Unknown Password after attempted upgrade

[jasonjdking]

My customer tried to upgrade his laptop from Ubuntu 14 to 18. Now when you turn the laptop on it just goes to password screen with no username he doesn't know password Any idea on how I can change or bypass this??

 

[JasKinasis]

That doesn’t look like Ubuntu. It looks more like your customer, or someone else with physical access has messed with the BIOS/UEFI settings and enabled password protection on boot. So you have to enter a password before it will even start to boot.

I imagine it’s probably even locking you out of getting to the BIOS/UEFI settings too.

So you may need to find out if it’s possible to do a factory reset on the motherboard - to reset the BIOS/UEFI settings to their defaults.

Or find out if there’s another way to somehow subvert the password on boot? Maybe there’s a default password for that motherboard?
Normally you’d get prompted to create a password when enabling the boot password, so it’s probably unlikely.... Not sure what to suggest!

 

[jasonjdking]

Thanks I never even thought of that.

 

[KGIII]

As Jas said, that's a BIOS thing. There are utilities that can reset BIOS passwords, or you can remove the CMOS battery (on the motherboard) or find the right pins and put a jumper across them. If it's a laptop, it's often a pain in the butt to get to either of those. If it's a desktop, it's a 5 minute job.

 

[jasonjdking]

Thanks It's a laptop but I have to tear it apart to clean the fan and reapply new paste anyways so Thanks again