Date: 03/03/08 (Computer Geeks)    Keywords: security, google

Hi guys, I'm in need of help.

First a little about me.  I'm one of those that grew up around 2 older brothers that were a/v geeks, one of whom is a computer geek for hire (he lives 50 miles away and we're both busy with our various jobs, so I can't run over to his place any time I'm in need of this kind of help).  Thanks to both of them their geekness rubbed off on me.  Though I've had very little formal computer training, as far as classes goes, I know quite a bit about them and can almost always get myself out of some sort of jam when it comes to my own computer (even can do this at work though most places don't like it when a non IT person does such things), if it's something I don't know how to do, I can google it with the best of them.  At my last job I wore many hats, including IT.  Granted I'm more of an advanced usser, but still far from being at the same level as those that majored in computer engineering and other such computer degrees. 

which brings me to my problems. 

I have an IBM thinkpad R50 and while I love this laptop and plan on keeping it for some time mostly due to lack of funds, I am in need of help.  One day, ages ago, I unintentionally activated the secure disc featuer.  I say unintentionally because I was curious about it, wanted to see what it was about, but didn't want or need it.  So now I'm stuck.  I have tried to disable it, at least the password prompt but no joy.  I've found that if I enter the password wrong, then my laptop boots up really screwy, or should I say takes forever and a day to load my personal settings.  That happened yesterday.  Course after nearly throwing this through the wall today I ran an update (don't ask how I managed to get it to load up or how long it took, you'll get the headaches I had dealing with it just hearing what I went through) and found one of the things making out the CPU got a patch for that same reason.  *sigh* 

So here I am, after much hair pulling and agrivation (not to mention, stress), my laptop is back up and running in the barest of sense.  I have my own set of settings that I prefer as far as how this thing runs but my laptop is now refusing to allow me to do that.  For instance, it won't let me activate virtual scrolling on the touchpad, I can't disable tapping, and various little things like that. 

I also want to fully disable the security chip, don't want a password prompt, don't even want my laptop to check the status of the chip at bootup for that matter.  As it is I need to log in and the password that I set and have always used to log on, is coming up as wrong.  I'm at the point where I hesitate to shut this down when I go to bed tonight because I don't have the time, energy or want to deal with the stress I went through since yesterday. 

So if you managed to get through this post and figure out what I'm asking, GREAT!  now how do I fix it, without having to wipe the HD clean.  I'd rather not because I used my laptop at my old job (which is when/where I got it) and got a lot of sotfware there, none of which I have discs for and wouldn't be able to reinstall.  I also don't have the money for any of it, so I'd REALLY rather not have to go that route.

THANKS!!!!!!!!!

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/computergeeks/1156649.html