1. Get a Hardware Maintenance Manual for your laptop
Search the internet to try and find a hardware maintenance manual (service manual) for your laptop as this will tell you specifically how to pull the laptop apart without damaging it, and may also give you a clue as to where the ATMEL chip is located.
2. Build the EEPROM reader hardware
You will need these parts:
2 x 2.2K Resistors, 2 x 5.1v Zener diodes
1 x 9 Pin D-Sub Female Plug (for serial port on PC)
Put the parts together following the simplified diagram. Thanks to Benny from Germany for spotting an error in my diagram
This can all be built onto the back of the D-sub connector. Make the wires coming from the three points about 1 - 2 meters long, as they need to reach from the laptop to a second computer for when you read the chip.
3. Now the hard part, soldering the wires inside the laptop
Following the Hardware Maintenance Manual (if you found one), open the laptop and locate the ATMEL chip on the motherboard.
Solder a wire to any ground point on the board, Solder wires to SCL and SDA on the ATMEL chip. (make these wires long enough to stick out from the laptop when it's temporarily put back together)
Check and double check that you have not shorted the SCL and SDA pins on the chip. Maybe put some tape over the SCL and SDA wires to help to hold them secure. Leave the wires hanging out of the laptop - don't connect them to the reader yet, but make sure that the wires can't short to each other or ground. Temporarily rebuild laptop enough so that it will boot up. Boot up the laptop and Press F1 to enter the BIOS. At the password prompt, leave the laptop and prepare the second computer.
4. Preparing the second computer
Download and install these softwares on second computer. Reader software - r24rf08_setup.exe or PonyProg, Decoder software - setup_ibmpass21.zip. These softwares can easily be found with any search engine.
Note: Its possible that the r24rf08_setup.exe is infected. Avast! Anti-virus detects the threat as 'Win32:Malware-gen', so use it with caution.
Plug in the EEPROM reader, then connect the wires hanging out from the laptop to the wires coming from the EEPROM reader in this order (while its all still turned on): Ground first, then SDA and SCL.
5. Reading the ATMEL Chip
Bring up a Command Prompt on the second computer and navigate to the folder where you installed the reader software. Type in: R24RF08 dump.bin and hit enter. Hopefully now you will have a file on the second computer called dump.bin. (the PonyProg reader software will probably be slightly different, but as I have never used it I cannot tell you the precise operation)
6. Decoding the Supervisor Password:
Run the IBM Pass 2.0 Lite Decoder Software on the second computer. Load up the dump.bin file you just created. Scroll down to the memory address of 0×330 and read the password!
If the password is not there, press the Translate button.
7. Testing the password
Unplug and disconnect the EPROM reader from the laptop and second computer. (Leave the wires soldered inside the laptop). Type your newly gained password into the laptop and try to go into the BIOS. Try to change any setting in the BIOS to confirm you now have full control!
8. Rebuild laptop
Turn laptop off and
disconnect all power, de-solder the three wires carefully - you
got this far, you don't wanna kill the laptop now. Put laptop back together.
Just do the reverse of what you did to get it apart. - You're Done!