Strange Happenings within a Pismo G3

forty9parkroadforty9parkroad
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Ok- something very very odd has happened and I was wondering if someone could/would fill me in on what's happening. Here is the backstory:I was installing a new drive to my Pismo and when I went to put the OS onto the drive via disc...some icons popped up, as if it required a password... a padlock, a password bar, and then a right pointing arrow. How did this happen? Why? I am so very perplexed and vexed since I NEED my computer...I'm an adjunct professor and live off of my laptop (still very sad by the initial crash of the 5 G harddrive that croaked and moaned).



The laptop was a hand-me-down from a friend in the U.K. The 2 previous owners are "IT guys"and when I queried about this with one of them, he had no idea what I was talking about...could it be some firmware the original onwer added? I am in desperate need of help.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 2
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    There is a firmware lock but you have to activate it first.

    You could try to reset the open firmware by holding down "Apple-Option-O-F" on bootup. I never used this feature on my Pismo so I can't get too specific.
  • Reply 2 of 2
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,326moderator
    If the open firmware is password protected, you may need to reset that and you can do so by changing the amount of Ram in the system. I don't know if it will work but you can do this in software by typing something like the following into the terminal:



    sudo nvram boot-args="maxmem=64"



    Instead of 64, you might want a higher amount of Ram depending of what your machine has. Then restart and the password shouldn't be a problem. If it still is, you may need to physically remove a Ram chip.



    To put it back again, type in:



    sudo nvram boot-args=""
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