Aspire E5-571G Insyde BIOS supervisor password reset

[jeancroissant]

Greetings people of the bios-mods!


Problem: BIOS supervisor password that is forgotten.


Manufacturer: Acer
Model: Aspire E5-571G
Architecture: 64 bit
OS: Win 10
Motherboard: Acer EA50_HB(U3E1)


BIOS.ver: Insyde Corp.V1.32, 15.09.2015(latest)
SKU: Aspire E5-571G_0867_V1.32
SMBIOS.ver: 2.8
BIOS Mode: UEFI


Experience with BIOS: Close to zero. And I also don't happen to have handy hardware programmer for this purpose at hand.


What I have done so far:
1) Entering password 3 times, getting a code and putting it into online generators
(50648485 → 45720401)


2) Downloading Acer Empowering Technology+Acer eSettings Management for password drop
(Deprecated software last developed for win XP that obviously didn’t work on win 10)


3) Trying to boot USB with clnpnwd(boot menu on F12 or del is disabled in BIOS it seems), also tried to remove the HDD to force USB boot but ended up with “No boot device”


4) Disassembling the whole device to see a soldered CMOS battery at the very bottom knowing that
a) I don’t have much experience soldering(Though do have knowledgeable neighbour)
b) Reset might not work in this particular case because of EEPROM.(From what I have read)

5) Flashed latest BIOS from Acer website modifying platform.ini [Force Flash] part "Password=0" to "Password=1"
(Nothing changed)


Things to try from my head:
1) Acer seems to refuse to assist customers with BIOS password issues(backdoor key) unless you send the laptop to them and pay a $100 fee.(I live in a squat eating freegan stuff with 0$ in my pocket)


2) Swap HDD to another one with clnpnwd on it(No spare HDD atm)


3) Flash some custom BIOS?(pure blind black magic) But according to the wiki here it doesn’t exist for this model. And I don’t even know if it might help.


4) Bios recovery as stated on the website in the “Insyde BIOS Recovery” but
a) tools from “paragraph 3” mentioned there do not exist
b) I have BDW.fd and HSW.fd in my bios folder from acer(extracted from temp folder) and it seems only 1 is needed
c) I am not sure it is in any way related to the password issue


5) Reserved for suggestions because so far I am out of ideas but I truly believe it is possible to accomplish without working as a coitus-slave to pay acer.


I would be incredibly grateful for any help provided, thanks in advance!

P.S If there is documentation/book/manual/whatever to read and it contains something you don't want to explain which is useful in solving the problem feel free to link/post the name of the literature/etc and I will do my best to acquire new knowledge to increase my competence.