

No, the TP will never set a SVP all by itself, human intervention is always required to set a SVP.

Joe's KeyMaker X1 [KMX1] can Recover or Clear Supervisor Password from most current IBM and Lenovo ThinkPad models with the exception of those models which do not store the Supervisor Password in an EEPROM, not supported models are SL300 SL400 SL500 G550 T*40 T440 T450 T540 X*40 W540 W541 X240 X250 X1 Carbon (Gen 2) and (Gen3) Helix Gen3.

KMX1 is the latest state of the art innovative ThinkPad SVP unlocking tools from Joe in Australia

Disclaimer

I make no warranty that any of my information is correct, or safe, or does or does not breach any warranty clause,  or anything else, it is up to you to decide if you will follow all or any of the instructions to recover the Supervisor Password from a TP. It is up to you to decide, I am not responsible for the results or for any consequential or incidental damages whatsoever.

 If you have any questions, email Joe at