Intel Anti-Theft Recovery Screen

[sirk63]

Hi, I own an HP 8540w laptop which I no longer have proof of purchase for. Recently, the laptop got wet and no longer booted up so I purchased a used motherboard off of ebay and now after installing I get the following screen.

"This Computer is currently in a Stolen State.

To recover, you must present the correct passphrase"

ISV id: 2000

I have never set this up on my laptop but it must have been triggered from the replacement motherboard I put in. Can someone tell me how I would go about getting rid of this Intel Anti-Theft Recovery Screen?

Thanks

[kdb4]

The 'intel anti-theft service' screen should show you who the 'service provider id' is,  which is who enabled the security feature.  You can contact them, and they can probably tell you something about it. You can look it up here:

http://www.intel.com/support/software/services/sb/CS-034450.htm

Likely the motherboard you have was in a computer that was reported stolen.  Someone stripped it down for parts and sold them, so the bios on that motherboard is locked until you can unlock it with the password.  Which you probably can't do since it is doing what it was intended to do, and that is to prevent theft.  So get a charge back on your c-card from who ever you bought it from, because you bought stolen goods. 

The id:2000 you mentioned is lojack for laptops, you can contact them and probably find out who the original owner of the notebook was.

However, it is possible that the security was never 'set up' and this is some kind of a false alert.  If that is the case, then you can select '1-User Password' on the screen and use the default password of '123456' to see if that will let you get past the protection screen.  But be aware that occasionally when you boot the computer it will happen again.  So no rebooting from remote console, as it may not come back up.