LF: Advice, How To Re-Image Corporate Laptops

[iggyntangs]

Hi all,

Looking to see if anyone knows anyone who does these services. We purchased about 15 corporate imaged laptops from a now defunct company and it looks like 2 are still imaged to Corporate logons and we cannot log on/access on these two devices specifically.

We have had basically an impossible time getting a hold of the company who sold them to us, looking to see how/who could help us re-image/flash this back to factory spec.

Thanks for any advice!

[Hemi-Cuda]

Download the Windows Media Creation Tool (2nd option on the below link)

https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/soft...load/windows11

It will need a USB drive at least 8GB in size, then once it's done you plug the USB into the laptop before you power it on and boot from it. Then you can reinstall Windows from scratch. It might ask you for the serial #, but you can skip that question since the BIOS will have it hard coded

[iggyntangs]

Thank you! Will look into this now

[iggyntangs]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Download the Windows Media Creation Tool (2nd option on the below link)

https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/soft...load/windows11

It will need a USB drive at least 8GB in size, then once it's done you plug the USB into the laptop before you power it on and boot from it. Then you can reinstall Windows from scratch. It might ask you for the serial #, but you can skip that question since the BIOS will have it hard coded

So I finally got to this and when I tried starting it with the USB in before start-up it still went to the login screen. The next time I was pressing F12 during startup and it took me to the one-time boot menu, but when I tried to access the USB it's asking for the admin password to unlock.

Any other ideas?

[iggyntangs]

Actually I was able to get through after all.

But now the issue is after deleting the partition to remove bitlocker and then going ahead to install Windows from the USB it went through the entire set up. And now it has a logo of the old corporation asking for that company's login details to continue setting up the computer.

Any other ideas?

[sumdood]

What manufacturer brand are the laptops?
Sounds like there may be some security enabled at the BIOS level. I've read that HP no longer provides the ability to reset BIOS if it is password protected and unknown password. Not sure about other brands.

[Jordan!]

If these machines are encrypted with BitLocker you may be SOL.

edit: just read the post above re:bitlocker

[Hack&Lube]

If it's bitlockered you just need to delete the partition. Bitlocker protects you from reading encrypted data but not from wiping partitions.

Start a Linux Live CD like the one from GParted and delete all (Bitlocker enabled) partitions.

If that doesn't help there is still the possibility to wipe the complete disk - after overwriting the first few megabytes the HDD will be recognized as fresh new HDD by Windows. You can do that for example using DBAN but don't forget to disconnect all the other HDDs before using it - otherwise you may delete the wrong HDD and lose all your data.

or

Press SHIFT-F10 or hit 'repair' in from the Windows installation to open up the command line, then execute the diskpart command and delete the partition, e.g.: list disk, select disk 0 or any other identifying the correct disk, list partition, select partition 1, or the encrypted one , in case there are multiple partitions, then delete partition override. You can then resume the install procedure normally to repartition and format the drive.

---

I missed the part where you deleted the partitions but the company logo comes up - companies can have a custom bios image written for them with their logo by the reseller/manufacturer. You may need to wipe or update the bios to get rid of that.

[iggyntangs]

Thanks all. This really just came down to needing to delete the partitions which I missed the first time. Worked smoothly after.