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 P40 P50 P70 SL300
SL400 SL500 G550 T*40 T440 T450 T460 T470 T540 T550 T560 W540 W541 W550s
X240 X250 X260 X*40 X1 Yoga* X1 Carbon (Gen 2, 3,4) Helix Gen3 Yoga 12 Yoga 13
Yoga 15 Yoga 460.
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

KMX-LCD
is sold directly from -> United
States KMX-LCD site
Now on sale: $100.00
Normally $110
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.
-
Identify
your TP model
-
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.

This site maintained by Joe in Australia
Last updated on Saturday, 24 March 2018 10:57:37 PM
If you have any questions, email Joe at